Forgiving What You Can't Forget: Discover How to Move On, Make Peace with Painful Memories, and Create a Life That’s Beautiful Again

by Lysa TerKeurst

“You hyperspiritualize what you’ve been through to the point where you deny your feelings rather than actually deal with your pain.”

This is an epidemic; people use religion to minimize, ignore, or invalidate their emotions or experiences rather than cope or address it

I’ll then remember that the hurt they caused was most likely from hurt they carried. It doesn’t justify their actions, but it does help me have compassion for the hurt they have surely suffered.

Being taught to stuff feelings early in life can sometimes mean you never learn how to properly understand feelings later in life. Feelings serve a purpose. Feelings inform us of issues that need to be addressed. They also help us empathize with others, bond with others, and know when we need to give and receive emotional support.

Revenge is paying twice for a hurt that someone else did to you. You pay a price when they hurt you. You pay double when you carry that pain inside your heart and it causes you to say and do things you wouldn’t otherwise say and do.

So, I shift from efforts of control to efforts of compassion.