On my mind.....

I haven't really shared any deep thoughts on my blog lately so I figured today might be a good day to share just a bit of what is occupying my thoughts the last few days. This semester I took a class about anger reduction and forgiveness. I don't want to sound dramatic but I think that the concepts I have learned and the soul searching they have required me to do have changed the way I look at my life. REALLY! Just one little tid bit of what I have learned is to view forgiveness as the process of letting go of personal hurt and anger. Approaching forgiveness in this light has really been beneficial for me, especially lately because i have had more than my fair share of hurt and anger to let go of! I have to write a paper during this next week about my personal journey with forgiveness through out the semester. I have been feeling a little puzzled as to where to even begin. I feel like I have been working on finding forgiveness in so many aspects that I can't even begin to do it all justice. But most of all I don't even know how to verbalize the change that has happened in me by letting go of my hurt and anger. How can I even do it justice with words?
I have never really felt like I am an angry person, but I am. I just stuff it all down inside and never let go. I just hide it inside of me, but the last few months it has really been coming out in me. It has been freeing, and I literally feel like learning how to feel it and how to let it go has lifted a weight from my soul. In one my sessions with my therapist we discussed "letting go" and what it involves.  He told me about a method used to capture Monkeys where a banana is placed on the other side of a hole.  The monkey can easily fit its hand inside the hole to grab the banana but can't pull its hand out while holding on to the banana.  Monkeys will usually not let go of the banana, making them easy to catch.  For some reason this really struck a cord at me. I have been holding on to way too many "banana's"  to move any where.  I would like to say that I have let all of them go, but that would be a lie.  But I have begun to let go of many of them and while it has been scary it has also been very life changing.  I am finding a new strength I never new I had. 

 I think my life has literally been dumped upside down in the last six months and I have learned so very many things! My relationships with so many people have been altered, some strengthened and some weakened. I have learned to speak up for myself a little more. I have learned to ask for help with different things, and that asking for help shows strength rather than weakness.  I have learned to forgive.  I have learned that letting go doesn't mean forgetting, and it doesn't make me a failure.  I have learned how to make friends and let people in.  I have learned to love myself a little bit more!  I have learned to love others more and try and see the world from their perspective. I have learned to re-evaluate what my original goals were and how to get back them.

While I am glad the semester is almost over because it has been more than I can handle, I would not change one second of it because it has given me the opportunity to become better in almost every aspect of my life!