Steps to Forgiveness: Transforming Hurt into Harmony

Join me, your hostess-with-the-mostess Nelieta Hollis, as I share my own journey through the storm of betrayal and the healing oasis I discovered through forgiveness. By tuning in, you'll uncover the steps to acknowledge and tend to emotional wounds with grace and humility, helping to prevent bitterness from taking root in your heart. The episode invites you to consider how ignoring pain can perpetuate cycles of negativity and stresses the importance of mindful connections and intentional relationships that support your growth, peace, and joy.

Forgiveness isn't just a choice—it's a powerful tool for personal healing and growth. In this episode, I share the transformative power of letting go of unforgiveness and how it has enhanced my life. You'll learn to protect your peace by being intentional with who you share your energy with, creating sacred spaces that nurture emotional and spiritual well-being. Through mindful interactions and a focus on self-love, I encourage you to release any lingering pain and embrace a journey of personal development that paves the way for success and completeness in life. Join me as we explore the path to healing, growth, and ultimately, victory.

Chapters

• 0:23 Steps to Forgiveness and Healing
• 8:49 Choosing Forgiveness for Healing and Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:23

I've suffered betrayal and I've had to learn forgiveness. I thought the only way to move on was to simply not be angry, to ignore the pain, the way they ignored my plight, to shove the memory of what used to be a worthwhile relationship to the back of my mind, the way they shoved me out of theirs. But that wasn't moving on holistically. You know, when I first moved to Detroit, I'd experienced a cold and snow like never before. Lord Jesus, I look back and I can laugh now and I say, when I tell the story of that move to Detroit, detroit, that I lost a piece of my soul to the cold, the bitterness and the cold that is typical of a Detroit winter. And that's what happens. Constant listener. When you don't forgive and heal your mind, body and spirit wholly, your mind, body and spirit holy, something gets left behind. For years I didn't know how to deal with the tests of forgiveness that kept reflecting in my life until I understood how forgiveness was the key to healing my soul. I'm your hostess with the mostest Nalita Hollis, and you're tuned in to Ways to Win, wednesday on One Degree to Victory, the only podcast that supports women through family traumas, using my experiences to offer hope, practical strategies and the mindset shifts needed to rise. It's time to lock in, load up and lean in. That means clear away your distractions, focus your mental, emotional energy and channel it fully into today's message. Make it more than a topic constant listener. Make it a breakthrough. Today I'm sharing my personal steps to forgiveness. These are the lessons I've learned, the steps I've taken and the process that brought me to a place of strength, transformation, understanding, faith and freedom.

Speaker 1: 2:34

You know we get caught up in trying to understand why people do what they do, why and how they could cause so much pain. And when we can't understand or make sense or meaning of it, it sits with us, maybe in the dark recesses of consciousness, but it's there. It's broken, fractured and buried. And when we encounter situations that cause us to remember, and when we encounter situations that cause us to remember, to reflect, that pain tends to resurface. Just as a deep cut needs proper medical attention, a soul wound needs proper spiritual and emotional care. You can't just slap a bandage on it and hope it heals itself. You cannot ignore it and expect it to disappear. The way I've discovered to truly heal is through forgiveness, not the superficial kind where you say the words but hold on to the hurt, but the deep soul level forgiveness that comes from understanding that holding onto pain only hurts yourself. Here's what I learned constant listener.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Step one to confess that you've been hurt. When it comes to forgiveness, it begins with the courage to acknowledge your pain. Pretending it's not there or sweeping it under the rug may feel easier, but pain left unacknowledged doesn't disappear. It lingers, festers and often grows into something far more destructive. Remember this, and you've heard it before hurt people hurt people, and that's why confronting your pain is so important for you and those around you, especially the ones you love. Unacknowledged, unrecognized hurt doesn't stay hidden and it doesn't disappear. As a matter of fact, it grows roots, pain seeps into your words, pain dictates your actions and pain will destroy your relationships. Constant listeners unspoken wounds manifest as bitterness, distrust or fear, and that's how cycles of pain and woundedness repeat, repeat. Unaddressed hurt creates unintentional harm. I'm a witness. I have been deeply hurt. My God and I have hurt others deeply, and that is not an easy thing for me to say. When we're not careful with our wounds, we become the very thing we despise People who pass their pain onto others. So forgiveness starts with confessing your pain. It starts with saying I see you. That's when your power to forgive begins to rise and you can start to rebuild the parts of you that were damaged and create space for growth, peace and joy.

Speaker 1: 6:02

Step two tend to the wound. How you tend to the wound, it determines how well it heals. What do I mean when I say tend to the wound? I mean cover it with grace and humility, my God. Not making it worse through bitterness, gossip or revenge, but protecting it so whole, complete healing occurs. Protecting it so whole, complete healing occurs when you're tending to your hurt and your wounds and your pain. You need to resist the temptation to spread the details or seek validation from others by airing your pain publicly. Stay off of Facebook constant listeners and stay off the phone. Okay, give yourself the time and the space, the sacred space, to process privately in ways that encourage healing and not more mess and harm to yourself and others. Gossip, gossip is a trap that keeps the wound open, but grace is the shield that helps it heal.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Part of forgiveness is also about being honest enough to see where your actions might have caused hurt as well. Listen, when I realized I'd hurt someone else, my God, it was so humbling and and wrenching heart wrenching that I'd done that, um, and I had to seek forgiveness from that person. But it was also an opportunity to grow. Covering your wound with grace allows you to see the bigger picture, that we all need forgiveness and we all have the capacity to give it. Humility is saying I will not let this wound define me and I will not let it cause harm to others.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Step three is to guard your peace as you move forward through mindful connections peace as you move forward through mindful connections. This step is about being intentional with your relationships and emotional energy so that injury doesn't happen again. The cycle of injury and unforgiveness begins well should end, rather, with you Understand that not everyone is equipped to support your journey and that that's okay. You need to take time to pray over your partnerships, meditate about your potential collaborations. Don't rush into any new relationships. Don't make any commitments.

Speaker 1: 8:49

Don't put people in a box, because people don't want to say no to you and oftentimes they say yes and we cause the hurt and the pain on ourselves by expecting or demanding something, some support from someone that they cannot give us in the moment. So you want to be careful, not so that you don't get hurt, so that you don't put others in precarious situations. So you want to be mindful that people are lifing also and the lifing that they are experiencing. They might not have space for you. They might have the right heart or the right intentions, but they cannot make that time for you and you do not want to add additional stress on them, right? So you want to create these sacred spaces for your emotional and spiritual wellbeing by carefully choosing who you share your energy with also. So forgiveness, through this lens, means that you're choosing to focus on what you can control your actions, your responses, your growth. You can't change the past, constant listener, but you can decide how it shapes your future.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Forgiveness is one of the most powerful tools we have for healing and growth, and it's not easy. It takes courage, vulnerability, grace and humility. But, my goodness, is it worth it. The unhealed portions of my soul, my buried emotions, are fully integrated into where I am today. My God, my capacity to experience success in this season of life has doubled, tripled, quadrupled and grown exponentially, because I am operating from a place of completeness. That doesn't mean I'm done growing, but for right now, in this season, I have what I need to experience and realize success. So if you're holding on to unforgiveness, I encourage you to take the first step, acknowledge it, sit with it and then ask yourself what would it look like to let this go, to release the hurt, the anger, the resentment, to forgive, not for them, but for you Until next time. This is Nelida Hollis, reminding you to love yourself just a little more than you did yesterday. After all, your peace, your freedom and your growth are worth the journey.