Understanding Anger, Love and Forgiveness. . .

It All Starts With Love

 

An Article by William DeFoore, Ph.D*

We are born with the need to love and be loved, and no one, even the 
best parents, can meet that need perfectly. Therefore we all feel hurt as 
a natural part of life. And of course, there are those hurts that are inflicted by abuse, abandonment and neglect, in some cases extreme.
 

From this pain, fear and anger naturally emerge. It makes perfect sense 

to be angry when you're hurt. Anger is an important place to visit, you just don't want to live there. Here is where love and forgiveness come in. Total forgiveness is the process of letting go of anger and resentment so that you can go on with your life. Love and forgiveness are for you, not for the forgiven. That is essential to understand.

Anger and forgiveness seem very different from each other, in the sense that anger involves an intense focus on the "wrongdoer," and forgiveness involves shifting focus off of that person and moving on with your life. Yet there are some ways that anger and forgiveness are the same.

How Anger and Forgiveness are the Same

Unhealthy anger and premature forgiveness both include:

·      Judgment

·      The "one-up" position

·      Dishonoring to yourself

When you are angry at someone and blaming them, you are definitely judging them and putting yourself in a "one-up" position. The way you are dishonoring yourself here is that you are failing to look at your own creative responsibility in the situation. This is the hazard of the "blame game." When you are into blaming others for your feelings, situation or plight, 

you are making yourself a victim and denying your own power and responsibility.

Premature forgiveness is forgiving someone when you're not through being angry. You are still judging them, and therefore you're seeing yourself as "one-up." You are dishonoring yourself by pretending to forgive in your mind, when your heart and gut are still carrying anger and resentment. Total forgiveness is a matter of body, mind and spirit release and resolution, and it just can't be done if there is residual anger.

Here are some important truths to remember when you're angry:

·      The other person is responsible for his/her actions that triggered your anger. You are not responsible for their behavior.

·      You are responsible for your emotional reaction and for your actions that result from your emotional reaction. They are not responsible for your emotional reactions or your behavior that results.

Here are some other ways that anger, love and forgiveness are
the same. When anger is healthy, and forgiveness is authentic,
both involve:

·       Love

·       Power

·       Release

·       Letting go

·       No more victim position

·       Operating in a container of love

Both healthy anger and total forgiveness involve the power of healthy release and letting go, which takes you out of the victim position. This can only occur in a container of love and forgiveness. Anger can only be healthy when accompanied by some degree of wisdom and love, and the five stages of forgiveness can only be completed when they are based on love for yourself and/or another person.

Understanding Anger

Anger is the most misunderstood emotion. Most people just think it is bad. Here are some common misconceptions: 
 

·       Anger is a bad emotion and should always be controlled 

·       It is possible to be without anger completely

·       It is wrong to be angry

·       To be angry means to be out of control

·       Anger is the same thing as aggression

·       When a person is angry that means they are not safe to be around

These misconceptions result from the lack of understanding of healthy anger. Healthy anger is:

·       A feeling you have when you're threatened or opposed

·       A protective emotion

·       Powerful energy that can be used for positive outcomes

·       Fuel for effective action

Have you ever taken action about something that made you angry? Think about MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. They got mad, and took action in healthy, appropriate ways to resolve the problem leading to their pain and anger. There is no doubt that MADD has moved through the five stages of forgiveness. Here's the bottom line on healthy anger: Healthy anger fuels effective action!

Understanding Total (Heartfelt) Forgiveness

 

Total forgiveness is something that only your body can do. Surprised by that? Here's the deal. Anger and resentments are held in the body as well as the mind, and your mind can decide to forgive long before your body is ready. Literally, your body has a mind of its own. Here are some things to understand about forgiveness:

·       Forgiveness is not just a decision that you can make in your mind.

·       Forgiveness requires an emotional and physical release to be complete.

·       Your body is capable of holding onto anger long after your mind thinks it has forgiven.

·       Forgiveness does not absolve the wrongdoer--you don't have that kind of power.

·       Withholding love and forgiveness does not hold the wrongdoer accountable--everyone is accountable whether you forgive or not.

·       Forgiving doesn't mean you have decided that what the wrongdoer
did is okay.

·       You don't have to wait for the wrongdoer to change for you to forgive.

·       You won't be able to forgive until you have fully examined the depth and extent of your wounds.

·       You won't be able to forgive until you have acknowledged the full depths of your anger.

·       Forgiveness is for you.

·       Love and forgiveness are good for your health.

·       Total forgiveness allows you to be more loving and joyful.

You will know that you have forgiven when your body is relaxed and your breathing is deep and easy – while you visualize the wrongdoer and say,
"I accept you for who you are, with all of your best and worst. I no longer need you to change. I forgive you for myself, so that I can be free. I forgive you so that I can let go of resentments and feel love and joy in my heart, mind and body." Your body will tell you if love and forgiveness are complete.

