Our Load

Have you ever considered the weightiness of unforgiveness, the mother load of grudges we collect, or the heftiness of resentment?

Imagine a balance scale with our hurt feelings and woundedness on one side and gratitude and thankfulness on the other. Which weighs more? 

Although emotional wounding is a universal theme in life, I cannot deny that my hurt hurts worse than yours. It hurts more than yours because I’m the one who feels my pain. And although I know I am not the only one who has ever survived a loved one’s suicide, I am the one who carries the fallout of my father’s suicide. 

It is the fallout of our hurts that can be the hefty load we carry around with us. 

We cannot deny the feelings that occur as a result of whatever wounding we experienced; feelings of abandonment, betrayal, shame, or anger. But the longer we carry those feelings around, the heavier they get. 

Those feelings weigh us down more and more because such feelings do not lead to a resolution. Instead the abandonment, betrayal, shame and anger we initially felt has a way of collecting an assortment of other characters that we can resent and other grudges we can feel.

 Like the story of the fish someone caught, the more they tell the same story, the bigger the fish gets. Or, in the case of our hurt, the more we retell our story the easier it is to use our story as an excuse for our misery. Of course we are miserable. Our story and its collection of characters and resentments is heavy.  

A Story

A recent shift of my circumstances has brought me into closer contact with an acquaintance who has lived in my community for several years. In the recent fragments of time we have had together, I’ve asked to hear some of her back story. 

With candor, casualness and a bit of humor she tells me that she was raised by two very talented and highly intelligent people with complex personalities. Her father was an abusive man, and because this woman was the oldest in her family, she got the brunt of the abuse. 

Her mother, she tells me, attempted suicide a few times and self-medicated her mental imbalance with alcohol and drugs. 

That is her story, she tells me, but not her excuse. 

These factors prompted her to find and establish routines and practices that gave her life structure and meaning. As a result she succeeded as a professional dancer and teacher. Now, she is a much sought after yoga practitioner for cancer patients. 

I tell this story because this woman decided to learn something from her childhood trauma instead of allowing it to weigh her down.

How to Lessen our load?

We lessen our load by asking ourselves a question: what is there to learn from this past or present difficulty?

P.S.  I wrote the story of my journey to forgiveness for those who, like me, know they need to change, but are not quite sure where to start. You can find A Heart’s Journey To Forgiveness at Redemption Press and Amazon.