Anyone who has a spiritual bent, or a desire to improve their life and become a better person, will be already familiar with the relief one feels when we finally have the courage to forgive someone who has dealt with us badly. Whether that be in matters of the heart, career or financially we all wear our wounds at differing depths. There are those who have harmed children, perhaps harmed us as children, those who have betrayed us when we have given complete trust, they may have tossed us aside without a care and left us feeling broken and incapable of love or trust again. And there are those who have physically harmed us with violence and others who delight in emotional torture. How do we forgive those people? Simple, we do not do it for them, for they may never know that we have taken such a brave step, instead we do it for ourselves. We allow the seething growth to leave our bodies and our hearts. Forgiveness is a powerful spiritual medicine that heals us and allows us to be open once again to joy and happiness.
When you learn that forgiving someone, and better still releasing them with love and letting them go, brings an incredible peace of mind, you will want to uncover every area in your life that needs forgiveness. Your vocabulary will change, your actions will change, your desires for living will change. The way the rest of the world sees you will change. Harbouring anger against others does absolutely nothing to hurt them as it is unlikely to have any idea of how you feel or that they ever ever give you a second thought. So why should you carry their burden. Let the universe or their own conscience deal with it. Shrug off the baggage and throw it out of your life. We don't have to forget the pain, or the lesson learned. Indeed we should remember that to avoid putting ourselves in that place again, but we do need to let go of the person who brought that lesson to us. You can rant and rave that the act is unforgivable and that is as maybe, but forgiving the perpetrator will stop the seeds of anger and resentment growing inside you and ruining your own chances and hopes of happiness. Do you want others to look at you and see only the dead weeds of a past person who still controls your life? No way. Forgiveness is like freshening up your garden to allow beautiful new flowers to blossom. It is not easy to forgive a terrible hurt, but believe me it is really worth it. You will see.
When you have done that, ask yourself how much courage do I have? How much do I want a happy and peaceful life? How much emotional releasing and healing am I prepared to do to live the best life I can? If you think forgiving other's is tough, try forgiving yourself? Emotional baggage and stress cause illness, they can even lead to cancer. You can offload that stress if you really want to.
Are you prepared to go on an emotional assault course? Climbing ropes and scuttling through murky pipes while the Staff Sergeant bellows in your ear, you can do better soldier? This is a taste of what you will face if you take on the challenge of self forgiveness. And like all gruelling exercise the endorphins will follow, but not just at the aftermath, but forever. You will be amazed at how good you feel. Perhaps you may shed a few tears along the way, but once you have forgiven yourself, you will wonder why on earth you did not do this a long time ago.
The desire to forgive yourself may come at a time when you feel so many things are going wrong in your life that you need to reassess what you are doing to cause this. However, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the world we inhabit is going through massive changes right now too and that all of these factors can impact on little old you. Global Financial Crisis has changed the employment sector for instance, our cash flow, our mortgage rates, and the geographical changes taking place, floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, mining disasters, acts of terrorism, war, political unrest. Anyone with a sensitive bone in their body will absorb much of this chaos and feel at a loss or feel they are standing at a crossroads, and will certainly feel uncertain of the future. We have learned the hard way that no one is secure, banking away all our money no longer works as financial institutes and countries fall apart taking our hard earned money with them and we have no legal recourse. All that aside, if you still feel that things are beyond your control and you could do better, that you have made a mess of things, that you took wrong turns, and you may have hurt others along the way, chances are that you may be the only one holding a grudge against you, and it is time to let go. Here are four steps that may assist you.
The first step is of course, a willingness to learn to forgive yourself. You may know, or think you know where you have gone wrong. Did you break someones heart? Did you borrow someones money and not return it? Did you leave a great job and are having a nightmare getting a good one ever since? Did you cheat on a partner or abandon a child? We all carry our own skeletons in our closets. The more we have the heavier it is to carry those old bags of bones around with us. We drag behind us guilt and shame for things that happened in our childhood which we blame ourselves for. Things that may have set up a pattern that we must be bad because we were treated badly.
Acknowledging what it is that gnaws at you is step two. Writing down a private list, or keeping a journal will help with this process. You may be surprised at what comes up. Finding an affirmation that works for you will help and is step three. Our subconscious mind is very adept at accepting what we tell it is the truth. An example is that you can say as often as you can 'I forgive myself for all my mistakes and I live a joyous life'. You can say whatever you feel. An affirmation reminds us that we are working towards a goal, and the mind will help us reach that goal when we affirm on a regular basis. It is aligned with the Law of Attraction. Picture yourself in the place you long to be emotionally and you will begin to naturally attract that with positive energy and belief that you really can forgive yourself. Step four is dealing with the mistakes, looking at them and apologising to yourself, or others for not knowing any better at the time, for doing what you thought was best at the time, and to say out loud 'I now forgive myself for....................'. You can do it over and over again, until you know deep down inside that forgiveness is real.
The process may takes days, or months or years, depending on your commitment and your personal attitudes to the acts you feel need forgiveness. I guarantee that when you see yourself as a pure human being, who started out as an innocent loving infant, and who is now willing to cleanse and let go of the past you can delete those old useless files off your life CD. Then you are free to embrace a new future, one where you no longer wish hurt others or yourself, bad habits will cease, your heart, your mind and your life will be 'whoosh' opened wide and love will flood in. You can allow yourself a 'do over' a clean slate and release all the sadness and pain from all those months and years that have gone, gone, gone. Like the wake of a boat, we cannot go back and change the ripples in the water, but we can choose to steer that boat in any direction we wish.
Good luck in your new and emotionally healthy life where you can proudly claim 'It's great to be me'.
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