“Let it go. Let it go. I don’t care what they are going to say. Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway.” Idina Menzel’s lyrics to the popular Disney movie Frozen certainly hits home with me when I think about different points in my life.
“Let it go” – why yes this is certainly true. It is best to let go of the feelings and behaviors associated with the impact of a negative circumstance, but is it really that easy? No.
Most of us do not realize that when we are impacted by a negative situation – bullied, abused, made to feel like we are less than or worthless, victims of deceit and manipulation, etc. – we carry those negative emotions and the behaviors associated with the situation with us. Over time we think we let it go, but most often we find ourselves in relationships that continue to perpetuate and exacerbate the emotions and behaviors. We don’t plan that. It is something that happens as a result of the cycle that we have unknowingly fallen into.
We tend to block out or close off healthy relationships and behaviors because they begin to challenge us to take a closer look at our negative habits. We “let the storm rage on” and we convince ourselves that “the cold never bothered [us] anyway.” The fact is a limited amount of us like storms and few of us like to be in the cold. The fact is that most of us like to be snuggled up next to the calm and warming fire. We love to be wrapped in love and we want that for ourselves.
This week we are learning to be more merciful. Click here for the handout. Most of us do already show compassion and are merciful in most circumstances, but there are times that we slip up because we have not shown ourselves compassion and mercy. Be kind to yourself this week, so that you can in turn be kind to others.
If you need some help with how to be kind to yourself, here are a couple of ideas:
1) Go to bed 30 minutes earlier
2) Take a walk
3) Spend 30 minutes outdoors
4) Go out and look at the moon and the stars
5) Make a fire and roast marshmallows
And, pray.
Ya’ll have a beautiful day!
All My Love,
Jen
To review On Fire For Life|Day 2 Week 4| Learning to be Merciful click here.
To review the On Fire for Life series click here.
