“One evening an elder Cherokee Native American told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins”? The old Cherokee simply replied…”The one you feed.”~unknown
OHHHH…that’s some pretty heavy wisdom right there, isn’t it? I remember the first time I ever came across this little gem of a quote, I remember thinking..”WHOAHHH, that’s a lot of stuff to have to feed.” 😲 I’m kidding……I got the point. It’s so complicatedly simple, isn’t it?
Whether it’s a bad habit, a mal-adaptive coping mechanism, false beliefs about ourselves based on our abusers mind games and gaslighting, or a bad behavior patterns brought on by the abuse, we have a tendency to hold on to these things for years after the abuse is over. The constant rumination can drive us crazy and steal our precious time in the “present”, where we should be the most! We certainly don’t have any control over the past but one thing we do have control over is how we choose to think about it and frame it. For example, instead of focusing on the events and the pain they caused you, choose to focus on the lessons those events taught you, and learn to grow from them. There are always lessons to be learned. When we are able to look back (now that we have some good perspective) on unbearable situations and find valuable lessons within, accept it happened and learn from it, it enlightens us. It makes us wiser and stronger and there is POWER in that! I’ve seen it happen to others and I feel it in myself. That’s my opinion anyway, for whatever it’s worth! Don’t let your suffering be in vain! The first big lesson you should learn is that the abuse was NEVER, EVER, EVER, your fault .(Please read that sentence again!). And please don’t ever fall for the, “Look what you made me do” and the “I wouldn’t have had to do that if you didn’t…fill in the blank”, type comments. They are specifically designed to make us feel like their abusive behavior was our fault. It is not. Victims most often feel certain levels of guilt and especially shame about the abuse, relationship, and hiding it, but we shouldn’t. Any way you slice it, there is no excuse for abusive behavior and this holds true for those that don’t realize their behavior is abusive or neglectful to others (those that grew up experiencing or witnessing such behavior and in turn never realizing or seeing that it is not acceptable.) Hopefully someone intervenes somewhere along the line so they can change their behaviors.
Sometimes we did not make the best choices but please remember, the options we had to choose from were not very good either. Victims of abuse should learn how to let go of that guilt and shame and forgive themselves. There was no way we knew what we were in for. NO WAY! RIGHT??? We were not psychic, we could not have predicted this future for us! Forgiveness is a lengthy process and different for everyone but you can do it! We must have empathy and compassion for ourselves in order to heal from the past. We need to turn that negative “self-talk” into positive “self-talk”. We need to nurture and heal our battered emotions, soul and spirit because after all, they’re still trying to scratch and claw their way back to life…💚🤍💚🤍
Please take a look at Part 2 of this article for more ways to move towards “self-forgiveness”.
