I myself can relate to that.

There has been a time in my life when I realized how many bad decisions I made, how poorly I have chosen things and how clueless I was in my approach and the way I experienced life.

It happened right after the moment I realized how unhappy I was.

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

Epictetus (55-135) Greek Philosopher

It was my 30th birthday. I woke up and did not want to leave the room, I did not want to see anyone. All I cared about was my 5yo son and the baby I was carrying in my belly, nothing else. I used to live in a tiny 40 mts2 apt with my ex-husband and his mother. It was very complicated.

The marriage was wrong from the beginning, circumstances brought me to that very moment. Four months after my baby was born, I was diagnosed with Melanoma and another one two months later. I had to stop breastfeeding my baby and to me it was the most devastating part of the story.

I had moved away from my family because I was convinced no one loved me or even cared for me. I was alone. It was hard. Two years later another cancer threat scared me and I believed it was my time to die. It was real, I was devastated, depressed and hopeless.

How I came out of that is subject for another day, but thank God I did and am so grateful for it.

Years after my separation I learned to forgive… I thought I did, but I truly did not. It happened while working on my annulment paperwork…

As I relived every single episode of my story, what happened to me and how I used to blame my parents for being in that marriage, my ex-husband for being the way he was and myself for getting stuck into that situation…

I understood that whatever my parents did, imposed or said was because of their belief system, the way they learned how to live, to survive based on their own education, life experiences, perception, how they were raised and so much more. It was not their fault, but the way they saw the world, and it was their reality. The positive intention behind all that was to protect me – the way they knew how to do it. And I forgave them.

The same for my ex-husband, who had his own traumas and problems in life that have never been resolved and he kept living the same relationship with different people – it just happened that at that time I was the victim…

The hardest one was to look into all that I did, chose, things I wish I took another route… Of course looking from today’s eyes, things seemed obvious. Thank God I have evolved. If I had to make the same decisions today, of course they would be different, but at that time, I convinced myself that it was what I knew and did the best I could then. I saw myself as a my younger version, begging for understanding, acceptance, forgiveness and love and I made a decision to surrender to that beautiful young and naive soul. I have also chosen to believe that I am living my own journey – as everyone else – and that there is no right or wrong, but the choices I make that will determine the outcome of it all – and of course the consequences.

Each day is a new day, a new opportunity to start new, fresh and in a clean slate. Making peace with all that have hurt you has nothing to do with them, but freeing yourself up – so that you can finally fly.

Remember the good, let go of the rest!

It is so easy to hold on to bad feelings, to keep going back to moments that let us down. To play over and over again one scene of our lives when things did not go well: the way they were supposed to, the way we wanted, the way we expected…

We did or said something that when we realized was already too late.

Somebody acted in a way towards us that we are still staring at the moment, even after years have passed.

Something happened – and it was not good – it was our fault or someone else’s but the moment got spoiled.

We hear a lot about the “F” word, but when it come to us, it is finally our turn to use it, seems way too difficult to embrace it.

There is nothing harder in life than to practice F O R G I V E N E S S.

No matter if it is going back trying to make amendments regarding ourselves, the way we behaved, the words we chose, the ton of voice we used, the gestures, or just the opposite, our silence and lack of action. Of course after the fact, it is easy to assess and know better. It is like investing in the financial market. At the end of the day, you know exactly the moments you should have bought, you should have sold, or you should have stayed put. However, being present in a live-real time world is harder, making decisions as stuff happen, responding and many times overreacting to situations, some in a way we didn’t mean to.

Looking back we know exactly what we were suppose to do, or to say, but didn’t and now we have to live with all that luggage with us forever, right!?

Wrong. We do not need to keep carrying any garbage with us. Don’t we do Spring Cleaning and other “seasonal” decluttering to get rid of the old and give space to the new!? Why is it so hard to do the same thing with our minds, our memories, our unsettled moments, our “unhappy ending” stories? There are always good things to remember, there is always something, one tiny little positive thing to carry with you – even if you need to use a magnifying glass to find it – that is where we should focus on and release us from the negativity of those “let down” scenes.

The only way to set us free is to put forgiveness in practice:

1. Ask for forgiveness
2. Forgive others
3. Forgive yourself

No matter if the other side (or your older or younger self) is not ready to go along with your kindness…. it is not about them. It is all about you, stop carrying the heavy bag with all the hurt, sorrow, pain, regrets etc. You make peace with the moment, the person, yourself in another life moment. They will eventually have to do the same, whenever they are ready, but by then, you might be already flying, exploring new endeavors…