The Five Stages Of Forgiveness

 

1.    Develop a clear understanding of the wrongdoing or harm that was done to you and who is reponsible. Be aware that the love and forgiveness you are looking for will also depend on you recognizing your own responsibility for what happened.

2.    Identify and acknowledge all of your feelings in response to what happened, including pain, fear and anger primarily. Writing about these feelings can be extremely helpful for emotional healing.

3.    Talk through these feelings with a trusted confidant - a good friend or trusted counselor.

4.    Fully release all negative emotions, including anger, fear and sorrow. You must give full, complete and healthy expression to your anger to arrive at love and forgiveness.

5.    Choose joy, peace and well being for yourself.

Keep in mind that the five stages of forgiveness may require a lot of time, counseling and emotional healing. Each of the above stages might take 

as much as a few weeks or months each, depending on the depth of emotional pain that has been experienced. Just keep the faith, and know that you can find peace, love and forgiveness again!

Keys To Emotional Health

·       Take responsibility for your actions and emotions

·       Do not accept blame for anything

·       Place responsibility for others' actions and emotions on them

·       Do not blame anybody for anything

Here are some thoughts to consider about Love:

·       Love can be intoxicating, and therefore can lead to unhealthy decisions

·       The need to love and be loved is the most powerful force in human nature

·       Love and forgiveness are a natural part of your spiritual essence

·       Conditional love is not really love--it is more about control

·       The only real love is unconditional love

·       You will always remember those people in your life who have loved you unconditionally

·       You are at your very best when you are experiencing unconditional love and total forgiveness

Life starts with love. Anger is an inevitable emotion, which can temporarily or permanently take you away from love and forgiveness. When you become your own best anger management resource, you can forgive. Total forgiveness is a return to love.

And the greatest of these is Love.

William DeFoore, Ph.D. is an author, counselor, coach, consultant and president of the Institute for Personal & Professional Development. In his role as a Licensed Professional Counselor, Dr. DeFoore believes in the self-healing power of each individual, and he facilitates this healing with thirty-four years of experience in a broad variety of therapeutic approaches. He has specialized in the area of anger management for the last twenty years, and in that time has authored two books, an E-book, and numerous CD programs on the topic of anger management, forgiveness and related topics.   www.angermanagementresource.com

A Relationship Choice. . .

Divorce as an Escape or Completion?

   
Sharing an Article by Suzanne E. Herrill

It goes without saying that we’ve all received wounds from others during our lives. That’s part of life and no one is exempt. Some of the hurts we’ve received were simply not our fault. They came from people whom we’ve encountered or had relationships with – whether it was family, friends, co-workers, lovers, spouses or even complete strangers. Sometimes the hurts we receive are intentional, but more often than not, they aren’t.

Because of the unhealed wounds we carry in our broken hearts, it’s common to hurt others even when we don’t mean to. Often, the wounds we pass on (the ways we hurt others) seem to be like the common cold. We don’t intentionally mean to give it to someone else, it just happens because we’ve had contact with them. However, just because we gave an illness (hurt/wound) to someone else, doesn’t mean that we still don’t have it, that somehow we’re rid of it. In reality, our healing isn’t dependent upon whether or not the other person sees a doctor to get well – it’s solely upon each of us to seek treatment so that WE can be healed. 

As our individual lives move forward, it’s quite common to feel that someone else is to blame for our failed relationships, or perhaps for the unhappiness (brokenness) that we continue to carry in our own hearts. After all, it couldn’t possibly be me, right? I mean, there’s just no way that I could be responsible for my contributions (hurts) to an unhealthy or failed relationship, or for my own unhappiness and brokenness, could I? Maybe we feel it’s the other person who is sick and it’s not me at all. Maybe we’re operating under a personal deception like, “I’m okay – and YOU are all messed up!”

If we think about it, nearly ALL relationships are like a “Dance Contest.” 
It takes two people who are willing and able to dance real well, in any type of relationship, to “Win the Prize.” Each person has to be willing to work on and improve their “own dance” and no one can make someone else stay on the dance floor if they are unwilling. Healthy relationships take the work of two people and each person has to be willing to “work on their own stuff” – without blaming someone else. The “Blame Game” didn’t work very well for Adam or Eve, and it won’t work very well for any of us.

The following article is by author Suzanne E. Herrill.* She shares her thoughts on how to deal with the hurts that each of us carry and how those unhealed hurts (wounds) may contribute to our current relationship troubles. I feel she sheds some light on common relationship problems and decisions in marriage, and our individual need for personal healing.

Carry on in Grace – Love Never Fails,

R Butch David

The Choice - Divorce as an Escape or Completion?

