Forgive each other
To forgive means ignoring bitterness, anger, and hostility that prevent you from improving your relations with your environment. Neglect negative emotions that prevent you from genuinely forgiving. Remember that no matter what happens, it has already happened, and there is no need to drag the past with you into the future. When you get hung up on painful memories, they begin to haunt you even more. Realize that forgiveness is a process, not a result, so take small daily steps that will reflect your intention to forgive a person.
Resentment is a negative emotion that tells us that people have not met our expectations. A touchy person is inclined to blame others for their misfortunes, bad mood. Moreover, he often does this inside himself, without expressing his imagined culprit his claims.
Long-term grievances not only affect our emotional state - they spoil our relationships, make us more closed, interfere with our goals, and negatively affect our health. Many people understand the need for forgiveness and looking for the answer to the question: how to learn to let go and how to let go of resentment?
Below are the most effective ways to get rid of resentment. You can try several of them and choose the one that suits you best. Sometimes the same method has different efficiencies in different situations, so test, try, modify these methods, and combine them.
Method 1. Logical
At first, realize that emotion is a signal from our body that something is wrong. For example, when the fuel runs out in a car, a red light comes on. It is precisely the same with emotions.
What do you do when you see that the indicator in the car lights up? You drive to the gas station. Same with the emotions: you need to figure out what's out of order and fix it. And how to forgive a person and let the resentment go?
When someone offends, attacks, any live being has three instinctive reactions:
- Runaway
- Freeze
- Attack
In modern society, we cannot run away or fight with every attack. For example, a boss or husband yelling at you, or a girlfriend, who wants to hurt you. It will be strange if you start to fight or run away, right? Many people prefer to freeze, but it is harmful to the body: this is how many diseases form. Moreover, emotions, in this case, do not disappear but remain inside us. For example, many are asking the question, "how to forgive an insult to a husband?" We chase the thoughts inside ourselves: "How could he, yes I did so much for him, the world is unfair, it was necessary to say so, now he just makes amends" - and so on.
Recognize that your resentment is a fear to act. Allow yourself to feel anger and fury. And then choose the most appropriate mode of action. Learn to defend yourself firmly and without tantrums, to increase distance, when necessary, to negotiate.
Method 2. Prayer
If you are a religious person, this is a great way to release a resentment against a person. It is necessary to realize that the offender did so not by chance, but by God's will. And in his actions, there is some sense, a lesson for you. Then pray, say the words of forgiveness and acceptance. Ask for forgiveness from him, because with your insult you also wished him harm. Express gratitude to God for the lesson.
Method 3. Visual Techniques
You can use various ready-made techniques on the Youtube channel, for example, Louise Hay's forgiveness meditation. To use this technique, you need to be in a quiet place. Make sure no one bothers you. You can turn on soft, pleasant, and calm music if you do not use ready-made audio and video.
Create an intention to resolve the question of "how to let go of the grievances of the past?" Close your eyes and relax completely. Imagine some beautiful place and with the person who hurt you in it.
Imagine that he is engaged in some pleasant business for him or receives what he dreamed about. See him smiling and happy.
Then mentally release it. And introduce yourself. Now you are in a pleasant place, for example, swimming in the sea or performing on stage and receive applause. You are satisfied and happy. And resentment simply does not matter to you. Repeat this exercise for 21 days, and you will feel much better.
Method 4. Letters of Forgiveness
A very effective way if you are thinking about how to forgive the insult and let it go.
Write a letter to your offender – describe in detail your feelings and don't be shy in the expressions. Roughness is acceptable. Write whatever you want. The main thing is to unload all your negativity onto paper. Do not restrain yourself. If you're going to scream, get angry, wrinkle paper, cry – do it. Feel devastation, liberation from old emotions.
The next day, sit down and write a letter from your offender. As if he wrote it to you. Let in your imagination he answers your claims. Perhaps at first, he will also blame you for something. In a few days, write a new letter on your behalf. Most likely, the passions will subside, and you will write a calmer letter. Then write the answer again. And so, continue the "correspondence" until forgiveness, acceptance, and gratitude begin to appear in the messages.
We cannot make the other person apologize, and the accusatory dialogs in our heads will not tell us how to forgive the insult and let go of the past. But we can do it in our imagination using writing. Our brains will take it as a signal for liberation and understanding how to let the resentment go.
Method 5. Emotionally corrective experience according to J. Rainwater
Remember and write on paper your resentment in detail, in the form of a first-person story and the present tense. Use more visual images, sensations, feelings: "I felt my heart pounding in my chest," "I don't feel my legs," etc. Describe the words you and your abuser said.
Now rewrite the story. Do what you would like to do in it. For example, answer the offender or stop the hand brought over you. Or laugh. You can imagine in a letter to your offender small and funny. All in your hands! Create new dialogs, new feelings. Come up with the end that suits you.
That is an excellent way to let go of resentment and a loved one, but it is not suitable for independent study of serious psychological injuries (violence, etc.).
Method 6. Hot Chair
Perform this technique when you are alone in the room (or with a therapist). Place an empty chair. You can put a toy or other object on it that will personify the offender. You can put his photo. You can sit in another chair or stand. Express everything that has accumulated in you. You need to throw out all the emotions; you can scream, cry, beat the figure.
This technique, how to learn to release insults, does not end here. Still better to finish on the positive. Talk to the imagined offender again. Try to understand why he did this. What good have you got? What kind of experience? What did this situation teach you? Thank that person. Now you are free from resentment.
So, there are many ways to forgive an insult. They all come down to one thing: you must allow yourself to throw out negative emotions and come to acceptance and forgiveness.
