Healthy Happy Loving Life: Choose Joy!

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forgive, joy, Kebba Buckley Button, Practice gratitude, Release the past

© 2020 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

Photo by Shutterstock

Today we’re talking about the number one thing you can do for yourself:  choose joy!  Joy not only feels wonderful– it causes our body chemistry to shift in ways that make us stronger and more well.  Whatever your state of mind, situation, or health, this is a primary strategy for any good thing you want in your life.  Wait– strategy?  There’s a strategy?  Yes!

And here is how you get there.

• Forgive
• Release the past
• Practice gratitude
• Repeat

Forgive:  Much has been written about the power of forgiveness and how to forgive.  Bernard Baruch said,

One of the secrets of a long and healthy life is to forgive everybody everything before you go to bed each night.

Resentment, anger, and hurt impact your body in specific and pervasive ways.  The longer you hold these within, the more they turn into headaches, back pain, dis-ease, and deep health issues.  I have a number of articles on forgiveness.  You may want to start with this one: https://kebbabutton.wordpress.com/2016/08/10/upbeat-living-lighten-up-with-forgiveness/  And remember, this forgiveness is for you, not for them.

Release the past:  Whatever you need to do to turn forward by releasing your past, do it for you!  You don’t need to contact the friend/colleague/relative who wronged you.  You don’t have to hold confrontations.  You simply need to make a decision that your NOW and your FUTURE are more important than the mistakes you and others made in the past.  And this decision itself will set you free.  Tools like counseling and journaling will also help.  Do it!  A great affirmation, author unknown, is:

I bless and release all past failure, fear, and alienation.

This is a great one to post by your computer, in your kitchen, or anywhere else where you tend to stop and think about your unsatisfactory past.  If you are a Christian, then you know you are forgiven, so it’s definitely always timely to bless and release all that stuff.  Another way to look at your own “E & I”, or Errors and Immaturity, is that it wasn’t the present You who made those mistakes.  You are not the immature person you were at 8, or 18, or any other previous age.  Each day you are a fresh new you, and your NOW and your FUTURE beckon to be created.

Practice gratitude:  This one is the simplest, yet most therapeutic, tools you have.  Write lists of everything, big or tiny, that you are grateful for.  Keep a gratitude journal or a cumulative list in NOTES on your iPhone.  The more you notice that is good and excellent and worthy and enjoyable in your life, the more you will notice.  So write these down.  Marianne Williamson has said,

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.

Repeat:  In a noisy world, it is easy to let these tools fade or rust.  Keep this article handy somewhere.  Review it, practice the 3 skills, and notice your joy building!

As you practice moving more into joy, you’ll find your heart getting lighter and your smiles becoming more frequent.  Your relationships will shift.  You’ll feel more healthy.  There may be people and situations you will vibrate away from or who will vibrate away from you: you are simply too joyful for them.

 And now you’re in the realm of Healthy Happy Loving Life^sm!

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Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life.  She also is an ordained minister and has a natural healing practice. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within:  Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine.  The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office.   To email us, kebba@kebba.com .

Books by Kebba Buckley Button

UpBeat Living: Forgiveness Part 2: Forgiveness for Empowerment

Tags

allergy relief, Amish, at choice, Dr. Eileen Borris, forgive, Forgiveness, Grudges, moving on, peace, peace within, Peacemaking, personal peace, stress, The Dalai Lama, UpBeat Living

© 2014  Kebba Buckley Button,  MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

Dr. Eileen Borris

In Forgiveness Part 1  (http://wp.me/pw4HM-jI), we talked about how important it is to your own health and wellbeing, to forgive.  The extraordinary forgiveness of an Amish community showed how humans can choose to follow their faith, forgive murders, extend compassion to the family of the murderer, and move on in constructive ways.  This time, we consider the work of an international reconciliation expert and how we can choose to be affected by her work.

 

Dr. Eileen Borris (www.globalpeaceinitiatives.com) can teach you what you need to know about finding forgiveness.  She has been teaching forgiveness and reconciliation around the world for the Institute for Multi-Track  Diplomacy (Washington, DC), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).  The last time I saw her she had just returned from giving workshops in Kuwait.  She was about to go to Rwanda, for the Healing Wounds of History Conference.  Wherever she goes, Dr. Borris transforms.