By Suzanne E. Herrill*

   

Do you ever think about divorce as a panacea (solution) for your problems? If you want to end your relationship because you have fallen out of love or passion, found someone new who looks better, do not like the patterns that showed up once the honeymoon was over, do not like some of your partner’s traits, married too young or because you were pregnant, or just plain feel you made the wrong choice, then you might want to reconsider. Why? You might be missing opportunities to learn about yourself and grow in awareness. Even though it is very popular to end a relationship when you are unhappy, I believe many people leave their relationships too soon and do not take advantage of the lessons that could be learned from their partner and the relationship.

By "cleaning house" in your own consciousness you can actually improve what you experience in your outer world of relationships, even if your partner "falls from grace" and you don’t like him/her any more. Rather than divorce, why not learn ways to transform the relationship you are already in; that is assuming it is not abusive or life-threatening. After considering transforming your relationship, then if you decide to leave, you will do it with awareness and from a place of completion, not avoidance. The theme here is to not fool yourself by leaving behind the perfect milieu in which to learn about yourself, to heal, and to grow in awareness.

Do you believe divorce is an escape from an unpleasant situation; or 
do you believe divorce to be a successful completion with a partner and that the two of you have gone as far as you can in learning lessons together? The way you answer this question is very important and can even change your interpretation of what you are experiencing in your current relationship. Many people want a divorce to get away from their partner, believing that their problems will disappear. If you talk to people who have chosen divorce and remarried, you will find it does not solve all their problems. 

Many times people repeat the patterns by attracting a new partner with similar personality traits to the last partner. You also have to look for the flip side of the coin, as it deals with the patterns too. For example, person A may have divorced a dominant, controlling partner the first time. Vowing to get away from patterns of feeling powerless, a victim, and dominated, s/he chooses the second partner with opposite traits. Over time person A becomes the dominant one, as the second partner turns out to be a "you-tell-me-what-to-do" person. Issues of power, control, assertiveness, etc. are still on person A’s agenda to work through. You still have to live with yourself and you can only attract people and situations in which you have something in common, things that resonate with your life lessons. 

There is another way to go about this. Why not transform your relationship by first enlightening yourself. You can use the current relationship with its issues, irritations, resistances, and challenges to learn more about yourself. You can experience the growth from these negative feeling experiences.

Let us look at Anna’s life to explain further. . . Anna is a woman who 
feels dominated by her partner’s strong expectations of her care-giving role. She feels in bondage to this role that she is outgrowing, but continues to please her partner to avoid conflict. She is fearful of anger because she grew up in a household with an angry, abusive father. It is difficult for Anna to risk rejection or receive criticism from her husband for not complying. This woman is very unhappy and depressed much of the time and complains whenever she is with her friends. Divorce enters her mind often and her friends have sympathy for her situation and encourage her to leave him. Use your imagination. What do you see in this woman that needs attention and awareness? What are the chances Anna will correct her problems by leaving this man at this time if she does not work on her own issues? She may even make her life worse if she leaves, especially if she has young children and is not able 
to financially support herself.

If Anna came to me for counseling and really wanted help, I would encourage her to look at herself and slow down her fantasy that a divorce would be a panacea for all her problems. Since she is unaware that many of her problems started in the dysfunctional family in which she was raised, she would need to learn some basic principles about how one is conditioned in childhood and the effects of the family system. She would benefit from building her self-esteem and improving her communication skills, as well.

There would be a lot to learn about relationships and how one’s parents influence one’s choice of a marriage partner. Anna would be encouraged to look at her patterns of thinking, learn to update her guiding beliefs, and see what some of her issues are with regard to power and authority, anger, being a victim, not feeling loved. It would be important for her to see how she chose certain patterns of behavior, such as being a people pleaser, to assure her survival and to receive love. Over time she would learn about projection and that it is much easier for her to project her issues, like anger, onto her partner and let him act it 
out for both of them. If she "owned" her own anger, she could then get a better understanding of her depression and her compliant personality and she would begin to see areas of inner conflict that she might be ready to explore more deeply.

Anna would be encouraged to journal write to help her process her feelings and some of the unaware choices made in the past. As she educates herself, processes her pain, and heals herself, she will be able to look at why she is in this current marriage and what she is learning from being with this person and in this relationship. She may realize by looking at the evolution of her family system that her marriage is better than the one her grandparents and parents had. For instance, there is no physical abuse in her marriage and many parts of the relationship and family life are meeting her basic needs—security needs for sure. Anna might be able to see that in this relationship she does have the opportunity to grow in awareness, to build her self-esteem, and to learn assertiveness and communication skills. As she works on herself, she will be different around her partner which will change the dance between them, offering the path of transformation to both of them.

As this woman no longer thinks of herself as a victim, she will be able to say, "No," to her partner and not perceive his reactive anger or criticism
as rejection. She will know her partner is upset for his own reasons, maybe feelings of insecurity, powerless, and loss of control, and that she is not responsible for his reactions, only her own. If her partner's anger or criticism gives her a problem, Anna will be aware enough now to see this as a resistance within herself about the changing pattern between them. She will know to take this piece of the drama that relates to her issues and go within to heal further her old pattern of wanting to fall back into her people-pleasing behavioral pattern.

