Forgiveness.

Sometimes the hardest person to forgive in life is yourself. It's not exactly a revelation but that doesn't make it any less true. Sometimes the only thing that keeps a person going is their bitterness over a past grievance, wrong perceived or not and you don't realize this anger is rotting away inside you but telling someone to forgive and let go is a lot easier said than done.

I have never been adept at expressing my anger, I think it scares me so I bury it deep inside saying nothing or finding an angry outburst is easily reduced to tears and this is frustrating and occasionally embarrassing. All this anger eats away at you leaving a mouth full of bitter words that go unspoken and taints the relationships you have and the ones you've yet to start and It's only now I'm seeing it all comes back to me. Every thought, every act, every unkind word are nothing more than what my reaction makes them. It is oh so easy to become emotionally attached to past pain and to tell yourself a story.

Most people have a story like this that they tell themselves about their lives be it a positive like the story I had a happy childhood or something else like nobody really likes me and you tell yourself this story all the time and invest so much time and energy into it, it would almost hurt to not believe it. And when you look back on past experiences you edit them subconsciously so that all you can recall are the ones that back up your chosen story and anything that contradicts it is buried deep with the vestiges of suppressed memories.  
For me there was an element of fear to this because If I let go of the story I had been telling myself about who I am then I didn't know who I would be. And in this way I helped to create my own unhappiness.

These last few months I have been learning to let go, to forgive myself for not being perfect, for mistakes I've made or the ones I was too afraid to make. but this wasn't without some resistance. I recently reopened a book I'd first read eleven years ago. It was called Loving what is by Byron Katie and by all means do scoff because I know it seems like it might be ranked up there with angel cards on the title alone, it is so much more than some book plucked from the Obscurity of the mind, body spirit section.
This book introduced me to a little something called the work, I dabbled with it in my twenties and decided it had nothing to offer me and put it aside but here I am at 31 reading it again with a much more open mind.
In a nutshell the work is about teaching you to look at the thoughts that anger or upset or frustrate and really examine them, their impact on your life and how your life would be without that thought there.

Not exactly Brain surgery but it works. I have written long angry essays about people in my past or present who are really upsetting me and then broken these rants down into statements to be examined and turned around so it all comes back to me. It hinges on the the idea that the only time we really suffer is when we believe in a thought that argues with reality. And in teaching you to accept this it helps you let go of a lot of pent up anger. I am not even half way there but I already feel a lot less stress in my life and I have better relationships with people I've done the work on but most of all I'm learning to forgive myself so you can call it nonsense all you want and turn your nose up at the idea but for me it works, even thought I met it at first with reluctance. These days I'm all about growing up.