Feeling Some Kinda’ Way

Your life experiences affect you in many different ways, but they are not all of who you are. You and your experiences are different. Your ability to differentiate between yourself and your experience is crucial for your spiritual development and personal growth. That mask you hide behind – it doesn’t really hide you. Wei actually don’t use the mask to hide who they are. We use it to hide the experience from ourselves, not hide ourselves from the experience. So we attempt to forget the experience – to pretend as though it never really happened to us, as though in some strange way that would help.

The misconception is that when the experience is not forgotten the healing has not or will never happen. A client mentioned to me before that she had tried so hard to forget her abuse. When I asked her why forgetting was so important, she put her head down and said, “Because I am forgetting those things which are behind me and reaching forth to the things which are before.”  Like so many of us, she was trying to serve God while being affected by unresolved experiences in her life.  In “forgetting those things which were behind her”, she hid the experience from herself and never really forgot them. The truth is that she probably will never forget them. That’s because Forgetting never brings healing; Forgiveness does.

Experiences shape and influence how you perceive yourself and others. Since no one really likes bad experiences, we cover them in so many different ways. We act like we’re not angry when we are and we say we’ve forgiven when we haven’t. What would happen if you allowed experiences to simply be experiences and not allow them to define who you are?  It would probably make life a little easier. And besides, without experiences there is no life.

Life is an experience and through it God unleashes his blessings. For example, every time you inhale it is a blessing from God. Each time you exhale grace has been extended to you. So as long as you are breathing you will have experiences. Some will be good and some will be bad, but none of them define who you are.  Not dealing with experiences that are displeasing to you can lead to difficulty in your personal and social life.  Healing begins when experiences are accepted and resolved, not forgotten or denied. Acceptance is a prerequisite for healing, just as repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness and forgiveness does not have amnesia.

Here are a few suggestions from my book Un-breaking The Heart<: How To Forgive Anybody For Anything In 5 Simple Steps:

1) Make a list of your personal attributes and another list of your personal experiences.

2) Match your attributes with your experiences by drawing a line to each.

3) Determine which combinations are healthy and which are unhealthy.

4) Begin working on changing the unhealthy matches.

5) Pray and ask God to help you realize your redemption.