There are two types of pain:
In this section, we are focusing on emotional pain.
Emotional pain can be very difficult to endure, especially if the pain was inflicted by a loved one - someone we trusted. We feel a sense of betrayal and that makes it difficult for us to learn to trust again. Thus, the destruction and upheaval to our life may seem overwhelming, and the loss irreplacable.
Yet, out of all these pain, fear, anxiety, anger, confusion and many more mixture of emotions, we must continue to live on, to endure, to bear with them.
If we are to overcome them all, we must heal from our deep wounds. We must find a way to bring ourselves out of the deep darkness that we have descended into, and reach out to the light. We must find a way to forgive ourselves as well as our perpetrator.
Self forgiveness is essential to our healing.
So here we will take a closer look at forgiveness:
Forgiveness is a conscious decision to:
It is an act of compassion towards oneself, to free onself from the bondage to a past hurt.
According to Fred Luskin, an American researcher in forgiveness, grieving must come first before we can start to forgive. He further pointed out that a successful forgiveness requires:
Reverend Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho presented a Fourfold Path of forgiveness in their "Book of Forgiveness".