Affirmation #31

You Don’t Have to Forgive

What to do instead when you can’t stop ruminating

Midjourney V6 produces some unsettling images. I prompted it for an image of a woman with a demon on her shoulder. It gave me this. It captures the idea of rumination very well. (Image by author via Midjourney)

People tell me that I am too forgiving, and I agree with them. But I would rather be that than the opposite.

I have good reasons for being forgiving. One is that I am very large. It is rare that I enter a room where I am not the largest creature present, unless I enter a room with a fully grown bear, in which case I might have competition, depending on the species.

When the phrase “is larger than some bears” describes you accurately, you have to change your orientation towards anger if you want to get along with others. I prefer to keep copacetic, and being forgiving is part of that.

The biggest reason, though, is that grudges hurt. They’re the diamond tips on the drill-bit of madness, ripping holes in the grain of an otherwise healthy soul. Grudges sever a person from others. They sever a person from their own self; under the sway of an obsessive pattern of rumination food becomes tasteless and addiction becomes rest. A strong grudge chews at the mind like a starving rat.

During my own depression I wrestled daily with rumination. My pain had a crushing gravity; even the slightest mental misstep could pull me into my head for hours. That’s what I wanted to talk…