 

It is possible to realize that the past is past, that continuing to feel anger and hatred serves no purpose.

~ The Dalai Lama

 

In her book, Finding Forgiveness, the Foreword is offered by none other than His Holiness, The Dalai Lama.  His Holiness points out that: “When we become angry, we stop being compassionate, loving, generous, forgiving, tolerant, and patient altogether.  We deprive ourselves of the very things that happiness consists of…it is possible to realize that the past is past, that continuing to feel anger and hatred serves no purpose.”

 

Dr. Borris’s core methodology involves 7 steps:  becoming clear, telling your story, working with anger, working with guilt, reframing the situation, absorbing pain, and gaining inner peace.  She does not ask you to deny the wrong that occurred.  She does not ask you to forget it.  She does not ask you to not-seek appropriate justice where a crime has occurred.  What she does do is expose the complexities of forgiveness and invite you to work this process, ultimately setting yourself free.

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM

 

Why do we need to forgive?  The final purpose for the individual is empowerment.  You  are at choice at all times.  When you forgive, you get back your power over whoever made you their victim.  Dr. Borris makes the point that animals do not hate.  Hatred requires conceptual thought.  But humans are able to hold thoughts of hate and vengeance lifelong.  How much energy does this steal from a person’s upbeat living lifestyle, joy, health, and productivity?

 

Try this for a moment:  bring to mind some terrible personal injustice that was done to you, which you have had trouble forgetting.  Perhaps someone attacked you.  Perhaps a boss treated you badly or even fired you unfairly.  Perhaps Mom always loved your sibling better.  Perhaps someone badmouthed you, telling tales that were totally unfounded.  Bring this injustice to mind and feel vividly the stress and emotions that come with it.  Did your heart hurt or your back tighten up between the shoulder blades?  Did your shoulder tops tighten painfully?  How about your neck, your head, or your stomach?  Do these sensations feel like they are blessing or enhancing your beingness in any way?  Of course not.  So what has the toll on your mind, heart, body, and spirit been, in the months or years since the injustice occurred?  Is that toll enriching your life in any way?  Of course not.

 

 Whatever your faith basis, does it make sense to hang onto any burden you do not need to hang onto?

~ Rev. Kebba Buckley Button

 

If you would like to challenge yourself, try the following exercise.  Get a pen and paper, and make notes of your thoughts and experiences as you do this.  Imagine your life if the injustice had never occurred.  What hours would you have spent enjoying life and your loved ones?  Would your marriage be better?  What friendships might you have developed, based on sharing happiness and companionship, that you did not because of the injustice?  How well would you have slept?  What excellent health would you have had all this time?  How much better would your concentration have been, on the job or in fulfilling recreation or charity work?  Would you have earned more money?  So what if you could have forgiven this injustice early in the game, and not spent any of this time on distraction, negativity, complaining, and generally experiencing a burden?  These may be tough questions for many of us.

 

Whatever your faith basis, does it make sense to hang onto any burden you do not need to hang onto?  You are always at choice.  What is your willingness to possibly hang up self-burdening beliefs about the importance of an injustice to you?  If these questions are provocative for you, why not pursue them further?  Your journey can be very freeing.

 

Now imagine living in a community where everyone is compassionate, everyone forgives and there is no impulse for revenge.  Now imagine that in the World community.  Countries would be waging peace, not war.  Imagine.

 

Some resources for further reading and techniques include:  Bruderhof Forgiveness Guide (www.foregivenessguide.org), A Course In Miracles (acim.org), Forgiveness Foundation (forgivenessfoundation.org), and the Forgiveness Project (forgivenessproject.com).

_____________________________________________________________

 

● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Please comment!

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● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UpBeat Living: Forgiveness Part 1: Grudges and Amish Grace

Tags

Amish, Amish community, Charles Roberts, Colin Tipping, forgive, Forgiveness, grudge, Kebba Buckley Button, Resentment, stress, Stress Management, UpBeat Living, West Nickel Mines School

© 2014 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM.  World Rights Reserved.

