When you spend your days encountering pain and suffering, you look for ways to find comfort. It isn’t easy to find if you are looking in the wrong places. True comfort that is…Addictive activities bring some relief from the overwhelming feelings of pain but then you have to engage in the addiction again, to find that comfort once more. It’s an endless, downward spiral.

As a therapist who works with traumatized children and adults, I have found that the most lasting comfort comes from within, not without. It isn’t in things or activities, although they can provide some distraction. It comes from our hearts and minds as we battle the negative interpretations of our lives and relationships in the aftermath of trauma.

True comfort begins by clearing out our own judgements. Hurts result in resentments which turns into isolation and insulation from others. We want to protect ourselves. They is a normal, innate response to pain particularly when it comes from those closest to us. The pain programs behaviors that protect but this also cuts us off from sources of healing. How do you find real comfort in this season of “joy and hope?” Let’s start with forgiveness.

Most people are fearful of forgiveness. Is it because there are common myths about what forgiveness is and why we should do it.

Forgiveness is not staying a victim or allowing further pain to come into our lives from toxic people. Forgiveness is not forgetting what has been done. We need to remember so we have the wisdom to make healthier choices and set boundaries.

Forgiveness releases the angry toxins from our thoughts and emotions. It doesn’t have to benefit others, although it may. It won’t always result in a reconciliation with others but it could. It doesn’t happen in an instant and might even take a lifetime to completely forgive. That’s ok!

Forgiveness sets us on a course of self-directed healing of the hurt. It must become a lifestyle and not a one time answer to all our pain.

Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, in her book Bearing the Unbearable: Trauma, Gospel, and Pastoral Care states: “The God who alone sees the human heart is the God who alone who may judge.”

Let us let God be God to judge others. That is too big a burden for us to drag around. Let us be free of the weight of past pain and hurt. Let’s allow more love and comfort to enter into our lives. Let us us find comfort this Christmas by giving ourselves an lasting gift.

You can learn more ways to walk in healing with the courses at familyhealer.TV