Choices, mistakes and pain - what do you gain? A few minutes of your time :)

Forgiving yourself is something needing to be done before you can forgive others. That's something I once read and it always stuck with me! 

If you continue to carry a burden of guilt or hurt around it can make it a challenge to genuinely forgive other people when they have hurt or upset you. The time when you say 'I truly forgive myself' (and believe it) is when forgiveness becomes an open doorway to freedom. It opens up to all sorts of possiblity, colour and lightness, without the restricted vision of guilt, hurt or pain.  

If your path to forgiveness seems blocked, you can definitely start to clear it and move towards freedom. Take one small step a day or even once a week to learning about any guilt, fear or anger that you are holding. What did holding onto it do for you in the past? How does it serve you now? Was it a habit or a choice? Allow time to reflect on thoughts without over-analysing. This should be a brief process of a few minutes. The more you do it in small steps, the easier it can become to see clearer what works for you now, and perhaps what old ways of thinking are best left behind. Particularly if they leave you hurt, angry, guilty or sad.    

Angie

See:
angiegiles.co.uk
Twitter: angie_therapist
Facebook: Angie Giles Hypnotherapy

About the Author: Angie works as a hypnotherapist, counsellor and coach at the Norfolk Clinic Complementary Healthcare Clinic, 38-40 Magdalen Road, Norwich. 

Call Norfolk Clinic reception on 01603 660792 or Angie directly on 07773 610816. She loves helping other people achieve their potential at work ,life and find greater happiness using a range of therapeutic techniques.

Fight or Flight?

Stress can lead us to have an undesired fast-track reaction to individuals or situations.  Where we would normally be rational and calm in our minds, the smallest thing can send a stressed individual 'off the scale'.  I've dealt with it and have felt it in the past. 


Have you ever been in stressed situations in the past where all your nerve endings are fired up and ready to 'fight or flight'?  It's quite a normal response to want to do either of those things in extreme emergencies, it's more negative when it's a loved one who happens to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.  


It's really about what is known as coping mechanisms. For some examples, if shown as a child (whether by parents or carers) that the way to deal with a stressful situation is to shout or get angry or walk away, then likely that behaviour will continue into adulthood. If the response is to get angry or to withdraw, both of these behaviours can be damaging to personal relationships. Especially if they are repeated many times, it really can wear through all the layers of good stuff that are built up.  


It takes a brave person to ask a question of someone who we feel is doing us an injustice or to find out if the 'truth' in our current stressed state is actually what we are thinking it is... perhaps realising that someone else has actually a totally different take on the situation. Patience is required before 'blowing your top'.   


What would stop us from asking a question to establish what a loved one really means? 'Why do you say that?' for example. I will be remembering this as a lesson for this week and hope it helps anyone reading this too.