Tag: forgiveness

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bullying, Law of Attraction, Love, Mental Health, parenting, Prayer

Forgive and Forget

Katrina Russell

People talk a lot about forgiveness, and there are definitely two camps on this subject. Well, three if you count the people who keep forgiving over and over and not the forgetting part, but for this we won’t. For this we are talking about the people who are done taking flack and listening to lies.

In one camp there are the people who will never forgive. “Those *fill in expletive* don’t deserve my forgiveness”, people. The ones who every time a name is mentioned, even if it’s not the actual person, just the name in common, this one gets a knot in their stomach. This one has been hurt so badly they will never forget, and never give anyone else a chance to hurt them like that either. They will take that pain to the grave, and to whatever afterlife may come.

This is the one that tells you they are fine, while simultaneously screwing up something in their life. A friendship, a romantic relationship, a family situation, a job… something that reminds this one of that person who did that thing to them once and they are not going to let that happen again.

When that person or that subject does come up, this one still sees red. They can’t help it. It’s still so fresh in their mind and heart. They can’t let it go. They are angry and will continue to be angry. There is no way that this one is going to give that person the satisfaction of being let off the hook for the horrible thing that they did. That person is going to die knowing that this one hates them.

Of course, that person may not care, or even remember this one… but that’s not the point… this one will remember… always.

Then there are the ones that know how to forgive and how to forget. The ones who understand that everyone has faults, and everyone is at a different point in the evolutionary scale. This one knows what horrible thing that person did to them. This one knows that person is not capable of the actions or respect that this one deserves. This one feels almost sorry for the person who did them dirty, because this one understands that true happiness can never be found in hurting someone, and the person who hurt them will have to live with everything they do… but this one does not.

This one has learned holding onto a grudge only hurts the one holding on. This one forgives the person who wronged them… and then lets it go. That’s it. It is now a thing of the past. It no longer takes up room in their conscious mind. This one goes about their life not worrying about what the other person did or is doing now. This one goes about their life not assuming that everyone they meet will be like that person and hurt them.

Then there is a moment in this one’s life when they realize they have actually forgotten. Maybe they see that person at an event, or their name is brought up. This one smiles, asks how they are, and have a pleasant encounter. Maybe at some point someone reminds this one of what the other person has done. This one just laughs, and says, “well, it was a long time ago. We’ve all grown since then.”.

Maybe we’ve all grown, maybe that person is just as rotten and hurtful as they always were, but it doesn’t matter. This one has grown. This one has a good life. That person who hurt this one doesn’t have any power over this one. This one has forgiven and forgotten.

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Addiction, bullying, grief, Law of Attraction, Love, Mental Health

Trauma… the badge of honor

Katrina Russell

When did trauma become the cool thing? Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that people have trauma, but trauma is a horrible thing. Trauma is not something that you want wish upon your worst enemy. Most people have had some sort of trauma in their life and it’s all relative. I was in a pretty bad custody battle as a child. I lived in a car with my mom. My parents had a tug-o-war over me in the streets. I was kidnapped by my mom and brought to live in a church commune…. you know… a cult. These things can be pretty traumatic, but they all ended. Eventually these things stopped, and my dad got total custody and only allowed my mom to visit when he was around.

I had an older brother… on occasion he liked to kick the crap out of me. On occasion we played fanciful games together and had a great time. When we got to our teen years he fought with everyone a lot and ended up moving out at 17. I was 14. I remember having the guidance counselor at school try to talk to me about it. How was it affecting me? What could she do to help? That was easy, I was sad. I missed him, but there was nothing to be done until he came back. It was a little over a year before we heard from him again. I remember answering the phone when he called and being overwhelmed with emotions.

I dated jerk guys and nice guys. I had friendships fall apart and new one’s spring out of nowhere. I was unemployed, underemployed and worked too many jobs to count. My best friend became an alcoholic and I had to help her ex take care of their kids I lost my Grams and got married and divorced… and this was all in my 20s. (well, divorced in my early 30s)

By my mid-30s I felt like I was getting my s**t together. I was dating a great guy. We were talking about starting a family. I had a great job in an industry that I loved…. what could go wrong? Well, everything. By the end of my 30s I had found out that my mom, who I hadn’t heard from in years, was dead. I had my baby boy, whom I love more than anything in the multiverse, but his father had relapsed into a spiraling drug induced state… and when I was 39, I woke up one morning to find my father had died in his sleep. Eight months later his longtime girlfriend died as well… on my birthday, and a little over a month later, 2 days before Christmas, on my nephew’s birthday… I watched my dog get hit by a car. Since then, I went through a long custody battle of my own with my son’s father that culminated in him losing his battle with that said addiction… thankfully it was a few years later.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I got my son a therapist. Losing his Papa and then the on again off again of his Da who finally died he was having some behavioral issues in school and a good healthy case of separation anxiety whenever he left my side. I call it healthy, because that’s what it was. It was his way of working out the things that he needed to work through.