Eventually Anna will be aware enough to figure out whether or not her partner is going to do some inner healing work too, or at least change enough so that the relationship does not stop her growth and actualizing process. At this point, it is appropriate to problem-solve and figure out whether she can still learn and grow by staying in this relationship or whether it is appropriate to draw it to a completion. She will have a very different vantage point now in deciding whether or not to stay in the relationship than when she started the journey of self-discovery and
inner healing. If she chooses a divorce now, it will be with awareness
and as the result of a completion process.

Freedom from problems in a relationship is not achieved by getting away from a partner prematurely, but from learning the life lessons that are presented to you while in the relationship. If you have been contemplating divorce, why not consider instead staying and confronting your fears, uncovering your guiding beliefs, and healing your past until such time as you complete with your partner. Then you will truly have the power of choice. You can either move out of the relationship, confident 
that you will not repeat the destructive patterns you experienced when 
you were unaware, or you can stay in the relationship transforming it as 
it unfolds to new and different horizons. Staying can then be a creative process as the relationship supports each person to heal their past, to self-actualize, and to grow into an enlightened, conscious partnership.

If you feel badly that you left a relationship prematurely in the past to get away from confronting your problems and fears, know that you did only what you could do at the time with your level of awareness. It serves no purpose to beat yourself up with negative self-talk. Forgive yourself instead for being unaware. At this point you might want to make an agreement with yourself to face your fears and problems in the present, as they will surely show up again. Issues and patterns of thinking and behaving avoided in the past repeat themselves in the future, but with different people. If the divorce was premature, you may even find your ex-partner will continue to dance with you on some of the unhealed issues. This is especially true if you have children together.

In summary, we have looked at the choice between divorcing and staying in a relationship for self-awareness and either completion or transforming the relationship. Consider the value of staying in a relationship that you feel no longer works or disappoints you. Once you build awareness and heal a lot of your own issues, you can better evaluate the choice. 
A completion with your partner servers you better in the long run, rather than avoiding or running from your issues.

*Suzanne E. Harrill, M. Ed., LPC empowers individuals to build personal awareness, heal self-esteem, create satisfying, life-enhancing relationship, and to grow spiritually. Her website is offered in service to those on the inner journey.  www.innerworkspublishing.com
   

Forgiveness. . .

Does it Still Make Sense to Forgive?

An Article by Lewis B. Smedes*

If you live long enough, some day, some time, you may be let down by somebody you trusted, and somebody you trusted to do you good will be disloyal to you. Somebody you trusted with your whole self can betray you, or perhaps even brutalize you.

The sad and tough fact is that we live in the kind of a world where decent people hurt each other, and where bad people can hurt us a lot. And sometimes what somebody else did to us seems so unfair and hurts us so deeply that it lodges inside of our soul like an indigestible lump.

Or — it’s like a video-tape playing its wretched reruns of the pain inside of our mind. And we can’t forget it, and we don’t know what to do with it, and the person who hurt us once keeps hurting us in our memories.

How do we cope, creatively, with hurts we didn’t deserve and we didn’t have coming? How do we turn them into redemptive renewal for peace and happiness in our own lives?

God invented Forgiveness as the remedy for healing the hurts we don’t deserve. He tried it on us. It was his way of coping with hurts that we caused him that He never deserved. And He invites us to try it on one another, coping with hurts we didn’t have coming through the surprising, the unexpected, the revolutionary power of forgiving.

A great Jewish philosopher echoed Jesus sometime ago when she said, “The only remedy for the irreversibility of our histories is the power to forgive.” Maybe you think there are a lot of ways. She says there is only one remedy for the pains (the hurts) of the past that we cannot undo — "The Power to Forgive."

Since I wrote my book on forgiving, I discovered that there are two questions that gnaw at peoples’ hearts and guts after they have been
hurt — especially if the hurt went deep and lasted long. One of them is — “Is it fair, is it really fair that I who have been hurt have to treat the person who walloped me as if nothing had happened? Is it fair?” And I know from my experience with people that sometimes their hurts are so deep, and the pain is so intense, and the memory is so sad, that it simply doesn’t seem fair.

Is it fair to forgive? I want to tell you that the only fair way for the person who has been hurt is to be healed of the hurt, and the only way to be healed is to forgive. Consider this. Once somebody has hurt you and you know that they didn’t have to do it, and you know that they are to blame — what are your alternatives? One alternative is to repress it and try to forget it and that spells trouble later on. That is the way of denial, and denial never works in real life.

