How to Forgive Even When You Can't Forget Read Online Free PDF

Boese
    The hurtful things in our past can
follow us around for years, even decades, haunting us like a ghost
of pain past. It is extremely important to our overall state of
happiness that we break free of the chains that bind us to past
mistakes, failures, and injuries.
    If we dwell on the past, we do not
have the free attention that we need to manifest our dreams for the
future. There are three main types of hurt in our past:
self-inflicted, conscious, and forgotten.
    Self-inflicted Hurt
    Self-inflicted hurt is pain
stemming from our own mistakes and failures in the past. It is not
the mistakes or failures themselves that actually cause the pain,
it is our inability to forgive ourselves for those mistakes and
failures. If you are haunted by something that you did wrong in the
past, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you need to forgive
yourself.
    You cannot change the past. What
you did or did not do last year, last month, last week — it does
not determine who you are now or what you can achieve in the
future. Recognize that the past is beyond your control and let go
of your self-loathing and anger.
    Conscious Hurt
    Conscious hurt refers to the pain
that we carry around knowingly. A conscious hurt is right out on
the surface, either due to its recentness or severity. Someone hurt
you in the past and you are angry. It may be a decades-old grudge
or a recent slight, but it is a consuming flame of
bitterness.

These conscious hurts are the
easiest to identify. In fact, they take up so much of your free
attention that they often border on obsession. The solution, of
course, is forgiveness. A single injury is multiplied a thousand
times over if we dwell on it for years.
    Forgotten Hurts
    Forgotten hurts are difficult to
diagnose and remedy. Sometimes, an incident will profoundly impact
you more than you consciously recognize. The incident itself may
become lost in time, but the negative impact persists. This is
particularly prevalent in emotional injuries stemming from
childhood trauma.
    An unfocused resentment or an
undirected anger may be signs of a forgotten hurt. In these cases,
it is more difficult to forgive because we don’t really understand
what we are forgiving. We may not even entirely grasp who we are
forgiving. When the hurt is forgotten, forgiveness can take the
form of a more general release, letting go of the bitterness and
embracing happiness.

Chapter 13:
    Breaking Free from Resentment with
Forgiveness
    "Anger makes you smaller, while
forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were."
    - Cherie Carter-Scott
    Resentment is a common emotion,
though commonly misunderstood. We may not always be able to control
our other emotions, but we at least understand anger, love, despair
and the rest. Resentment is an emotion that we often feel without
fully recognizing it for what it is, or even being able to properly
put a name to it.
    What is Resentment?
    Before we can deal with
resentment, we need to understand what it is and how it affects us.
Resentment is a feeling of displeasure or indignation that stems
from an incident, real or perceived, that is hurtful. When you
resent someone it will color all your future interactions, no
matter how trivial, with that person.

    Resentment can be open or
concealed, immediate or delayed.

    Sometimes resentment sits right on
the surface. You may resent a coworker who gets ahead by taking
undo credit for your work. You may resent a friend’s patronizing
attitude toward your hobby or maybe your ex’s new beau. There is no
end to the number of issues, large and small, that have fired a
sense of resentment in people.
    Resentment can sneak up on even
the best of us. It is how we handle it that matters — how and how
soon. The longer we let resentment linger, the more powerful it
becomes. The key to handling resentment is to deal with it
thoroughly and quickly. This allows you to forgive more
easily.

The Cure for Resentment
    The cure for resentment, as with
many other