Words Can Hurt

"Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry." -- Henry Ward Beecher

Do we speak the truth when we're angry? I know that I am often quick to say, "I really didn't mean it," and I may even try to make amends for my thoughtlessness. But people, especially children, rarely forget what was said to them in anger.

Angry words hurt and mark people. Even if our parents didn't really mean it, those angry voices and words are still with us. We often come to believe that our parents didn't love us or respect us; otherwise, how could they have said those angry things that still hurt?

We will always have moments of anger. But we can think twice before letting anger dictate our speech. Words can hurt and people remember.

Saving Yourself

FORGIVE THE PAST!

LIVE THE DAY!

LOOK FORWARD TO TOMORROW!

"Forgive the past by releasing the pain it will only hurt you and others.

Live the day by forgiving the past and looking forward to tomorrow, you can't change either without changing your actions today.

Look forward to tomorrow by building and sharing you love to help you achieve your goals."

LEARN TO LOVE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU CAN LOVE OTHERS!

My dear friend Cliff wrote this for me the other day. He is aware of the struggle I'm having releasing the past, f0rgiving, and moving on. I'm grateful to have a friend like Cliff.

Feeling is the Inner Life; Expression is the Outer Life

I've realized that there's a difference between my ability to feel, my ability to express my feelings, and my ability to let go. I know there are many painful emotions I learned to suppress when I was young, particularly anger or sadness. Other emotions might be difficult to feel because they are connected to past pain.

Yet there's no letting go, no moving on, until I stop trying to avoid feelings such as sorrow, anger, rage or despair. I have found the way to begin working through difficult feelings is to reach out to people with a phone call, email, blog comment or going to a meeting. Other ways I have found to help are writing (blogging or journaling), having a good cry, or plan a healing ritual which can be as simple as taking a couple of days alone, just to think. For some of us, turning to our Higher Power, as we know it provides the spiritual help and nourishment we need.

The release that will come as a result of expressing our feelings will help to ease the pain. It's not realistic to release all of the pain from our past all at once, but we can begin by letting go of a little piece today.

But, I'm ANGRY!

Perhaps we were brought up in a family where anger was unthinkable and never mentioned; voices were never raised. Perhaps everything was bottled up because we were afraid of anger. But we were angry!

It's hard to be angry appropriately. It needs to be learned, like so many things in our emotional life. If we haven't learned to direct our anger in appropriate ways, we may find ourselves flying into sudden, inexplicable and unfocused rages that scare us and people around us. Or else we behave sullenly and irritably for no apparent reason. Or, we get mad now for something that happened long ago, maybe even years ago.

As we try to better ourselves through personal growth, we learn how to direct our anger and get angry in a justifiable and appropriate way. It's good to get rid of our anger for the past, so that we can concentrate on living fully in the present.