The other way is to get even, to follow the old bumper sticker, “We don’t get mad; we get even.” I’ve got news for you — getting even never works. Getting revenge just doesn’t do it for you. In the first place, nobody ever gets even in the game of pain. Have you ever wondered why family feuds lasted until finally people got too old to lift a rifle? It’s because they were always trying to get even, and it never worked. And it won’t work with you. It doesn’t work with me.

Consider this. . . Supposing the other person isn’t even around for you to
get even with them so that it is impossible. Where does that leave you? Supposing the person who hurt you has moved away, out of reach, perhaps dead and gone. Perhaps the person who hurt you tells you to take your forgiveness and flush it down the garbage disposal, supposing you just can’t get even. Are you going to be tied forever to the escalator of pain? Are you going to be a bond slave of your own hurt? Are you going to let that person who hurt you once go on hurting by way of your memory as long as you live?

I want to tell you that the only way to be fair to the victim of hurt is for the victim to forgive. I want you to remember that the first person who gets the pay-off from forgiving is the person who does the forgiving. And remember this, forgiving is not being a patsy. Forgiving is not being a doormat. Forgivers do not tolerate everything. Forgiving is not the same thing as putting up with bad things.

I don’t know of anything that is harder to do than to forgive, but there are a lot of us who make it even harder than we need to. I’d like to tell you a few things that I have learned that don’t make forgiving easy but at least make it less hard than it has to be. Let me suggest a few to you.

The first one is this. . .

Don’t forgive because someone tells you it’s your duty to forgive.

I have never met a person yet who forgave another human being because she felt it was an obligation. Don’t do it because you have to. Do it because you want to. And when you think about it, you will realize that wallowing in the bilge of your own hate and resentment and pain is not nearly as much fun as dancing on stage to the melody of healing freedom.

Ask yourself what you really want. Do you really want to stew? Do you really want to develop ulcers? Do you really want to be hurt continually in your life? Or do you want to be free of the hurt you never had coming in 
the first place? Wait until you want to and then God will give you 
the power.

Here's another hint. . .

Don’t force yourself to do it fast.

Forgiving is tough. Forgiving is hard. God can do it in a single swoosh, but you’re not God. The first thing to remember in forgiving is that you’re not God. It takes time.

Forgiving doesn’t come for most of us in one big clump. It's like an IRA account. It’s not a bonanza at the beginning, but you work up with increments, and if you stick at it for a while you will discover that you
built up a pretty good account of forgiving power in your life. Be patient with yourself. Take your time.

Here's another hint. . .

Don't wait for the other person to come to you to say, “I’m sorry.”

That may never happen. The person who hurt you may be dead and gone. The person who hurt you may have moved away. The person who hurt you may not believe that he or she hurt you unfairly. They may never come back. And then the question is, “Do you want that person to have such control over your life that by his or her refusal to say ‘I’m sorry’, you’re stuck with your pain?” I just can’t imagine anything more unreasonable than to inflict pain on yourself that you don’t deserve just because somebody doesn’t come and say “I’m sorry.” If they come — wonderful! If they don’t — take a solo flight to freedom 
and heal yourself with the power that God gives you to forgive.

Here’s another hint. . .

Don’t demand a Hollywood ending.

Some people think that every time you forgive somebody, it has to end immediately with an embrace, and tears flowing down your cheek, and then you love each other and are better friends than you’ve ever been before. That may work sometimes but it doesn’t have to. The important thing is to heal yourself, then go on from there and take whatever God in His providence gives you by way of a new relationship with the person who hurt you.

This is going to be my last hint. . .

Don’t forgive too much.

Don’t try to forgive too much at a time. God can forgive wholesale. We need to forgive retail — one thing at a time. Be concrete. Don’t try to forgive people for what they are. Don’t try to forgive people for being slobs or unkind or cruel people. Forgive them for what they did to you last Thursday. Write it down. Be specific. Be concrete. Stick to one thing at a time.

I find in my life that most of the jobs that I do can be handled more successfully if I section them off, if I don’t try to think about doing the whole job. If I’m writing a book, I get paralyzed if I think I have to write a whole book. Sometimes I get stymied if I’m trying to write a whole chapter. But if I take this paragraph and this sentence one at a time, then finally something happens. The same is true in the game of healing ourselves.

And here’s one last thing that I have discovered in my life. I don’t have the power to forgive anybody else until I feel forgiven myself. When I know, and when I feel that nothing I have ever done will get God to love me less, and nothing I will ever do will get God to love me less, I know that he surrenders any right that he has to get even with me, and I know that he looks at me and feels about me as if I were his friend, and he blots out the memory. When I know that that’s what has happened to me, I gradually get the power to do it on other people. Feeling free to forgive because I feel freely forgiven.

When you forgive somebody who hurt you, 
you ride the crest of love’s great wave.

When you forgive somebody who hurt you, 
you walk in stride with God.

When you forgive somebody who hurt you, you set a prisoner free and then you discover that the prisoner you set free was you.

