TRUTH

Healing Guilt, Shame and Regret, Part 5: How do I forgive when I’m still hurt and angry?

Posted on September 14, 2019 Updated on September 13, 2019

Forgiveness is probably the most difficult challenge of all to address, analyze and put into action…There might be raw pain and anger and regret buried so deeply within you that only Divine Power can help you sort through and release it. You might not feel as if you want to release it – ever!

You might feel you want to hang on to the righteous indignation and the burning inside – the addictive anger that lets you know you’re alive.

If the anger and regret is against yourself, you might feel you don’t deserve to release it, that for your punishment you should suffer the agony for the rest of your life.

You might experience fear when you think of forgiving. But fear of what? Fear of being hurt again? Fear of losing the imaginary protective shell you’ve built around yourself to make yourself invisible, vainly hoping the shell hides from others your fear or shame or weakness or guilt, or…

You might feel you lose your identity when you forgive, that somehow your righteous indignation or regret is who you are, that people feel sorry for you – the victim – making you noticed and cared about, less invisible, and that if you don’t hold on to that identity, you won’t know who you are anymore, you will have lost an importance or something unnamable you won’t know how to get back and will feel adrift.

You might be angry with God or have turned your back on God, because if there was a God, then why didn’t God help you in your time of need? Why did God help others and not you? How could you love a God that didn’t love you enough to stop what happened?

Might any of that sound familiar and fit in with the angst inside you?

Why forgiveness? Why does it matter?…There might be instances or injustices in your life where forgiveness seems impossible – anything from a lost child, or a murder, or a rape, or sexual or physical abuse, or a debilitating illness, or unfairness in your career, or betrayal, or a cheating spouse, or bullying at school, or bullying at home…and the list continues. There are many past or current issues where you might feel you cannot ever, ever forgive that person, or circumstance, or yourself – or God. If so, please remember…

FORGIVENESS IS FOR YOU, THE FORGIVER, not for the perpetrator. 

Excerpt from Divine Messages from Jesus for a magnificent life, p, 337. Cathey, Carolyne. 2015

(To be continued)

Next: Healing Guilt, Shame and Regret, Part 6: When you don’t forgive, who is hurt?

Previous Posts: Healing Guilt, Shame and Regret

Healing Guilt, Shame and Regret, Part 1

Part 2: Important Differences

Part 3: Me Worthy? But my mistakes!

Part 4: Permission to Feel