 

© Delmas Lehman – Fotolia

This is the first of two articles on forgiveness:  how important it is and how we can get there.

 

One of the highest and best things we can do, for ourselves and our loved ones, is to forgive.  “Forgive what?” you may be thinking.  Most of us are carrying resentments that weigh on us to some degree.  A bad divorce, a child who died young, a random shooting at a market, a loud neighbor—the list is endless.  Some of us are carrying huge emotional burdens, due to past bad memories or perhaps current situations.  Many hurts go on between relatives, friends, and communities.  Allow yourself to be touched by the courageous forgiveness in this powerful true story.

 

On October 2, 2006, a pickup truck backed up to the front door of an Amish school.  It was the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania.  A man who was angry at God went into the school, shot 10 girls and then himself.  Five of the girls died.  This small Amish community could have been devastated and could have shouted about discrimination, invasion, and revenge.  They could have been consumed by resentment and hatred. They could have written books about their pain and sold the movie rights.  They could have sued their way around the court system.  They did no such thing.

 

 Holding a grudge is like drinking poison, hoping the other person will die.

~ The Dalai Lama

 

Instead, they forgave Charles Roberts, the gunman, who had been their milk delivery man.  One of Roberts’ children had died the day she was born, and he could not forgive God for that loss.  Amish leaders went to Roberts’ widow’s home, told her they had forgiven Roberts, and offered comfort for her and her children.  Later, they took the widow toys for her children.  Citing their faith, the Amish gave up any burden of hatred or resentment, embodied compassion, acted out their forgiveness, and fulfilled reconciliation.  They went to Roberts’ funeral and stood with his bereaved family.  They leveled the school and built a new one on a different site, calling it “The New Hope School”.

 

One of the secrets of a long and happy life is to forgive everybody everything before you go to bed each night.

~  Bernard Baruch

 

Roberts’ widow came to the dedication celebration, only 6 months after the shootings.  The community had clearly declared a healing.  A movie version of the story, Amish Grace, ran on the Lifetime Network, and Lifetime reported it was the most watched movie ever broadcast by their network.  The movie is still available.  Clearly, people are interested in forgiveness, unburdening of grudges, and the grace of reconciliation.

 

The Amish story raises afresh the question of what forgiveness is.  A great definition is “giving up resentment or any claim for recompense for the wrong that has occurred.”  This doesn’t mean one has to forget the wrong ever happened.  In the Christian faith, Jesus taught that no limit should be set on the extent of forgiveness (Luke 17:4).  Also, an unforgiving spirit is regarded as a sin (Matt 18:34-35 and Luke 15:28-30).  In teaching The Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4), Jesus instructed the Disciples to pray,  “…and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  So in this view, one will be forgiven by God only to the extent one is forgiving to those who have wronged oneself.

 

Forgive us our wrongs as we forgive those who have wronged us.

~ Jesus, on how to pray, Matthew 6:12

 

In a modern program, Radical Forgiveness, author Colin Tipping says that ordinary forgiveness means, “You did that to me, but I’ll let you off the hook and forgive you.”

Tipping wants people to go a large step further.  He believes in a loving God who has plans for all of us, and that God makes things happen that are good for us.  So nothing is “bad”.  No wrong has occurred.  The Divine Plan has been unfolding for our spiritual growth.  For those who make the perspective shift that no wrong actually occurred, Tipping says, their emotional release can be virtually instant.

 

Whatever your belief system, realize that forgiveness commonly takes years.  And  research suggests it takes a toll on your mind and cardiovascular system.  The field of psychology is not yet in total agreement on the exact definition of “forgiveness”.  But many are promoting the practice for individual, community, and world benefits.  If we can forgive personally and locally, can we forgive globally as well?

 

Are you holding any grudges?  Would you like to feel better?  Think of Amish grace. Try forgiving someone today, and notice how well you sleep tonight.

_____________________________________________________________

 

● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert.  She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc).  She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article?  You can buy Kebba’s books:  just click the links!

• Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). 
• Peace Within:  Your Peaceful Inner Core (Second Edition) (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc)             

● Enjoyed this post?  Please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column!  You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Please comment!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

● Reach the writer at kebba@kebba.com .