When you forgive somebody, you begin to heal the hurts 
you never deserved to have in the first place.

*Lewis B. Smedes is a professor of Theology and Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and a member of the editorial board of The Reformed Journal. He is a graduate of Calvin College and Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has his Doctor of Theology from the Free University of Amsterdam. Dr. Smedes is a frequent lecturer and preacher, and is also the author of a number of very successful books.  www.csec.org/csec/sermon/smedes_3010.htm

Over The Relationship - But Not Past The Hurt. . .

“There’s STUFF in the Basement.”

   

(By R Butch David)

I like the question posed in the song, People Are People, by a music group from the 80s called Depeche Mode. “People are people so why should it be – You and I should get along so awfully?” Unfortunately, people are people, and we’ve all been hurt at one time or another. As 

the formula in life seems to go, “Hurt People, hurt people” (HPx2).

All of us have had some painful experiences in our lives and many of 

those involve people whom we’ve had a close personal relationship with. Over time, because none of us are perfect, we’re likely to hurt (or be hurt by) the very ones we love the most. Sometimes, those hurts can be easily forgiven. A simple “I’m sorry” will suffice. As some people would say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” But what about when the hurt is something more devastating like abuse or neglect or a deep betrayal of some sort? How do we get over that kind of hurt – the kind that’s not so easy to forgive? What if we feel we’ve been hurt so badly that we simply can’t, won’t or shouldn’t forgive? When that happens, some people feel the best thing to do is to just “move on.” We might decide that we simply need to get over that relationship and leave those hurts, and that person, behind. Maybe it’s just better to start over with someone new – someone who will treat us right and who won’t hurt us that way. As a “wise-guy” once said, “Let me know how that works (out) for you. . . ?”

Unfortunately, the emotional wounds (hurts) we’ve experienced, if not treated so they can heal, will simply wind up being carried over into the next relationship. Think of it this way – if you had an accident at your job and broke your leg while at work one day, the solution wouldn’t be just to get a new job. If that were the case, then you’d simply be taking that broken leg with you into your next place of employment. Your work environment may have changed, but the unhealed wound would still be there and it would most likely affect your ability to perform. Granted, if your new employer didn’t mind you performing at a substandard level – lets say for a few years while your broken leg healed to some degree on its own, then you could go about your new job like you would 

in life – hobbling around and just barely getting by. My guess is though, the new employer probably wouldn’t be too pleased about your disabled performance, and likely, neither would you.

The same goes for our unhealed emotional wounds. Without treatment (real healing) for our past hurts, we can change relationships as often as we like. Unfortunately, we’ll carry those unhealed hurts with us and it will affect our ability to perform and in this case, to be free to truly Love others, unconditionally. As a close friend says, “Because of our past (unhealed) hurts, we’re all doing our ‘crummy-best’ in life and in every relationship 

we have.”

I’ve found the Real Solution to the healing of my past hurts has not been 

in trying to “get over it, let it go, forget about it or move on.” There were times I’ve felt that I was indeed “over that relationship.” But as it turned out, I came to discover that “the hurts” hadn’t been healed, at all. I had unhealed “emotional baggage” that I was carrying with me. Over time, 

the infection from those unhealed wounds eventually came to the surface. 

I found myself responding to someone new, the same way I did when I was in a previous hurtful relationship. Inevitably, something they would say or do (or perhaps not say or do) would trigger the old, unhealed hurts. Psychologists and counselors often refer to that as “Pushing our Hot Buttons.” I’ve often said that “A fresh accidental ‘punch in the nose’ might have an old infected bruise behind it.” My mind and the heartfelt reality of my past were truly on a collision course. It seemed that I was Over The Relationship – But Not Past The Hurt. It would appear that my mind was telling me one thing, but deep within my heart, “There’s STUFF in The Basement” that needed to be dealt with and healed.

I like what was said in the latest of the “Rocky Movies,” Rocky Balboa. As the story goes, Rocky’s life had moved on. After a long successful career in boxing, he was now a bit older, a bit wiser, and was currently doing quite well in the restaurant business. Overall, Rocky seemed to be pretty content, happy and accepting of who he was and how things had turned out in his life. But in one particular scene, Rocky was talking to Pauly and he said, “I don’t know, there’s stuff. . . stuff in the basement – in here” (pointing to his heart). Pauly’s advice to Rocky was something like,  

“Well, you gotta deal with it – once and for all, Rocko. You need to get ‘that stuff’ out of there.”

It’s likely that we ALL have some “Stuff in the Basement” of our hearts that needs to be dealt with and healed – once and for all. That too, is a process. It takes real courage and strength to “go into the basement” and deal with it. And sometimes, we need help from someone who has been there – that is, in “the basement” of their own heart and soul. In reality, 

we also need Someone who has the Power to Heal.

