We are all hurt as we journey through this life. Some hurts we are able to let go of, but others we hold on to, letting them taint the joy of the rest of our lives. The article here, which I read long time ago from Catholic Update, has enlightened me so much that I would want to share it with you.
" Once a teacher gave me an F on the test" a 20-year old woman recalls, " because she thought I'd cheated. Years later I saw her and deliberately snubbed her".
" I never forgave my mother," a middle-aged man says. " She was drunk all the time when we were growing up. I left home when I was eighteen and never saw her again, even though I heard that she quit drinking."
To continue carrying hurts like these, though, is to choose pain. Just as we would seek help immediately for a gunshot wound or a dog bite, we need to seek the same healing for emotional wounds. Not doing so can damage our spiritual, emotional and even physical well-being. Jesus tells us to let go of our grudges and do good to those who hate us. Psychologists give us similar advice. They tell us that we have the power to lighten the burdens we carry and that forgiving is one way of doing that. And some medical scientists say that carrying emotional hurts can precipitate heart disease, cancer, digestive problems, high blood pressure and mental breakdown.
Our spiritual lives are affected, too, when we cherish past hurts. We find it difficult to be Christ for those around us, and we block the Christ who wants to relate to us through others.
Here are seven (7) suggestions for healing those memories that keep you from living life fully.
Admit that you are hurt.
Often it's hard to admit we're hurting. " I'm okay", we stoically tell ourselves, and we tell others, "Big boys and girls don't cry". But admitting you're hurting is one of the first steps toward healing. "The more we are in touch with reality and cope with it, no matter how painful it may be, the better mental and emotional well- being we enjoy."
Know that you are loved.
The second step in healing a hurt is becoming aware of how much you are loved. In love, God offers us Jesus to be united with us. We let this awareness in; we allow new healing tissue to form around life's wounds. As we open our eyes to the many ways God's love is manifested in our lives, and in the love that other have for us, we begin to risk living in a present awareness of love instead of with past hurts.
Don't automatically blame yourself or the things you suffer.
It's okay to be angry at misfortune or with someone who has hurt you. Dennis and Matthew Linn, who have co-authored eight books on healing life's hurts said that anger at an emotional hurt is a healthy reaction as pain from a physical hurt.
Share your story of hurt.
Tell the story of your hurt to a trusted friend. Telling your story to a wounded healer and allowing yourself to be comforted by that person is another step toward letting the hurt go. It is therefore unhealthy for a person to keep his hurts all inside.
Turn to Jesus for healing.
Jesus is t he greatest healer Christians know, and the most trustworthy friend we have. Through out the gospel we see the physically, spiritually, and emotionally wounded going to Him.
Be patient and persistent.
Healing takes time. We need to have the persistence of the Canaanite woman whom Jesus first ignored and then refused to respond to after her pleas to heal her daughter (Matthew 15:21-28)
Discover the healing power of centering prayer.
Another action that can heal hurts - a more passive yet intense kind of action - is to practice the kind of prayer in which we let go of everything (words, thoughts, prayers, techniques, images, everything) and simply go very quietly to the center of our being where God is. In this healing prayer, we are simply aware of our oneness with God. It's called centering prayer. Spiritual writer Thomas Keating says there are some hurts that are so deep that only this kind of prayer can heal them. If we take time (perhaps 20 minutes once or twice a day) to be with God in this kind of "c entering" prayer, we will find that our life is happier, our burdens are lighter, our hurts are healed. How do you know when you're healed? Most spiritual writers says that these happens when you see value in the experience that hurt you. Forgetting is not one of the signs of being healed. You maybe healed of the hurt, but still remember it. Whoever said that "To forgive is to forget" was over simplifying.
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