30 Getting Rid of the Gorilla #6

FORGIVENESS

The time has come for us to FORGIVE.  For what?  You know better than I.  For the wound—or wounds.  For the ways you have been failed.  For things done and said and for things someone did not do or did not say.  FORGIVENESS is far more real and meaningful when we are specific about what we are FORGIVING.

FORGIVENESS is setting a prisoner free and then discovering the prisoner was you.

Letting go of resentment toward an abuser feels like letting go of justice; it may also feel like letting the abuser win.

We must forgive those who hurt us.  The reason is simple: Bitterness and unforgiveness set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that hold us captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds.  Until you FORGIVE you remain their prisoner.  Unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck your life and the lives of others.

BITTERNESS

the slow suicide

To harbor bitterness toward someone is like swallowing poison and then waiting for that person to die.

An ungrateful HEART always sees what’s wrong with life.  The longer we live without thankfulness, the more embittered we become.  The more embittered we become, the more we find ourselves overwhelmed with depression.  Bitterness in the end leads to hopelessness.

Bitterness requires that you live in the past; hope requires that you live for tomorrow.

The original wounds were not of your doing, but no one but you keeps choosing to go back there. Your whole life can seem to be defined by less than a half dozen memories, but the memories are all negative.  

Memories have a way of defining not only who you were, but who you are and who you will become.

Give a time you were FORGIVEN.

Have you ever wanted to be FORGIVEN, but the other person stayed mad?  How did you feel?

What makes it hard to FORGIVE?

29 Getting Rid of the Gorilla #5

Would the people who know you best say that you are an angry person?  Why or why not?  Do you think it is possible to conceal your anger so well that those who know you best have no idea what’s percolating inside you?  What makes you say that?

Whether we like to admit it or not, those of us who struggle with an unforgiving HEART also carry around a tremendous amount of anger.  Anger and an unforgiving HEART always go hand in hand.

What about rage? Rage is an abnormal and a unbalanced response to hurt.  Rage exceeds the harshness of the abuse we experience.

Rage is one of the best ways to know whether we’ve been spending too much time with the GORILLA.

RAGE is toxic.  I hate being consumed with RAGE; I hate being angry all the time.  I hate knowing that someone else had some part in making me this way.  I’m angry because someone changed me and left me to clean up the mess.  I’m angry that I’m angry.  We couldn’t help getting angry when we were hurt; we had no choice in the matter.  We can, however, make a decision about whether we’ll allow that anger to turn into RAGE.  That is a decision we do have control over.  Anger is something that happens naturally; RAGE is something that we help manufacture.

There isn’t anything more freeing than FORGIVENESS. FORGIVENESS is the only force strong enough to heal relationships damaged by hatred and betrayal. 

The secret behind FORGIVENESS'S power is that it has the ability to set you free from—your PRIDE.

Both accepting and extending FORGIVENESS can be one of the most difficult things you face.

Why should I FORGIVE?  What if the other person doesn’t deserve it?  I might get hurt again.  FORGIVENESS looks like a pretty risky business.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive.  He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.  There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.  When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Is there a person you find difficult to FORGIVE because you fear that you will have to have a relationship with him or her?

28 Getting Rid of the Gorilla #4

GETTING RID OF THE

Gorilla

Freedom is useless if we don’t exercise it as characters making choices . . . We are free to change the stories by which we live.  Because we are genuine characters, and not mere puppets, we can choose our defining stories.  

We can do so because we actively participate in the creation of our stories.  We are co-authors as well as characters.  Few things are as encouraging as the realization that things can be different and that we have a role in making them so.

If you had permission to do what you really wanted to do, what would you do?

Don’t ask how; that will cut your desire off at the knees.  How is never the right question; how is a faithless question.  

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive because what the world needs are  people who have come alive.

What is written in your heart?  What makes you come alive?  If you could do what you’ve always wanted to do what would it be?  You see, your calling is written on your true heart, and you will discover it when you enter your deep desires.

Living with an unforgiving HEART is like living with a gorilla.

If we don’t find a way to release and pardon the people who hurt us, our pain and anger settle at the bottom of our souls.  Then without knowing it, they find each other and begin to grow.  Over time the rage and tears of others hurts takes on a life of its own.  That is when the gorilla comes to live with us.  Now he’s larger, more powerful—overwhelming.

Living with the gorilla changes everything about us.  Nothing in our lives goes untouched.  An unforgiving HEART affects everyone and everything we touch.

Divide your life into 2 periods: BG (before gorilla & AG (after gorilla).  How did you view people before the gorilla came into your life?  How did that perspective change after he moved in?  Write down the words that describe your perspective in each of these periods.

29 Getting Rid of the Gorilla #3

“I began to BELIEVE the truth, and it set me free.”

It’s only when it reaches down deep into the HEART that the truth begins to set us free, just as a key must penetrate a lock to turn it, or as rainfall must saturate the earth down to the roots in order for your garden to grow.

Most of us are embarrassed by our emptiness and woundedness.  We feel ashamed that we are not stronger or more together.  We know we are meant to embody strength, we know we are not what we are meant to be, and so we feel brokenness as a source of shame.

There is so much fear beneath the surface:  fear that I will fail, fear that I will be found out, and finally, fear that I will ultimately be on my own.

It is so important for us to grieve our wound; it is the only honest thing to do.  For in grieving we admit the truth—that we were hurt by someone we loved, that we lost something very dear, and it hurt us very much.  Tears are healing.

In Good Will Hunting there is a great scene of what can happen when a person realizes they have “owned”  their wound and discovers they don’t have to.  Will Hunting is the brilliant young man who works as a janitor at MIT.  No one knows about his gift because he hides it behind a false self of “tough kid from the wrong side of the tracks.”  He’s a fighter (violent man).  That false self was born out of a father-wound.  He doesn’t know his birth father.  The man who was his foster father would come home drunk and beat Will.  Will is ordered by a judge to see a psychologist, Sean.  They form a bond; for the first time in Will’s life, an older man cares about him deeply.  

In this scene, where Sean says over and over again to Will that what he went through as a boy was not his fault. Put yourself in Will’s place for a moment, and let it be true for you.  All that happened—your father’s wounding of you, the way the world weakened you—none of that was your fault.  Don’t reason back and forth; you might not even think that it was your fault.  Don’t try and “feel” anything.  Just stay with the sentence for awhile, allow that to be true for you.

Let the tears come.  Get alone and let the tears come.  It is the only kind thing to do for your woundedness.

Allow your self to feel again.  And feel you will—many things.  Anger.  That’s okay.  Anger’s not a sin.  Remorse. Of course you feel remorse and regret for lost years. 

                                  It’s not your fault.

What should you have learned here?

What issues were  raised in your heart through this?

What are you being asked to let go of?

How have you mishandled your wound to this point?