Hi everyone, it's Rosie. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Wednesday. So I've been having

a hard time forgiving someone close to me. It's one of those situations where I asked

them for a favor, they said they would help me, and they did not deliver. Now I know

I'll forgive my friend eventually, but since we're on the topic of forgiveness, I want

to talk today about how difficult it can be to forgive, especially if someone has

wronged you in some lasting way. So let's get into why it's important to forgive and

how forgiveness can even be a path to emotional freedom.

Your forgiveness, for me, has always meant freedom, unchaining yourself from that experience,

from something that is keeping you stuck in the maze of the mind. If you're living with

any sort of contention in your life, it creates negative energy and that really depletes

us, and not forgiving gives the other person power, because now they get to live rent-free

in your mind. I mean, we have 50 to 60,000 thoughts per day, and 90% of those thoughts

are the same thing. So if you're constantly dwelling on something that is causing you

to be upset or another person that did something to wrong you, you're constantly letting them

live in your mind.

So going back to the friend I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I was throwing

an event, and my friend said that he would help me, and he totally bailed at the last

minute. I was left holding the bag, and he even showed up at the event like nothing happened.

I was so upset, and obviously I couldn't say anything while we were there, celebrating

with friends. But it took many, many days before I actually was able to have a conversation

with him because of how upset I was. And in the days leaning up to that conversation, it

took a lot of real estate in my mind.

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