I read something worthy of my attention today. It's one of many that I get to read (once a week on a Monday) since I've started trying to improve my mental and emotional health.

Emotional Well-Being

Think about the last time you felt angry, sad, or blissful. Chances are, your mental state had something to do with an interaction with another person—a sister, a boyfriend, a co-worker, a parent. Marriage and family therapists believe interpersonal relationships have a profound impact on people, and that most mental health issues can be understood and treated by considering a person's system of relationships. Therefore, families, spouses, and partners are all part of marriage and family therapy (MFT).

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, and the waste of spirits. -Hannah More

How Resentment Makes a Heart Heavy

It is understandable and instinctive to experience the strong negative feelings associated with being harmed, insulted, and injured. We want to blame the person or people who hurt us; we want to see them suffer. We want them to hurt every bit as much as we have been hurt. We instinctively look for ways to make ourselves feel better, stronger, back to center. We don't want to view ourselves as the hurt, the weak, and the one under. It feels further humiliating to be unable to right the situation, protect us, or stop the aggression or injustices. Even when we have been victimized, we dislike being the victim.

Resentment creates a heavy heart and fuzzy thinking for the one carrying it. It can result in obsessing and ruminating on what has been done to us or what we have done to someone else. Or, in so many cases, putting childhood events and stored-up hatred and resentment out of mind, only to have them appear as unrelated depression and irritability. It is not unusual for resentment to keep us awake at night, invade other healthier thoughts, interfere in other relationships, and create distractions at work. This is costly and counterproductive, to you, not the person who harmed you. As the adage says, resentment is taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. We who hold the memory, consciously or not, the thoughts and the feelings of the transgression, are the ones who are suffering, and we are the only ones who have the power to transcend the heaviness.

Through forgiving and cultivating genuine compassion, we take our power back; we open the door to freedom. We discover the freedom to be inventive in relating to others, to handling traumatic experiences in a strong and firm manner and standing up for ourselves without damaging anyone else. Being resilient, weathering the next storm or navigating the present upheaval requires an open heart and a clear mind that results from forgiving and having compassion.

To be resilient requires a lightness of step and the flexibility to move and not stay stuck or mired in yesterday. It is through accepting the reality of what has been done, accepting the reality of having been hurt, betrayed, wronged; working through the layers and layers of difficult emotions and thoughts accompanying the injury, and finding ways to improve our life and state of mind that gives us the best opportunity for true freedom from insult and trauma. It is through admitting, feeling, and letting go of the negative emotions associated with the egregious act that we transcend victimization.

Many people are under the illusion that forgiveness lets the misdeeds or wrongdoers off the hook; it does not. Genuine forgiveness is not about condoning awful behavior. Forgiveness and compassion do not green light what has been done. There's no question that perpetrators who are in a position to hurt again need to be stopped. Ironically, the clearer we are, the less saddled with the negativity of previous transgressions, the more creative and effective we can be in stopping further violations. The fewer resentment blocks you have, the more access you have to saying no; cursing the behavior appropriately and in a resilient fashion protects you or anyone else who needs it.

Yeah... I Need To Forgive. I Need To Let Go. I Need To Accept. And Just Love. Well, those things are easier said than done. But I'll try until I finally get it right. Promise. :heart2heart:

Current Mood: I think I think too much!
Current Music: Songs by Depeche Mode

Most of my day was filled with chores to do and spider killing. House spiders suck. I can't stand them. They're little. They make webs in the corners of my ceiling and in corners near the floors. They live off of the blood of insects and like to bite people in their sleep. And (last but not least) they're ugly.

I know those creepy crawlers have a purpose and exist for a reason. But I don't care. They freak me out. I can't stand it when I have to deal with them. It's not fair for them to make a home in my home. Because when they do settle somewhere there's usually a ton of them. And it's usually because it's a female spider, waiting to breed.

Female spiders love making their webs in damp, dark places in the home. They lay their egg sacks there. Afterward, they die. Yet, their children thrive. And it's those children that a homeowner should worry about. Because it's not easy getting rid of TONS of baby spiders.

Also, it's scary business to fight them off. They spread and scatter out across 4 different points of solid surface, crawling fast. They end up everywhere and it's usually directly above a person's head that they travel. LIKE MINE!

My daughter was bitten, which made me furious. So I fought the good fight for my girl and for my other child. Because it's obvious that my son would be next. If it could happen to her, it could happen to him. And I wasn't going to let that happen. I mean, it's bad enough that she got bit, THREE TIMES IN FOUR DIFFERENT PLACES. Grrrr! I simply had no choice but to retaliate.

They're DEAD. ALL OF THEM. *cringing* And I hope I never have to face off another army of spiders EVER again! It's just too sickening for words!

On a less creepier note.... Last Saturday was a surprise BBQ bash for my grandmother. It was planned as an excuse to eat heavily, drink, gossip, act silly and break the noise barriers. Oh, and (of course) for taking countless annoying pictures of EVERYONE & EVERYTHING. So I decided not to go.

I do love my grammy but it wasn't officially her birthday anyway. It's on the 16th and I'd rather take her out to celebrate it. Me and her, alone.

I wasn't up for a surprised anything on Saturday. I was too busy feeling depressed, lost and weepy to even want to go to any damn get-together. I kept to my favorite parts of the house for comfort, with my movies and the book I've been trying to finish for a week now. And sent my kids in my place, which they liked. They had a ball playing until they couldn't stand it, stuffed themselves to the gills and ended up spending the night with one of their relatives. Heh. Good for them. I'm glad I sent them then.

As for the rest... I knew what would happen if I did go and it wouldn't have been pretty. Plus, there was no way I was going to be blamed for bumming out anyone or ending up causing a fight between myself and certain asshats. I chose to prevent all of the things that could have happened if I had chose to go in my state of mind. I mean, who in their right mind would want to go party if they're feeling under the weather? Not me. I know better.

But I think what got me shaking my head and laughing today was the fact that many of my cousins were threatened to go or else. They were told that their car's tires would be slashed the very next day if they didn't go. LOL! Yeah, like that would ever scare me. What the hell were my aunts and uncles thinking? Some threat that was. I don't even have an effing car. Those effing asshats.

Well, most of my cousins showed up because they believed there was a chance our parents would do something like that. But I didn't, of course.

It would take a lot more than a threat to make me wanna attend anything where more than 30 adults and 20 children would be present.

Anyway, that's basically how my weekend went down. But... As for tomorrow, I don't know how it's going to be.

I cleaned. I killed. I finished 2 loads of laundry. I mean, what more is there? lol Maybe, I should talk about the fact that I can't seem to get in to my Xanga site. I tried and tried signing in but the dang thing won't accept my password. So now I'm frozen out of that journal community and no one will know why I haven't come back to update like I promised to or why I disappeared without a goodbye to those I befriended. Go figure.

Now, THAT is worth a huge ranting. But blowing up from anger would be pointless. And messy! lol

Current Mood: Oy! Vey!
Current Music: Songs by Katy Rose

I know I should share something particular about myself since I'm new here. However, I'm still not sure if I'm ready to dive right in just yet. And I'm still in the process of tweaking this journal page. So any musings or rants will have to wait. OK? TTFN!

Current Mood: I wanna nap all day!
Current Music: "Time Without Consequence" by Alexi Murdoch