Most all of us here have been through some sort of hurt. Most of us here have dealt with shunning or loss of family and friendships, Maybe an entire life change.
However, what you choose to do with that hurt could be more important than the hurt itself. Would you prefer being an active liver of life? Or do you prefer to stew endlessly over the hurt?
People who hold on to these past hurts often relive the pain over and over in their minds. Sometimes a person can even get “stuck” in this pain and hurt.
5 Tips to letting go of hurt and resentment and move beyond your old life/beliefs of being in a controlled Religion, Organization, or Cult.The only way you can accept new joy and happiness into your life is to open up and make space for it. If your heart is filled full-up with anger, pain, resentment, and hurt, how can you be open to anything new?
1. Make the choice to let it go.
When you make a conscious choice to leave such an organization, religion, or cult all the teachings that have been ingrained in you for some from infancy do not stay behind. You will need to make the commitment to “let it go.” If you don’t make this conscious choice from the beginning, you could end up self-sabotaging any effort to move on from this past anger, hurt, pain, resentment.
Making the decision to let it go also means accepting you have a choice to let it go. To stop reliving the past pain, to stop going over the details of the story in your head every time you think about that organization, religious group, or cult.
2. Express your feelings of anger and pain resentment, hurt.
Express the pain the hurt made you feel, by just getting it out of your system. From experience your new friends don’t mind listening however if you have told your story and you are still feeling the need to vent here is an exercise you can try. Write a letter to the person or organization and express your real true feelings. Do NOT send this letter. Rather destroy the letter. Some of my clients have placed them in their fireplace and imagined the pain and resentment burning away to never return. This will allow you to get it out and not cause you or any other person any harm. If all you do is vent about your experience your new or old friends may get tired of hearing about it. Writing a letter, you never send will help you release it. Get it all out of your system at once. Doing so will also help you understand what — specifically — your hurt is about. I am a huge advocate of journaling however I recommend a gratitude journal. We will get to that and the benefits another time.
3. Stop the blame game or being the victim.
Being the victim can feel good. It’s like being on the winning team of you against the world or maybe the religious organization, cult or the people that hurt you. But guess what? It is not going to change anything.
In every moment, you have that choice — to continue to feel bad about another person’s actions, or to start feeling better. You need to start to take responsibility for you and your own happiness, and not put such power into the hands of other people. Why would you let the people who hurt you in the past have such power over you and your feelings here and now! So why would you choose to engage in so much thought and devote so much energy to people or a group or religious organization, a cult that you feel has wronged you?
4. Focus on the present
Now it’s time to let go of the past. It is time to stop reliving all the horrible things that happened to you that bring up all the negative feelings. Stop telling yourself that story where the “you” is the forever victim of these other people’s horrible actions. You can’t undo the past, all you can do is to make today the best day of your life.
When you bring your focus to the here and now, you have less time to think about the past. When the memories from your past creep into your thoughts (as they are bound to do from time to time), acknowledge them for a moment. And then bring yourself gently back into the present moment. Some people find it easier to do this with a mindful thought, such as telling yourself, “I am in a better place now. That was the past, and now I’m focusing on my own happiness. What ever thought feels good to you.
Remember, if we allow ourselves to fill our brains as well as lives with hurt feelings, there’s little room for anything positive. It’s a choice you are making to continue to feel the hurt, rather than welcoming joy and love back into your life.
5. Forgive them. Forgive yourself.We may not have to forget another person’s bad behaviors. Sometimes we get stuck in our pain and our stubbornness, we can’t even imagine forgiveness. But forgiveness isn’t saying, “I agree with what you did.” Instead, it’s saying, “I don’t agree” with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness. Instead, it’s simply saying, “I’m a good person. You did something that hurt me. However, I am going to move forward in my life and take back my power and welcome positive things back into my life such as joy and love”. You will not be able to do that fully unless you are open to being able to forgive.
Forgiving yourself is an important part of this as well. That falling into the space of self-love. How can we love ourselves if we cannot forgive ourselves? If we do not forgive ourselves, we could find ourselves right back in the same place, or even self-sabotaging any efforts we put towards growing into a better life, or the happy person we have always dreamed of being.
I know this journey is hard, especially if we’ve held onto it for a long time, it feels like an old friend. Justified. It may even be comfortable. Its time to step out of that comfort zone and save YOU!
So as of today, In this very moment make the choice to start the process of forgiveness for You and your future self!