Can you admit that there is a lot you don’t understand or even believe? What is the reason why you have to? The sort of thing I am talking about right now is when you feel an affront. The sort of thing when you must ask as if you are talking to the mighty Heavens: “How could so and so talk to me that way? Where did he get such a nerve? Why did I not just walk away? Or why didn’t I tell him off? Where is my pride?” And so on and so on.
Such questions go on and on in circles, and are hard to get out from under.
Let Us accept for a moment that sometimes you will be riled by another’s words or actions. Let’s just for a moment accept this as a premise. That will not always be the case for you, yet, right now, let’s just say it is, that you are good at getting your dander up.
From that point, can you talk to yourself perhaps in this way:
“No matter how riled I am at this person, no matter how justified I am to be offended, I will not hold this against him, the one who offended me. I know better than to hold a grudge, yet if I withdraw myself from this person the next time I see him, if I stiffen, if I look coldly, if I do not meet his eyes, if I do not say hello, if I give any one of those responses or something like it such as turning around to avoid seeing him, I am holding a grudge or a vestige of one against him. If I do any of those, I am locking the crime in place. I am making it indelible. I am certainly making it unforgettable. I am not letting it go away.”
What if you had an outdoor party planned, and it started raining, and the rain spoiled your party? Do you resent the rain forevermore? Do you take the rain to task? Do you feel a pinch in your heart every time you see the rain again? Do you take the rain personally?
Nor am I asking you to forgive. I am asking you to let it go just as I ask you to let the past go, to let it be the past and not ever-present. The scene is over. Move on.
Can you perhaps say to yourself something like this:
“That friend, he sure had a nerve for what he said or did. He also had great ignorance. Do I really think I’m going to get the better of him by matching my nerve and my ignorance to his? From now on I wish to let the incident go as I would a mosquito that bites me.
“I will no longer carry the thought within me: ‘He isn’t my friend, after all. He wasn’t loyal to me. He let me down. He offended me. He doesn’t care about me. His friendship was not true.’
“From now on I will think of what kind of a friend I am, what kind of person I am. I do not have to be quick to take offense. Nor do I make myself inferior by letting the offense go. I can still be a friend. And if I cannot still be a friend, then I can be a pleasant acquaintance and no longer sense danger or stiffen my spine when I see this person. I do not have to be high and mighty. I don’t have to do anything or be anything that I am not.”