I remember talking to his therapist about everything and her saying something along the lines of, “You’ve been through a lot, but unlike other people they aren’t things that you do that cause the problems. It’s things that just happen to you”. And she was right. The school councilor back in the day wanted to know how to help me. But there was nothing that could be done. My pain hadn’t come from anything that I did. It came from something that happened to me. My parents dying. My son’s father dying. Problems with exes, these were all the results of other people’s actions. Some people would find that disheartening. Some people would look at their trauma and their “victim status” as a reflection if not an identity of themselves. They would feel as if the world was against them and hold onto that trauma like an award that was given to them to prove how special they were.

I don’t see trauma in that way. I certainly don’t see bad things that happen to me as a reflection of me at all. I didn’t cause my parents to divorce, or my brother to leave, or my son’s father to do drugs, or my parents to die. These are things that other people have done that affect me but does in no way embody me. I am who I am despite all of these things happening around me and to me. I am who I am because of all of the things that happen around me and to me. It doesn’t do anyone any good to create a persona of trauma and hold onto it so tightly that it drowns you.

Trauma happens to everyone. I have been through my share, but it is nothing compared to what others have been though and its way more than some can imagine. Letting it dictate my life only lets the trauma and those perpetrating that trauma on you win. I’m not saying it’s easy to let it go. I’m saying its necessary if you want to move forward with your life. Somewhere along the line in our society it because desirable to be damaged. To prove that you have it worse than others. It gives you an excuse to not try, not do, not be…. everything that you can be because someone else broke you.

Bad things happened to you. I’m sorry. I truly am. But unless you want to live the rest of your life miserable and giving your power over to those that hurt you then you need to stand up and take your power back. You need to forgive those who caused you pain… and let go of what’s been drowning you.

bullying, Giving, Law of Attraction, Love, Uncategorized

What happens when we forgive.

Katrina Russell

Forgiveness, it’s something people talk a lot about, but I don’t think most people understand. Most people think of forgiveness in terms of the old adage “forgive and forget” but that implies that forgiveness is about the other person. It implies that you’re letting someone off the hook for their bad behavior or for hurting you, but that’s not the way that I see forgiveness.

To me forgiveness is letting go.. not for them, but for you. I recently had an ex contact me. We’ve images (11)all had this ex.. in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if we all had this exact same ex, he did tend to get around.. I digress. This ex put me through the ringer. He was a huge cheat, great at gaslighting and making himself appear the victim while trying to make you feel like he wouldn’t have to cheat, or blow you off, or whatever damaging thing he did, if you didn’t_____ fill in with what ever you feel is your biggest flaw is.

For years this man plagued every relationship that I was in. He would contact me in an effort to get back together swearing that he changed. He never did. I got to the point that I ran so hard and fast away from him that I married the next man to come along.. not because I loved him, but because I never wanted to feel love again. He still played with me and I ended up ending my marriage. I put on 10s of pounds with my self esteem crashing into the abyss. He was both the man of my dreams and the reason why I could never trust another man as long as I lived. He was a huge scar that didn’t seem like it could ever heal.

After dealing with his crap for almost a decade I finally walked away. I was with, who I thought, was a great guy. I ended up having the most amazing little boy in the world. I had huge REAL tragedies and wonderful adventures, all without him. I went through the hardest year of my life, and even though I had the urge to call him so he could “make me feel better”, the more that I thought about him, the more I realized he just caused me pain.

That led to the opposite affect. Instead of wanting to call him I started to get angry at him. Blaming him for wasting so many of my years. Years that I could have met someone else. Years that I could have started a family earlier and given my father and son a chance to actually know each other. This created a fierce bitterness in me, and it started to bleed into other things that I did. I had real trouble creating any form of relationship. I had trouble trusting men at all, but I knew that I didn’t want to live like that.

I have spent the last 3 years working on every aspect of my life. I have concentrated on being the best mother that I can be. I have focused on becoming healthy physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I have created a life and a person that I really enjoy, but there was always something nagging at me. A song would come on the radio, or someone who make a face or use a phrase that I would say and that pain would strike like a hot dagger and I my blood would begin to boil. I hated him, and I started to question why. Why did I give this man that I knew in my 20s so much power over who I have become in my 40s. It has now been almost a decade since I have seen him and I still feeling trapped by him. Trapped by the feelings of wanting him and hating him.

He has followed me on many social media platforms over the years and came up on my Linkedin a couple months ago. In my haste to delete the suggestion I accidentally went into his profile.. that of course got me thinking about him and all of the damage that I needed to let go of. I ended up looking back at his profile one night… debating on whether or not to break down and just contact him when a contact request came in. I just went for it. I accepted the request and within 5 seconds there was a message from him.

It was all very pleasant. We caught up. He asked about my son whom he had seen on one of the social media platforms. He asked about his father and told me he was sorry to hear about mine passing. We talked about the basic stuff that anyone catching up would talk about. Then he asked me why I accepted his request after all of this time, and the truth is that I needed to. I needed to forgive him not for his sake but for my own. I needed to forgive myself for all the time I wasted being angry. I needed to talk to him again to see that he wasn’t the devil, but just some guy with just as much damage and confusion in his life as we all have. I had to take my power back.

And you know what? It felt really good. I may never talk to him again, or we could become those people that check in every once in a while just because, or he could even become my next best friend.. anything is possible. But the one thing he won’t be is a drain, because I deserve better than that.