Trading Grudges For Peace

“Apologizing does not always mean you're wrong and the other person is right. It just means you value your relationship more than your ego.”
― Mark Matthews

I have spent a great deal of time saying "I'm sorry!" which can be just words.  I always told my kids, "Don't say you're sorry.  Show it!"  Words are cheap.  But, when one really needs to apologize, it becomes an Ego struggle.  Sometimes we prefer stewing over past wrongs we have done, and, of course, wrongs done to us, so the reason for forgiveness gets lost in the hardness.  We forget the powerful healing that forgiveness gives us.  It does not matter if the other accepts it or not.  An authentic apology gives us peace, to heck with those who do not accept it.

I listened to a CBC presentation on my car radio as I traveled on my vacation.  It was powerful one on Apologies.  One thing I remember clearly being said was that Grudges are stories.  Yes yes yes!  Of course they are. 
As you approach journaling Apologies/Grudges, your ego/Evil Inner Witch will, most likely, have y0utwitching in negative reactions.  You bare simply danged tired of always saying you are sorry.   You probably feel like you wanted an apology back, or some sign that your apology was reciprocal, and it wasn't and your Ego EIW is really pissed.  This is usually the case when Ego gets in the way.  We might forget the apology is not for the offender but is for you....damnit!

Consider grudges you are holding on to.  Do they reside like a cancer within eating away at you when your soul reminds you that it is there?  Does it scroll up like black water you are drowning in?  Are you more conscious of your offender than of your offences?  Dangit!  Truth!  Can you feel your heart harden as you think of forgiveness and grudges?  Want to lay those burdens down?

There is nothing on earth or heaven that cannot bring peace with a true apology.  The hurt is replaced by anger because anger is the easiest emotion to feel.  You need not say it again and again because it then becomes a whine and loses its power to heal you from whatever trauma hardened you.  Life is full of reasons to say we are sorry.  We are human.  We make mistakes.  Ego will attempt to sabotage your healing.  You are way easier to manipulate when you regret things, as I posted the other day.  Use your Jounraling/Art Journaling to get past the wall you find yourself batting your head on. 
Art Journaling/Journaling is a safe space to begin to dump wasted space of offenses to or by you, unless you are addicted to holding on to them.  Do not think it will be easy.  It is not.  Create a safe space for you to begin to work on this through journaling.  Turn on some music, light some smudge, create a calm, peaceful place to work on this through writing or art.

Before you can be sorry for something, you have to acknowledge your part in the offense.  (Oh, feel the Ego squirm at that statement!)

Sit with it!  Force yourself to think of the following:

1.  Do you have a pattern of holding grudges and find it easy to beg person, place, or thing that offends you?
2.  Why is apologizing hard for you, what instances is it easier?
3.  Did you know that, if you cannot forgive yourself, you cannot ask for forgiveness of others, or give it, for that matter?
4.  What does forgiveness mean to you?
5.  Who do you need to forgive. ( Note, every divorced woman knows a million reasons to forgive that one person, or not forgive, depending on the spiritual growth you have made already.)
6.  What would your life be like if there was authentic forgiveness in your life both for offenders and for you?
7.  There will never be any peace in the world if there is not peace in your very soul.  Define the peace you would feel if others accepted your apology or if you accept an apology yourself.

Can you express it now?  Can you write a poem, paint a picture expressing your sorrow or grudge you have held on to, tooth and nail?  Choose one that sits in your craw like a bad stone.  Consider the color, the sound, the feeling, the full spectrum of senses around apologies and offenses that left you swallowing the grudge over and over again like bad bile.

Be gentle with yourself.  This might be way harder than you imagined.  Consider the draining off of the poison of resentment(s)/grudge(s) and what, then, can you fill that empty space with?  Peace.  Self-peace.  Love yourself so much you are willing to hang on to love you have in your life.  Love the ones left after the fire.  Let it go, sister friends, let it go!  

©Carol Desjarlais 8.16.19