We all know who has broken our hearts. But here’s some fresh insight from the author of The Deal: A Guide to Radical and Complete Forgiveness on the specific reasons we struggle with letting go
By Richard Smoley
If you examine your mind with any amount of honesty, you will probably conclude that your grievances are doing you no good whatsoever. Why, then, hang on to them?
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4. Our Biggest Victim
You probably hold as many, or more, grievances against yourself than you do against the rest of the world combined. Usually we don’t think in those terms; but, in fact, guilt and shame in most of their forms are nothing more than hostilities that we hold against ourselves. They can also take the form of regret — punishing yourself over and over for a bad decision you have made or think you have made. The grudges and resentments and hostilities that we go around with do us no good at all. We would be better off without them. To let go of these negative emotions is…to forgive. Well, then, isn’t it time you get on with it?
This is an adapted excerpt from The Deal: A Guide to Radical and Complete Forgiveness by Richard Smoley by arrangement with Tarcher, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, Copyright © 2015 by Richard Smoley.
