We talk a lot about resentment in the 12-step programs. Indeed, it's considered to be the doorway to relapse.
Yet many of us engage it in all our lives. And so did I, until I got into the program.
The idea of forgiving someone who's done us wrong runs counter to how we feel. But how healthy is it? Here we are, walking around, expending our energy on a distant yesterday. An incident so old we don't accurately remember the details. Yet we use our precious moments on this planet reliving and regurgitating something that's quite ugly. Wasting time that we can never recover.
Forgiveness doens't mean that what happened to us is okay. It probably was reprehensible. The only thing worse is wasting our present moments trying to reshape the past so we feel better about it.