In his book The Ultimate Breakthrough, (focusing on personal healing*), Ken Unger talks about something called “Premature Forgiveness.” 

He writes, “True Forgiveness is MORE than a simple act of the will 

[the mind- rd]. It's a HEARTFELT RELEASE of our judgments against another, and that's a LOT more complicated.” I’ve personally found that 

the key to the “real healing” of our emotional wounds, that is our broken hearts, is in Forgiveness. And it has to be the “kind of Forgiveness” Jesus talks about in the Book of Matthew. . . “Forgiveness from the Heart.” (Matthew 18:35)

Ken goes on to write, “Unforgiveness is one of the terrible ways we bind people on earth. Heartfelt Forgiveness is one of the marvelous ways we can loose them. If you're having a hard time forgiving, relax. . . ask the Lord for help. Pray for wisdom, work on healing your own pain, and ask Christ to enable you to release your judgments. If necessary, talk through the issues with the people who have wronged you. One way or another, you'll EVENTUALLY be able to Forgive them from the heart. . . How do you KNOW when you've done that? If you find yourself saying, ‘I forgive you, but I never want to see you again’ – YOU HAVE NOT FORGIVEN.”

While on my own Healing Journey, I’ve slowly been cleaning out “The Stuff in The Basement” of my own heart. And let me tell you, at over 50-years old – there is a “LOT OF STUFF” (past unhealed hurts) down there. Some counselors agree that many of our emotional wounds were incurred during our early childhood, before the age of eight, and we’ve had many more since then. Again, the healing of our broken hearts is a process. Christ is the Chief Surgeon who came to “Heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). If we're willing to go there, He knows how to help us “Deal with that STUFF.”

Granted, time will be necessary for healing, AFTER we’ve had surgery. But without “The Surgery,” we’ll all simply be hobbling around – a broken heart is a lot like a broken leg. And that won’t do us, or anyone else, much good – in life or in any of our relationships. In fact, unforgiveness actually does more harm to the person who carries it than it does to the person who isn’t being forgiven. An unforgiving spirit is a painfully heavy burden that we can carry within our own hearts. It can cost us dearly, in many ways. Maybe you’ve felt that you have forgiven someone. But, if you’re still having negative thoughts about the person who you feel hurt you, then you might want to consider how your “brand of forgiveness” compares with Christ’s. . .

I asked another friend, “When will I know for sure that I’ve completely Forgiven someone – from my heart?” He said, “Well that’s easy – you’ll 

be able to talk about what happened (the hurt) and it just won’t hurt, anymore.” I’ve also come to experience the Healing Power of True Forgiveness another way. As by Grace, when I’ve been able to completely forgive someone who hurt me real badly, I can then think of them with fondness, gratefulness and even some appreciation – for who they were, who they are now, and even for who God intends for them to be - through His Personal Healing Touch in their lives. As Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute (hurt) you.” (Matthew 5:44)

Lastly, I’ve been learning to “leave the door open” when it comes to my relationships with others – even those who I feel had hurt me and those whom I have hurt. A good prayer for each of us to consider, when it comes to those who offended us might be: “Father, please ‘shower them’ with your Lovingkindness – Amen.”

Love Never Fails – Love Always Forgives. . .

*For more information on Ken Unger, Transformational Healing or 

to order his book The Ultimate Breakthrough, visit his website at www.TransformationIncorporated.com

I Call You. . . Friend

A Personal Letter from Jesus to Each of Us

Dear Friends,

I remember early on in my Journey, back in 1992, I heard a most touching song on the radio. The words from this particular song really spoke to my heart. Almost immediately, I went to a Christian bookstore and bought the tape. This was back when they only made cassettes. Remember those tapes that would all too often get "stuck"?

Anyhow, in 2008 I attended a concert at a Temple (Church) on the east-side of Cleveland. And who was the performing artist? None other than Marty Goetz - the man who had written and recorded "the song." After performing a number of his many well-known songs, Marty asked 

the audience for "requests." As I stood in the back of the Temple, I raised my hand and wouldn't you have known - Marty saw and acknowledged me, first. Now I don't intend to sound too selfish, but at that moment, I felt like 

I was the only one there in that Messianic Jewish Temple. I felt like God had brought me there for a reason, just to speak to ME, or perhaps to 

my Heart - once again.

The song and the words were coming back to me, and this time they were becoming even a little more personal. This time it was LIVE right there on the stage in front of me (or perhaps really "Alive" in me). In sharing the following, my hope is that you too will hear what Christ is saying to each of us through these heart-felt words. As I re-read the words to this song, I thought of it as being like A Personal Letter from Jesus to Each of Us - 

and that it was signed:

In My Love - Everlasting,

  Jesus (Yeshua)

I Call You Friend

(The Book of John - Chapters 14 & 15)

Words and Music By Marty Goetz  ©1992 Singin’ in the Reign Music/ASCAP

I Call You Friend, that’s what you are

All that I do, I share with you

I have no secrets, I have no need

To keep them to myself, for I tell you to the end

I Call You My Friend

You call me Master, and so I am

All that I do, you will do too.

