52. Is there someone you need to forgive?

www.heididawson.com Instagram:  @theheididawson Why is Forgiveness sometimes so hard? I do not ever think I have all the answers but I do have some life experience to speak to when it comes to this topic. As Im sure you do as well. I don’t think any of us have made it through our whole life without have to forgive or be forgiven. But why is it so hard sometimes to forgive? For one thing, I can say because often we think that by forgiving, we let this person off the hook, or maybe we feel if we forgive them than they will think what they did is ok and keep it up, or maybe you want to stay angry as a way to hurt this person that hurt you. I sometimes talk about my personal life on this podcast. I have a really blessed life and I can’t complain about anything. Just like everyone, including you, I have experiences with people where sometimes I have to forgive or be forgiven. I was raised in a religion that was pretty strict. There are some good people but some of their rules I simply don’t agree with. Long story short I am no longer a part of it and there are members of my family who are. One of them is my little sister. For the record, I have 2 little sisters, one you hear me talk about a lot, thats Molly, and we are very close. The other one not so much. It is not that I don’t love her but you see for religious reasons she has cut part of the family out of her life because she doesn’t want her kids to be around people who don’t believe like she does. We have been a very close family for my whole life and this was a new thing that happened in the last couple years because the kids are getting to an age where they can start thinking for themselves and that scares her. I’m not creating this, we had a lunch where she basically told me this. Now, I don’t have children and have been very close to my niece and nephew whom I now have not been able to part of their life for almost 2 years. They are growing up and I am missing that. Now. I tell you this story because for a little while, I was really angry and wanted her to feel the same pain I felt. I quickly realized that was not going to change anything and in fact was only hurting me, no-one else. I had a decision to make, let the seed of anger grow and use the situation to create drama with other family or I could recognize that the only thing I control in life is my thoughts about anything. My thoughts were turning into things like “I hope she gets what is coming to her’, it even got so bad I felt sort of happy when I heard something didn’t go her way. This is not something that Im proud of or that is true to my nature.