No matter what we’ve been through it’s still important to honor and respect others. We want to be respected and treated right, so we need to do that for others. But how do we do that when people have mistreated us or abused us knowingly or unknowingly? How to heal from trauma like that?
Forgive
Traumas and losses can cloud our vision of others. Those traumas and losses can make it hard to forgive others and embrace healing, but we must press on through any murky feelings or perceptions that arise from those situations to see others from God’s perspective. He loves each of us as much as He loves His own Son, Jesus. He never ignores us when we ask for help. Nor does He push us aside because He’s too busy. He never waits for us to get things right and to be perfect before He will interact with us or help us. But yet, in our traumatized, unhealed thinking, we often do to others what we don’t want done to us. This means our behaviors and attitudes may not honor and respect others.
Allow Time to Heal
We need to slow down, embrace healing, and pursue the kind of healing that God’s Word says is healthy for us. No need to stuff our emotions or to push past what we’re feeling to rush on with life, because those unresolved issues typically reveal themselves later in the form of anger, bitterness, and bad attitudes regarding how we treat others. We have to learn to forgive—God’s way. That means that even though we don’t feel like it or even when we can’t forget how we were wronged, we need to “choose” to forgive others. Yes, that takes time, but we must make that choice and continue with it, because it will pay off for us long-term with better health. Of course, it will be more challenging to forgive deep hurts, but we still need to work at making that choice as often as the thoughts of the incident arise. Allow time to heal.
If someone mistreats us, we need to work through that. Meanwhile, if it’s hard to be around that person because they mistreated us, then keeping a safe distance or staying away until we have had more healing is okay. Of course, if the person has been physically abusive, it’s wise to stay away. God’s best for us is to “not” to be abused by others.
So we need to determine in our hearts to choose forgiveness quickly when situations happen. Be kind to ourselves and allow time to heal. It’s okay if we need to keep our distance from people who remind us of someone who has caused us pain until we’ve had more time to heal. Doing these things, we are respecting and honoring our need to heal so we can better interact with others. By giving ourselves time to heal, it will help us honor others and treat them with more respect as well.
You can do this!