Feeling Light with Forgiveness

I just posted this on my little message board... but I think it's important that I continue to share from my heart out here on my blog!

You can comment here.. or if you want more privacy, you can comment in on the message board. :)
Here's my post:

Have you ever stopped to think about why you feel certian things sometimes? I've noticed lately that my mood really has a lot to do with how I feel physically. When I am worried or anxious... or angry and resentful.. my stomach is in knots, my shoulders hurt and the effort to even frown seems to be too much. I "feel" fatter on days when I'm grumpy.. my pants seem to be too tight, and the image in the mirror.. with it's complimentary frown.. is not something I can be proud of. My husband and my kids can always tell right away when something is wrong with me.. dh describes my mood as "heavy".
And I recognize now.. that is part of what kept me so "heavy" for so long. I might have faked my smiles and told everyone I was fine.. and gone about my life ignoring my physical pains.. but deep inside.. I felt all these reactions to being hurt.. and staying hurt... stubbornly staying miserable.

And then.. somewhere along this journey. I discovered that people weren't something to be afraid of. People weren't something to keep at arms length away. People didn't see me they way my physical condition felt.I also discovered that the more I opened up to people.. the better I started to feel. I learned that people were glad to be around me... and people were happy to know me. And that felt good. That was the beginnings of my learning about joy.

I didn't need food to make me feel good.. I now had people in my life who read my thoughts (literally) and liked me! I remember a few pages in my Kimkins journal... when I mentioned realizing that people liked me.. and for like 2 pages.. I had people come in and just tell me that they liked me. It felt wierd at first.. but it did something inside me and it energized me and filled my heart with something more important than what I was filling my stomach with. Acceptance.
Then... somewhere along the way... I got into the whole "drama" and ended up finding out that lots of people didn't like me! (well, I guess that's kind of harsh, since those people didn't even know me...) but anyway.. they said things to me that made me feel very NOT LIKED.. and it hurt. BUT.. it didn't take away all the good stuff I had already learned. It made me feel sympathy!
I almost took that negative stuff and let it get to me. I almost let it build up in my stomach, my shoulders, my face.. my heart.... but I realized quickly how HEAVY it was making me feel. So.. I went deep into prayer.. and came back to feeling the joy that I had been taught for the past 8 months. And I discovered that JOY is much more powerful than any of those negative feelings!
so.. I dug a little deeper... and realized that the reason why the things those people said made me so upset had nothing to do with today's events. What they were saying was hurting me, because I had grown up with a fear of dissapointing others. (I'm sharing this here.. because I have a feeling that I'm not the only one!) so... thru prayer.. I let the Lord show me WHY i feared dissappointing others so much. And you know what? I found out it was because someone had dissappointed me a long time ago... and I had never forgiven that person.
So... that's what happened to me this past week. I forgave that person.. 100% completely free and clear for the way that they had dissappointed me. It was like a light being turned on in my head when I did it... a light that showed me suddenly that my fear of being hurt had robbed me of many years of relating to that person in a healthy way. And... the only way to "make up" for that... was with real forgiveness... of her.. and of myself.
Guess what... It feels so much better now! :)
I honestly feel "lighter" because of it, and my stomach isn't knotting up in response to all of "today's drama", and my shoulders are relaxed, and my face is relaxed. There is a power in forgiveness that will help us with our weight problems.. and even more so with our self esteem. Holding a grudge, subconsiously... forces us to "carry a weight" that we don't need to carry. so try it... let it go! Forgive whoever has hurt you.. and let your JOY be full! :) :)