Forgiveness has to sides, we must forgive and we also need to be forgiven.

Unforgiveness builds a wall around us and can hold us back in life.

Unforgiveness can cause stress in our lives and stress causes eighty per cent of our sicknesses.

When we do something wrong to other people it affects us as well as affecting them, so the sooner we apologise and turn away from the problem the better it is for us. Once we apologise we start to knock down the wall that we built up. It is the same when somebody does something wrong to us, the quicker that we forgive them the better it is, otherwise it festers and builds up hate which also affects us physically as well as mentally. When we forgive and are forgiven it sets us free to live a more healthy life.

 

Because people are generally self-centred, they think that everybody thinks as they do and do not always realise that they are doing harm to others by their words or actions. When we approach them to forgive them they do not know what they have done wrong, we must forgive them and also ourselves for misunderstanding what they have done.

Forgiving ourselves is as important as forgiving others. Everything that happens to us in life is because of choices that we have made at one time or another. Often these choices are wrong because we have made them for the wrong reason, or we did not know all the facts. To be able to move on in the right direction as well as changing our choice we need to forgive ourselves for making the wrong one rather than looking for someone or something else to blame. Laying the blame on others holds us back from going forward.

 

Authority, responsibility and accountability – these three must always be in play for if they are not working together we get the wrong results.

We all have the authority to be in control of our lives, we are responsible for what we do and accountable for how we do it.

Some people try to take the authority from others but still hold them responsible and accountable – this is a form of bullying.

The definition of bullying is making other people believe what the bully believes, whether it is right or wrong. Once we accept this the bully has authority over us and the only way to get that authority back is to stand for the truth. Confront the bully and forgive them for what they have tried to do, and forgive ourselves for accepting what has happened to us.