When I feel I’ve been mistreated or hurt emotionally, I have a hard time letting it go.  I always hear the phrase “Forgive and Forget” but I just can’t seem to forget.  I remember things that hurt me.  I was talking to my real estate partner about this and she is the same way.  She told me about a great guest speaker she heard recently at a personal development workshop in San Diego, and he basically said the same thing.  When you have wounds, the scars are usually a reminder of the pain.  But here’s where I could turn this around: Don’t forget the pain, but accept what happened and make a choice to forgive.   When I relive the emotional pain of a past relationship, my stomache constricts, I feel tight, sad, and angry at myself, the situation, the way events unfolded.   I can NOT forget how that made me feel.  Even just writing about it makes me….deminish?  I shrink when I think about it, and it stirs up incredible amount of insecurity.  That ain’t going anywhere, but the choice to forgive myself, my ex, the situation is here and now.  Many times I’ve felt that I can’t forgive, but holding on to so much pain weighs the body, mind, and spirit.  Yes that sucks it happened.  But continuing to feed the past with emotional energy prevents me from moving to a new place.  It’s very victimey(Is that even a word?).   I think when unforseen circumstances and unfortunate events happens to me, my first reaction is to “Why Me?” for about an hour.  Then I say, “Ok.  This happend, now what can I do about it?”  or I think “Well, that’s NOT what I want! What is it I DO want?”  Same goes for forgiveness.   You can not forgive someone if you are not making a choice to do so.  Choosing to accept the wrong doings and moving on with your life and forgiving people empowers you to focus on your path.  You have NO control over anything but your choices.  That statement scares me a little…and probably scares any of those controlling type personalities reading this.   But if you only have to control your choices, everything else just happens.  Hmmmm….I like that.  Everything just happens.  Period.  How we choose to judge the events is OUR responsibility.  Take control over your choices.