True Forgiveness

Forgiveness Newsletter

Forgiveness is an inherent element of being human walking on earth on this path called life.  We find ourselves often in need of either asking someone to forgive us or forgiving others.  Most of us struggle with true forgiveness, yet we must realize that this is an important piece in healthy and loving relationships with others. 

Learning that people are not doing things “to us”, and that they are just doing what they do was very helpful to me to release my resentments.  I would repeat in my mind “it is not about me” hundreds of times, so I could de-personalize people’s actions.  This does not mean that I condone people’s unacceptable behaviors.  I still need to address the issues, but by de-personalizing it, I take the strong emotions out of the equation to handle the challenges with more clarity.

Life will give all of us the experiences we need to learn the most, and if we are good students of life, we’ll be able to take the lesson, work through it, and come out of it stronger and wiser. 

There are many ways to forgive.  I often ask God to cleanse me through the Holy Spirit.  Also, you can use prayer, meditation, affirmations, tapping, etc.  The way to do it will come to you once you make the decision to forgive.  Also, forgiveness must come from the heart and not the head.  This is where some of us get stuck, we say we have forgiven, but we still hold resentment.  If we have conditions to our forgiveness, most likely our “forgiveness” has come from our head.

Why do we need or want to forgive someone who hast hurt us? In some cases, we have been badly hurt and damaged, but forgiveness is for us, not for the other person.  Not forgiving causes us to use our energy and mind to continue to nurture that resentment, poisoning our being and holding us back from being our best.  Once we have forgiven, we experience a liberation at all levels: mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional that allows us to focus on manifesting our greatness. 

Once that our perpetrator has stopped hurting us, we continue to relive the pain and hurt in our heads, repeatedly.  Why?  It is the way the brain is hardwired to guarantee our survival, but if we are not aware that we are doing this, it will destroy us and we cannot blame that other person, that is on us.  We can stop the internal suffering; it is our choice.  I am not saying that is easy, but people do it every day. Forgiveness is about self-love.

Remember that God wants us to be free from suffering, so we can manifest our uniqueness and fulfill our life’s purpose here on earth.  We didn’t come to this journey to suffer; we came here to thrive through love, forgiveness and compassion.  And that is our choice.