I want to tell you a story of what happened to me last night.

Lisa and I were invited to a friend’s house. She was one of my leaders and we were great friends. But when I left the ministry and the church we had a kind of falling out. We’ve been working on restoring our friendship, but in the past I’ve found it difficult because of the triggers to what happened to us in the church.

As we were sitting around having drinks and talking, including talking about the church, I realized that I had no negative feelings about any of it. I was peacefully content… more than I had been for years leading up to my departure from that church. I am in the best place I’ve ever been in. A happy place.

This allowed all my negativity, resentment, bitterness, anger, hurt… all of it… to just fall away. I just didn’t feel them anymore. I didn’t have to work on removing these negative feelings. They just evaporated under the sun of my happiness. It wasn’t even like I had to forgive them. It was just, I don’t know, over!

I’ve read about this. I instinctively knew this. Be happy and content with myself and that will release my hold on other people and situations as well as their hold on me. They owe me nothing. I owe them nothing.

I suppose the trick is to allow this to soak into all of my life. Sure, perhaps in this situation is was made easier because I don’t have to deal with those people or situations on a daily basis. But I do have to deal daily with the triggers. I must always rest in my happy place, content and at peace, thereby releasing all those around me while presently living under these conditions.

(I’m not preaching at you here. If you do not feel this applies to your situation, that is your right. Perhaps you have been seriously hurt and the perpetrator is still in your life, in which case how you deal with this is your personal project that I dare not instruct. At a deeply fundamental level, I suppose what I realized last night may be applied to all situations, and that is my personal hope for myself. But you are the master of your own life and reserve the right to handle it as you please.)