Secret’s I’ll whisper, and what you hear

You’ll shout aloud out to a world that’s near it’s end

I Call You My Friend

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you

Truly I say to you, you’ll have tribulation

But have no fear dear one, be of good cheer

Truly I have overcome, you too will overcome

So, come my friend

I know who you are

Before you were I knew of you

You’ve so many secrets,

you’ve so many needs

Don’t keep them to yourself, no one to help you in the end.

Just call my name, I’m always the same

I search for all who will claim the love I send

So I can call them friend

Say, can I call you my friend?

Yes, I Call You My Friend. . .

For More Information on Marty Goetz, His Music and Ministry go to  

www.martygoetz.com

Time Doesn't Heal

"Time (alone) actually wounds the Healing Process"

An Introduction to the Book 

“The Ultimate Breakthrough”

   

(By Ken Unger - Copyright 2008   www.transformationincorporated.com)

Time does not heal all wounds. It really doesn't heal any – that is an illusion. “Time [alone - rd] actually wounds the Healing process.” As time progresses, the perception of pain merely subsides. New experiences merely displace our harmful memories, driving them deeper into the subconscious, the basement of the soul, where they lurk to ambush, to corrupt, to undermine us [and our future relationships with others – rd], 

yet again. Unless our deepest wounds are truly healed, until the core hurts are appropriately resolved, these hidden denizens of emotional darkness return at the worst possible moments.

These hurts may come from many sources, from outright abuse to 

“mere” neglect. A woman could have been molested, physically abused 

or emotionally battered. But she also could have had none of those things happen. She may have lived in a beautiful home and had plenty to eat 

but been starved for affection. Many bulimics can tell you that sad tale. Perhaps Mommy and Daddy were so busy working they never had time 

to play, or read to her, or even say I love you.

I was physically and emotionally wounded during childhood. My father 

was a rageaholic. He was angry at his life and he often took it out on me. Other people I know have never heard their parents say, “I love you.” While neglect is far subtler than abuse, that is exactly what makes it so difficult. It is equally damaging and harder to see. Denial is a greater temptation.

Our wounds don’t have to be parental. Siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, schoolmates, teachers, preachers and neighbors could have harmed us. But wherever our hurts come from, they complicate, inhibit and plunder our lives, sabotaging our well-being and even possibly destroying our health.

Unhealed pain can fuel alcohol abuse, overeating, codependency, work addiction, perfectionism and other compulsions. It can cause our feelings and our bodies to drive us, instead of us them. It pollutes the very things we care about most: our loved ones, our work, our friendships, even our health and prosperity. Unhealed emotional wounds and pain are the invisible enemy that causes most of our suffering and failures in life. I know, because they have done all that and more to me.

One of my all time favorite opening sentences in a book was from M. Scott Peck’s, The Road Less Traveled. He said something like this: “Life is difficult. But once we accept that fact that life is difficult, life becomes much less difficult.” While this is true, life does not have to be as difficult as we make it. Much of life’s struggle is fueled by past hurts that cause us to unwittingly complicate out life. But if our life is to change, we must find the courage to examine it. The unexamined life is, at best, disappointing.

Though many want us to think otherwise, our past is extremely important. Who we are today is largely a result of who we were yesterday and how we handled our problems and hurts. But there is nothing that has damaged us that cannot be undone. There is gold in our most sinister shadows, silver linings to our most menacing inner clouds. Even our worst tragedies, properly resolved, can make us immeasurably better instead of bitter, more whole rather than further fractured, happier instead of more miserable. Indeed, the very things that weakened us can bestow upon us new strength, power and vitality. There are countless examples of people who overcame unbearable odds to make their lives successful and beautiful. You can do that as well.

Nothing will help you more than healing the pain that holds you back. It can do more for your future happiness than anything else you can do. I know. For over twenty-five years, it has done this for me and for thousands of my clients, friends, parishioners, and those who attended my seminars and retreats.

Frankly, if you don't believe in God, this approach won't help you. Only God can heal our broken hearts. Only He can free us from stubborn bondage to self-destructive patterns. I make no apologies for advocating what God alone can do for you.

Ken Unger  (www.TransformationIncorporated)

A final thought from R Butch David:

Granted, if we are willing to “get surgery” for our past emotional wounds, then something referred to as “Redemptive Time” is necessary for our complete healing to occur, and that too, is a process. It’s like taking the necessary time to heal after we’ve had heart surgery. Without the surgery, our damaged heart condition will only get worse. With the necessary surgery, our heart condition will improve over time and we’ll begin to heal. “Christ (alone) came to HEAL the brokenhearted.”
(Isaiah 61:1 and Luke 4:18)