{"id":12651,"date":"2020-06-02T01:27:21","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T07:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=12651"},"modified":"2020-06-02T01:30:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T07:30:27","slug":"forgiveness-doesnt-mean-that-what-happened-was-okay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/forgiveness-doesnt-mean-that-what-happened-was-okay\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgiveness Doesn\u2019t Mean That What Happened Was Okay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019m still struggling today to find words to express the sadness I feel about what\u2019s happening around the world right now. I was reading back through things I’d written today and came across something I wrote on the 13th anniversary of September 11th 2001 about hatred. It reads:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cHolding on to anger is like drinking poison\nand expecting the other person to die.\u201d \u2013 Buddha<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I thought today about the past events that took place on\nSeptember 11th<\/sup> I couldn\u2019t help\nbut think about the amount of anger and hatred those people had that committed\nsuch horrible acts so many years ago today.  That day should serve as a\nlesson to all of us regarding how toxic anger can truly be and the importance\nof not allowing ourselves to let anger into our hearts.  Anger changes\npeople. It corrodes their souls.  And left unchanged it eventually\nturns to hatred.  And hatred\u2026well hatred destroys the person who\ncarries it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it\nis stored than to anything on which it is poured.\u201d  \u2013 Mark Twain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stopping feelings of anger or letting go of feelings of anger\nisn\u2019t always easy.  When someone hurts us, or wrongs us, or threatens us,\nit is a natural reaction to instantly feel anger.  But it\u2019s learning to\nrecognize the anger, control the anger, and let the anger go that matters, and\nthose are skills we all need to master to have a happy life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Controlling our thoughts is the best way to control our anger.\n In those moments we have to force ourselves to think logically about\nthings.  We have to recognize that what is manifesting itself as anger is\nmost likely actual feelings of hurt or disappointment or frustration.  It feels\nsafer to be angry than it does to be hurt. Anger feels powerful and hurt feels\nvulnerable, so its easy to see why so many people choose to default to feeling\nangry.  Being vulnerable is admitting that you could be hurt even more\nthan you already are and no one enjoys that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026When it comes to relationships we have to stop thinking \u201cI hate\nthis person\u201d and change our thoughts to \u201cI don\u2019t agree with this person, or I\nam hurt by this person, but for my own sake I am going to forgive them and move\nforward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnyone can hold a grudge, but it takes a person with character to forgive. You release yourself from a painful burden. Forgiveness doesn\u2019t mean that what happened was OK.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine how much better things would be if all of us controlled our anger and never let it grow into hate.  Hate is such an ugly word.  The world would be a much nicer place if that word was no longer a part of it.  I think it would be an awesome tribute in honor of all those who lost their lives as a result of hatred on September 11th, 2001 or any other day, if we all committed to make more of an effort to recognize our anger, control our anger, and let our anger go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Praying for peace…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book \u201cWhat Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life<\/a>\u201d ) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m still struggling today to find words to express the sadness I feel about what\u2019s happening around the world right now. I was reading back through things I’d written today and came across something I wrote on the 13th anniversary of September 11th 2001 about hatred. It reads:  \u201cHolding on to anger is like drinking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[395,23688,16310,820,91,2998,743,23689,22544,102,23682,4542,23684,103,23685,23686,35,2748,4946,23690,23687,115,19426,23683,116,10173,4656],"class_list":["post-12651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-anger-is-an-acid","tag-be-the-change","tag-buddha","tag-change","tag-chaos","tag-forgive","tag-forgive-and-move-forward","tag-forgive-others","tag-forgiveness","tag-forgiving-does-mean-that-what-happened-was-okay","tag-hatred","tag-hatred-is-poison","tag-hurt","tag-killing","tag-looting","tag-love","tag-mark-twain","tag-poison","tag-praying-for-peace","tag-rioting","tag-september-11th","tag-soften-hearts","tag-time-to-forgive","tag-tragedy","tag-turmoil","tag-vulnerable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12653,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12651\/revisions\/12653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}