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Article Series: Empowerment
I Want To Feel More Empowered...NOW
Empowerment
and Your Ability To Forgive
One stumbling block that can prevent you from
feeling empowered is the inability to forgive – both others
and yourself.
Disempowerment often contributes to a self-image of weakness
and powerlessness, which makes it difficult to forgive others
for hurting or betraying you - or forgiving yourself for allowing
it - because you believe that forgiveness means accepting or
condoning the poor treatment.
However, forgiveness is necessary if you want to become an
empowered person! Why? Because a truly empowered person knows
that nothing can detract from their strength and value, including
hurtful words and actions by others. In order to release the
pain of the past and move into a confident new future, learning
how to forgive others and yourself is vital.
Below you’ll find two simple exercises that will help you
to forgive:
Forgiving others.
First, try working on forgiving the people who have hurt you
in the past. These people might be your parents or guardians,
previous (or current) romantic partners, friends, bosses, co-workers,
or anyone else who has treated you with less respect and kindness
than you deserve.
Start by writing out the things they did and how they made
you feel. Now, call up a mental image of each of these people
in turn. Tell them mentally how their words and actions made
you feel. Express your hurt, anger, rage, sadness, pain and
anything else you feel or felt at the time.
Then, mentally say something like this to each of them, “Even
though you hurt me, I choose to forgive you now and release
any pain I still carry in my mind, emotions and body.”
Understand that by forgiving them, you are NOT affirming that
their actions were acceptable. Instead, you are choosing to
release the negative effects those actions had on you and your
life. There’s a big difference between those two mind-sets!
Know also that forgiveness may take time. You may have to
go through the exercise several times before you truly begin
to feel like you can let it go. That’s okay, just keep doing
it and eventually you’ll begin to feel stronger.
Forgiving yourself.
It can often be more difficult to forgive yourself than others
because poor self-esteem often goes along with disempowerment.
You may feel that you don’t deserve forgiveness; or believe
that you’re a terrible person who deserves to be punished.
However, using the same process as described above can help
you to learn to love and forgive yourself and release any feelings
of self-hatred. Begin by writing down any memories of times
you belittled or hurt yourself. Also, take another look at
the things you wrote about others and ask if you played a part
in the hurt that resulted from those situations.
Then begin working on forgiving yourself. Acknowledge that
you did the best you could at the time, but now you are choosing
to forgive yourself and move on.
Once again, this process will take time and consistent effort
before you’ll see lasting changes.
When you truly commit to forgiving others and yourself, you
are able to let go of emotional baggage and move confidently
into a better future feeling lighter, calmer and in greater
control of your life – which equals empowerment!
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SolveYourProblem.com
: 2009
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