Why We Hang on to Anger

    Anger goes beyond forgiveness. We can forgive until we are blue in the face but more often than not, anger remains. While anger is a healthy emotion and a normal coping mechanism, if left unchecked, it can become toxic...seeping into every area of your life. 

Anger is a secondary emotion to hurt. Hurt often caused by lack of closure. "Why didn't they love me?"  "Why did they hurt me?" You will ask yourself this same question over and over. Perhaps the answer is that they simply couldn't love you. And that has nothing to do with you. 

We hang on to anger because it's comfortable. We feel like they will get away with everything if we let it go and move forward. We are afraid of what life might look like if we didn't have our anger because it's been our only constant. 

And maybe that's the case. They get away with it, having learned absolutely nothing and seeing nothing wrong with what they did. But what does hanging on to anger really get us? It's the thing that helped us survive and cope with pain...but eventually, it starts to hinder us. It holds us back from the beautiful future we could have. 

I'm sure you've heard this phrase before, but: "Holding on to anger is like poisoning ourselves and expecting the other to die." Nothing is more true. Anger was there for us when we needed it. It got us through the worst of it, but it's time for a new emotion. Is hope an emotion? Hope for a better future, with people who know how to love you properly. 

   Instead of continuing to speculate on the whys and hows of who and what caused our pain, maybe we could speculate more about what our lives would look like if we released those people into our past where they belong, and should stay. 

   There's a few words I can think of to describe my life free of those who so frivolously played with my open heart:

Freedom

Lighter

Emotional liberation

Success

A future with people who are meant for me

Emotional availability (When we hang on to anger towards people, it leaves us unavailable for people who can and will love us properly)

It's time for a different emotion. It's time to give your inner child peace. It's time to not only forgive, but to bring peace into our lives for ourselves and the amazing people waiting to meet us <3

Much love, xo

I Forgive You

   Writing is usually a very effective form of healing for me. I get my thoughts down so they stop consuming me and eating me alive. But for some reason, this time...I'm experiencing writer's block. When I'm emotionally charged, words usually flow and today I'm emotionally wound for sound. So why aren't the words just flowing? Perhaps it's because I'm not sure what I'm to take from the pain I've endured this year, or the lessons that are to come from it. 

   The only thing that I can do now...is offer forgiveness to those who wounded me. The only thing within my control now is to say "I forgive you" and let it go. Easier said than done, I know...but putting it in writing is a very powerful form of self-affirmation. 

To those who let me down, I forgive you.

   I was vulnerable and open. I had faith in you. I believed in you. I trusted you. I told you about my already gaping wounds. I was trying so desperately to pretend my wounds were already scars, and you were there soaking it up, not really knowing any better. After all, people that know better do not go around trying to destroy other humans. 

I forgive you for your lack of compassion. An existence devoid of compassion isn't really living. 

I forgive you for not healing from your own traumas, making me a victim of circumstance. 

I forgive you for betraying me, and stabbing me in the back. 

I forgive you for your complete lack of empathy.

I forgive you for choosing me for the torture you inflicted. 

I forgive you making me believe it was my fault the way I was treated.

I forgive you for promising me friendship but stabbing me in the back when the chips were down. 

I forgive you for ghosting me.

I forgive you for not seeing my worth.

I forgive you for using me to fill a void inside of you that you couldn't fill yourself.

I forgive you for allowing your wounds to bleed all over me.

Writing all of these "I forgive you" statements, I read them back to myself and it turns out, I'm really forgiving myself for betraying me and my needs and not seeing my own worth. I don't just need to forgive the external sources that wounded me, but I need to forgive myself for forgetting about me.

I don't miss my abuser, I miss who I was when I met him. The person I thought I missed doesn't truly exist. It was a mask, covering for who he truly is.

And it hurts to be ghosted, because in so many ways, it shows how I've abandoned and rejected myself. I've abandoned my own needs so having them unmet by others is painful because it creates another void that can only be filled and solidified by me. 

I need to validate and approve of myself again, because when I don't get it from others, it's like pouring salt in the wound. It's not their responsibility, after all. It's solely mine. 

I need to be my own best friend, instead of expecting others to fill that void. 

AnneMarie, I forgive you for abandoning your needs, disrespecting your boundaries, and losing your sense of self worth. 

Much Love, xo