Hurt causes us trauma. It’s impossible to go through life and not experience hurt. It’s how we choose to respond when we are hurt that makes or breaks us. “We can’t control what happens to us but we can control how we respond.” Rob Eldridge
When we are hurt we have to make a choice; to forgive the offender or to harbor resentment. When we harbor resentment it turns to anger which eventually turns to bitterness. Bitterness taints everything it touches. It leeches into all aspects of our lives discoloring it. It makes one distrustful, angry, and short tempered. In reality we’ve imprisoned ourselves in our own mind. And the worst of it; anger, resentment, and bitterness is all our doing. We’ve done that to ourselves. We’ve made a mess of our lives not the offender. And yet somehow, we try and justify holding the person who hurt us in the first place, for a lifetime of our poor choices. Forgiveness does NOT excuse or release the offender from their offense that caused us hurt; intentional or unintentional. Rather forgiveness, RELEASES us from harboring anger, resentment and bitterness which protects us from self-destruction.
When one causes us hurt the healthy response is to forgive and then establish an appropriate boundary. An appropriate boundary might look like severing the relationship. It might look like restricting access to you. When those are not an option then it might look like restricting certain subjects of conversation. In any case, boundaries are the healthiest way to protect oneself, not only from others, but from themselves. Having boundaries is like wearing a suit of armor in a medieval sword fight. Sure, you could fight naked but you’re more likely to be cut, and then slowly die from blood loss, whereas the armored opponent can take blow after blow without the fear of a mortal wound. So who in our lives do we need boundaries with?
Think of it this way; the greatest hurt usually comes from those in our inner circle. Our parents for starters. Our spouses or significant others. Our children. Our siblings. Our neighbors, co-workers and our friends. Every relationship that we have needs to have well thought out appropriate boundaries. In doing this, we drastically reduce the ability to be hurt by those in our inner circle of influence and we give ourselves the best chance to avoid being hurt mortally.
Returning to a relationship that hurts us over and over is no different than a battered woman allowing her spouse to beat her and or her kids over and over and over. We know that is not healthy so why would we accept relationships in our lives that essentially have to same affect on us mentally and emotionally? Begin by picking a few relationships and setting some boundaries. Forgive the other person in your own mind in order to release yourself from your own bondage. Only then, will you begin to experience true Joy and you’ll experience a Peace in your life that wasn’t there before.
