You work hard, you achieve plenty, but sometimes something, or someone gets in your way. Someone ‘photobombs’ your perfect life. And that makes you frustrated and disappointed; nobody likes a party-pooper.
[Image source: Bored Panda has plenty of great photobombing photos here]
The trick is to feel those negative emotions for a while, (you’re entitled to them), but then lay them down… move on.
Disappointment has a nasty habit of fermenting into resentment if held onto for too long… and resentment (especially when directed towards other people) has a nastier habit of solidifying into something heavy that weighs you down.
YOU, not them.
Or if that description doesn’t resonate, then imagine an ember that is left to smolder in your heart. If you don’t put it out completely, then at some point it risks leaping up into angry flames… or else… burning YOU slowly from the inside.
Perhaps the biggest downside of holding onto a grudge is that it tethers you to the past… anchors you to the negative event… traps you in the realm of a sad yesterday.
Face forward, not backwards.
I still lament the years and opportunities and joys that I feel chronic illness ‘stole’ from me (IS stealing from me). But if I carry a grudge, I’m the one that becomes embittered… no one else loses but me.
If it was another person that I felt that bitterness towards, chances are they might not even know, or know and not care… again, the one who generally loses sleep will be me.
It’s not easy to forgive and forget… somethings are (potentially) unforgivable and insurmountable… but I suspect that for the vast majority of injustices, you really CAN move on… let go… be free…
Easy to say – hard to do.
I looked up a dozen websites to find advice that I could follow, and pass on to you. Most of it was simplistic, repetitive and even a bit lame… but the need to forgive (or at least accept) is central. Self-awareness helps (none of us is perfect) and mindfulness can help too (focus on the here and now not the past).
I keep circling back to the negative feelings I have towards my chronic pain – it’s so much harder to ‘forgive’ a slight when YOU are the generator of the ‘wrongdoing’… I can’t blame my illness on anyone but me… I let me down… I originate the pain… I’m the paradoxical photobomber of my own perfect life…
“Cripled Pirate Mother” I am.
But I also feel that this makes forgiveness even MORE important – I can’t be at war with myself for ever, as I’ve said before – because it’s just too. darn. exhausting.
All I can do is keep trying to wave an imaginary wand around in my head, click my fingers and whisper; “grudges, be gone!”
Repeated enough times, surely one day it will happen!
Right…?
Take care taking care, Linda xx
The Mindful Migraine 
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