The Importance of Forgiveness

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Attention is your most valuable currency. Remove it from where it isn’t appreciated.

Mend the bond you have with yourself by knowing your needs.

Never settle for the bare minimum, nor feel you must prove your worth.

“Pain dwells in the invisible thread that keeps pulling you back,” writes Najwa Zebian in The One Who Broke You Can’t Heal You: Let Go of Toxic Bonds and Build Healthy Ones. “Healing requires stepping out of that wounded bond and repairing the bond you have with yourself.”

That’s only one of many gems that Zebian, a Lebanese-Canadian author and educator, extols with her core message that those who break us aren’t the ones who heal us because the wound lives in the bond itself.

When people stop waiting for three things, in relationships especially but also in life, they can find freedom to let go and move on.

1. Stop Waiting for Apologies

When we’re hurt, an apology validates that hurt and begins to make amends. “People who genuinely feel terrible for what they did to you, and who want to fix what they broke, will show you through words and actions,” Zebian writes. They won’t make you question yourself, nor minimize or gaslight your reality. They’ll own it.

What happens, however, when that never occurs? It’s beautiful to get an apology, but do we truly need one? Yes, that........

© Psychology Today