Lately, I’ve
been thinking about quality of life. Natural health practitioners believe they
achieve a better quality of life. I, for one, maintain that because of the
state of my health, my quality of life is better than it would have been
otherwise. I support that conclusion by comparing my health to that of
friends and family my age or younger and because of the success I’ve had
treating various personal conditions throughout the last 12 years.
But I want to
focus on other factors that influence quality of life. At this time, I have
identified four key factors that affect it:
- physical and mental health,
- financial health (or freedom or security),
- time freedom, and
- inner peace.
Today, I want
to focus on inner peace. I believe that inner peace is a result of the state of our walk with God. God is forgiving and wants us to also be forgiving. Yet
I have found forgiving some people to be hard.
So I read
with interest a book entitled, “The Forgiveness Habit” by Jo Ann Rotermund. The
author claims that “forgiveness is not:
- a sign of weakness, ignorance, or low self-esteem,
- forgetting the past and putting yourself at risk again,
- repressing your anger and pretending you haven’t been hurt, or
- refusing to hold people accountable for their behavior.
“Forgiveness
is something you do for yourself, not for anyone else….When you forgive, you
actually set yourself free….Forgiveness clears emotional toxins from your body
and boosts your immune system.”
Rotermund “spent her life being a victim until 2001, when her study of
forgiveness helped heal her past and bring personal power, freedom, and joy
into everything she does.”
I
personally know Jo Ann. She is part of my networking group in Houston. I have
tremendous respect for the research and thought she put into this book. Reading
it exposed me to the reasons why forgiveness can be so hard.
