🪤 TREE 477: Forgiveness is stupid and annoying

It turns out that moving across the country takes a lot of work. I’m moving in 12 days. I’ve come to the conclusion that I can either write TREE for the next two weeks or I get everything ready for when the movers arrive. I’m choosing the latter. FFOREST will be back on Monday 7 November. I’m very sorry for this interruption in service. Please forgive me. Speaking of…

You know that thing where someone does something nasty to you then carries on living their life completely untroubled and facing no consequences for their actions?

And then, alongside your pain, you are left a terrible choice.

Do you (rightly) hold on to the injustice of what was done to you and let it ferment into a corrosive bucket of bile in your innermost self?

Or do you (completely unreasonably) do the hard, painful work of letting go of that nasty thing that was done to you so that you can be healed and unstuck from that terrible moment (or era) of your life?

The person who did the nasty thing should have to do that work, not you. But, no. You have to do the work or live with the bile. It’s stupid and annoying, but that’s the way it works. Now that we’ve had a grumble, it’s time to get busy with the work of forgiveness. The freedom is worth it.

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Important note: forgiveness doesn’t mean you trust the other person or you don’t set boundaries. It doesn’t mean you pretend what they did was right. It means you let it go. I highly recommend Rob Bell’s podcast miniseries on what forgiveness is and how to do it.

This ruby-throated bird is doing the work of freedom. (Thank you, Midjourney)

Before Rebecca Taylor took over the world as Self Esteem, she was part of a duo called Slow Club. (Spotify)

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Catch you on the other side of the move!
Jeff