We hope you found time to refresh and recharge your batteries over the recent holidays.
Need to Change or Cancel an Appointment?
Did you know you can manage your appointments and cancel a session, provided you give 24 hours’ notice by using our convenient online booking system? You also have access to all your invoices. If you’re not using the system already, you should have recently received an email from us invite you to the Halaxy portal. You’ll be surprised at how easy and convenient it is to use.
If you haven’t already received an invite, please email us and we will send one to you straightaway.
Additional hours at Caloundra
Melissa Garstang Leary has joined Elissa at our practice on the Sunshine Coast in Caloundra on Thursdays. Mel is available to see couples, adults and children from 9am through to 5pm. This is in addition to Mel’s regular times when she is available on Mondays and Tuesdays at Rothwell also from 9am to 5pm.
Forgiveness
This month’s article and video is from our Director, Elissa, and is about forgiveness.
Click here to watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sta4yKG7Prk?si=dgBHFV4OkDrkUDjS
My name is Elissa and I am here today to talk to you about forgiveness. I’m going to talk to you about what forgiveness is, why we forgive and I’m also going to give you some tips and some tools to help you if you are looking to either forgive yourself, somebody else or perhaps a group of people to help you to get that little bit closer to forgiveness. Let’s have a look at what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is a conscious decision to let go: to let go of those feelings of hatred negativity and resentment. It does not mean that you forget! You don’t forget the incident and you don’t forget the hurt. What it does mean though is that you’re going to let yourself off the hook and you are going to allow yourself to be happy.
Why do we forgive?
Forgiveness is not for them: it’s for you. It’s for you to have that freedom from that burden that you carry around with you: freedom from all that hatred, all the negativity and all that resentment on your shoulders. It’s for you to have the freedom from all of that to allow yourself to be happy. How do we forgive when it just seems impossible?
Four Steps to Work Through
I’m going to give you some steps to work through when you’re looking and searching for forgiveness.
First, think about what’s happened. Why does it hurt so much? Why are you so angry?
Secondly, I want you to acknowledge your growth. What have you learned from the incident? What do you now know about your needs and what do you now know about your boundaries? If you can’t take anything from these questions when you work through them, I really want you to just acknowledge to yourself that you have survived this incident that you have gone through. You are still standing. You are strong.
Next, I want you to think about the other person. What was going on for them? What was going on in their lives at the time? I want you to think that as humans we are all flawed. We are all imperfect. We all make mistakes. We are not making excuses for this person whether that be you or somebody else. We are just acknowledging the reality of the situation. I want you to think about why they went about what they did and what were they thinking and what was going on for them at the time.
Finally, for the fourth step, you need to decide whether or not you’re going to tell them that you forgive them. In essence, it really doesn’t matter because we know that forgiveness is all about you, but if you do decide to tell them it may go something like this: “I forgive you because I can see what you did and why you did it. That doesn’t mean that I forget it, but I’m forgiving you because I’m going to be happy now.” You might choose not actually to confront the person and say those lines to them. You may not even have that person in your life anymore. So, a simple way to do this is to just find a nice place just for you and simply voice it and say out loud “I forgive you.” Allow yourself to have the freedom from all that negativity, from all that resentment No longer carry the burden around. Allow yourself to be happy. Allow yourself to forgive.
How are we doing? Or more importantly, how are you doing?
We love feedback. Its how we can improve what we provide to you or clients. With that in mind, please take a couple of minutes to answer this survey about how we are helping you to lead a better life:
https://forms.gle/Qn3921jVgNpdxL2W6
The survey is anonymous, so if you have any personal questions or comments, please contact us
Have a blissful week.
The Blissful Minds Team