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5. Understand what letting go means.
Letting go doesn’t mean that we forget, ignore or deny that our relationship mattered and simply move on. None of us are absolutely free from our past, but we can experience freedom in how we see our past. While we cannot change what has happened, we can change the way we respond to it. We can develop a new perspective.
Letting go is accepting my circumstance no matter how unfair it seems or how much I don’t like it. If your former relationship is ongoing, learn how to manage your former relationship, but do not try to control them. Give up your need to understand your former’s behavior. Quit accepting responsibility for what is not your own.
Know that you are not responsible for your former’s choices, only for your own and your children’s welfare. Your future can be better than your past.
6. Forgive your former and yourself.
No matter what happened, you need to forgive. We all knowingly or unknowingly inflict pain upon each other. It doesn’t matter if the painful actions came out of self-defense, self-preservation or revenge.
Blaming will not reduce your pain, but instead harden your heart and prolong your pain. Seeking pay-back or getting even might even feel good for a time, but it will lock you into your own self-imposed bondage. Give up the blame game and forgive your former and yourself.
Psychologist and author Lewis Smedes said, “Forgiveness is surrendering the right to hurt back.” Forgiving your former and yourself is a crucial and inescapable step to your healing. Isn’t it time to forgive and move on?
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