Letting go of anger

I watched a programme about a woman who pretended she had been in Twin Towers on 9/11. She lied to so many people in the support group she ran, and continued the lie for a long time until she was found out.

It was interesting how the rest of the support group viewed her when they found out she was a fraud. Most of them said they could forgive her as she obviously had some mental health problems to fabricate such a deceit. One woman though, who had been her closest friend said she could never ever forgive her, and had hatred for her. It showed in her body posture in her tonality and facial expressions. She was so hurt that she had trusted this person so much, and then been let down so badly. And yet later in the programme she said how much she missed her.

What this woman was experiencing was the fact that she had trusted this person, and she had betrayed that trust. It happens to many of us. We like to believe what people tell us. IF we suspected everyone we met, we would have no friends, and so we trust. When that trust in betrayed for some reason, we feel bad inside and wish we had never trusted them in the first place.

When we hold on to anger and bitterness, it just festers inside us and we feel as though we simply cannot or will not let go. It ends up as our only control over the situation that we hate or are bitter so much, but at what cost?

It is us who suffer from these kind of feelings, it alters our brain chemistry, it affects the cells in our body and in some way we suffer either mentally or physically. Maybe we don't sleep well, or have aches and pains and a general feeling of not feeling well with energy. Energy is not only a physical thing but a mental thing.

Forgiveness is not condoning, it does not mean what that person or people did to you is okay. You do not have to accept what they did was okay in any way. In fact by your standards it was most unacceptable, but forgiving is about you, forgiving yourself for putting yourself through that torment. Once you agree with yourself to do this, then you move into emotional freedom. Even if that person is a part of your life, you can control how you feel about them. It is the most fantastic feeling that you can think about them with indifference and that is such a great feeling. It means you don't care about them anymore, they can never hurt you again.

One of the things I think is helpful is to write down exactly how you feel about that person or people. You may or may not post it to them, but having read it back to yourself, or out loud to someone else, it takes away the sting of how you were feeling. As if you have transferred all that anger on to paper, and it is out of your internal feelings.

You may even want to keep the letter or a copy, and from time to time read it again, and be pleased that you have no feelings left for that person or people.

Give it a go, see what happens. If you cannot or will not, ask yourself what the reason is you are holding on to all that pain for?