Jennifer Sparks's Blog, page 3
October 13, 2020
Day 14: Before You Can Let Go Of The Hurt, You Have To Face It
Today’s Journal Prompt: Are you ready to face the hurt caused by others or an event? How are you feeling, use the feeling wheel to be more clear. Journal it out. All of the thoughts, confusions, hurts, feelings… all of it!
Today we’re going to tackle one of the hardest parts of the forgiveness process. Forgiveness, as we’ve established in some of the previous posts of this 30 Day Challenge, is about letting go of the anger and pain so you can move on with your life. Before that can happen though...
October 12, 2020
Day 13: This Is What Forgiveness Is Really About
Journal Prompt: What is one of your go-to affirmations + why?
We may think at first glance that forgiveness is for the benefit of the people we’re forgiving. While that may be true in some instances, for the most part, forgiveness doesn’t really affect them because they’ve long moved on. They don’t waste another thought or worry on what happened to you and how you’re feeling. You on the other hand may be sitting at home, quietly seething and plotting revenge (we know you won’t do that anymore!)...
October 11, 2020
Day 12: Forgiveness Is A Process
In yesterday’s post we talked about the decision to forgive.While that’s an all important part of forgiveness, the next one is the process of actually forgiving those around you. As much as we’d like to pretend that forgiveness is simply a decision we make, it’s not quite that easy. Forgiving is hard and as we established in yesterday’s post, it isn’t a feeling and it isn’t something that comes natural to us.
Instead, I like to think of Forgiveness as more of a habit. We make the decision to for...
October 10, 2020
Day 11: Forgiveness Is A Decision
Journal Prompt: Are you ready to make a decsion? Explain it.
Over the course of this post and the next, which I’ll publish tomorrow, we’re going to take a look at forgiveness. We’re going to examine how it’s both a decision and a process. In today’s post we’ll focus on the fact that first forgiveness is a decision that must be made.
First, let’s talk about what forgiveness isn’t. It’s not an emotion. You don’t all of a sudden have a feeling that you want to forgive. Instead, it’s a conscious dec...
October 9, 2020
Day 10: The Pain You Give Can’t Cancel Out The Pain You Receive
Journal Prompt: Can you think of a time when you felt you simply wanted to get even and then things would be fine? Did they end up fine? How did “getting even” feel to you?
We all get hurt by people around us. Sometimes it’s the people we love dearly and sometimes it’s those we barley know. In either case, it’s something that’s hard to take. Being hurt, misjudged, overlooked, and stepped on isn’t easy. It’s also not easy to get past that pain, anger, and resentment. Our first instinct is probabl...
Day 9: Let’s Talk About Forgiving Yourself
Journal Prompt: Are there some things you have not forgiven yourself for? Explain.
So far we’ve talked a lot about forgiving others in this 30 Day Forgiveness Challenge. There’s one very important person we’ve not talked about yet – and that’s you.
It’s about time we take a closer look at forgiving yourself, what it means, why it’s so difficult, and why it is important.
Forgiving yourself is often harder than forgiving anyone else. We’re hard on ourselves. We are our own worst critics and as a ...
October 7, 2020
Day 8: Don’t You Think It’s Time To Take Back Control?
Journal Prompt: Are you JUDGING some element of the event that you are seeking to forgive?
It can be easy to play the victim, don’t you think? It’s much easier to play the damsel in distress, or the one who was done wrong. It makes us feel righteous and allows us to hold on to our grudges. For many of us, it’s our default reaction whenever something bad happens. It’s easier to blame someone else and make it their fault, whether it’s the truth or not.
More importantly, it allows us to sit back an...
October 6, 2020
Day 7: The Freeing Feeling Of Forgiveness
Today’s Journal Prompt: Have you ever had a change in perspective and suddenly everything had changed for the better? Do you feel like a change in perspective could help you forgive?
THIS MAY BE THE POST THAT CHANGES YOUR LIFE.
What I have been speaking about up until now is what I would consider traditional forgiveness. It is the concept of forgiveness we likely are all familiar with. However, what if there was another kind of forgiveness that we don’t learn much about?
Forgiveness is so import...
October 5, 2020
Day 6: Forgiveness Gives You A False Sense Of Power
Today’s Journal Prompt: Can you think of times when you false forgave? Explain. Did you “win” emotionally?
Something interesting happens when we feel that someone has done us wrong and we choose to hold on to a grudge because of it. I’m not saying it’s good. In fact, it isn’t, but the reaction, and the story we tell ourselves, is interesting. Here’s what usually happens:
Someone does you a wrong. It doesn’t really matter what happens, but for some reason you feel slighted and are right fully ang...
October 4, 2020
Day 5: The Connection Between Forgiveness & Depression
Today’s Journal Prompt: Consider your emotional well-being and share your feelings about how your inability to forgive has impacted your mental health –or — your ability to forgive has helped your mental health.
In yesterday’s post we briefly went over some of the negative things associated with ignoring forgiveness. Today, I want to dig a little deeper and take a look at the connection between forgiveness and depression. There are actually two sides to this story. One involves forgiving, or cho...
