Forgiveness is a term used falsely by many. It is not important for you to forgive another. What you need to do is stop torturing yourself about what occurred. Whether you forgive or not is irrelevant. The healing comes from letting go of the judgement, the hatred, the grief, the sense of betrayal or wishing it could be different, letting go of the need for revenge or expecting the person to say sorry or make amends. Peace comes from letting go of all that and accepting the person as they are, accepting what occurred and no longer fighting the emotions around it. Feel and release the emotions then move on.
It is only when you repeatedly tell the story of how you were wronged that you stay in pain. Choose to tell a different story, choose to focus on the growth that resulted, the personal insights and awareness that you wouldn’t have gotten without that painful experience. Choose to see the good that has come from it or if you can’t see the good yet, know the opportunity that is before you to heal will lead you to goodness, to purity, to innocence and love. It will lead you back to your heart and God and that is a gift.
Without the suffering, many of us wouldn’t go on our personal development journeys. So the pain is a catalyst pushing us to find the light. So those who inflict the pain are really helping us evolve. So there is no wrong to forgive. In the bigger scheme of things, we could thank the person who hurt us, because their actions led to our growth.
So let go of the idea of forgiveness. You do not have the power to condemn or influence another’s actions in the sense of forgiving them lets them off the hook. There was no hook in the first place.
Each person walks a challenging journey while on Earth to learn and grow from. For some, the challenges start when they are young, for others in their mid or later life. We all struggle. We all grow. We each have the choice about how we respond to the experiences in our life and what we think about them, the stories we invent around them, the conclusions and assumptions we jump to, all determine how much we suffer and how long we stay stuck.
Let go of the story, the drama, feel the emotions about it all and return to peace. It doesn’t matter whether or not the person/perpetrator has changed or not. You and you alone determine how long you are kept in the jail of misery by your thinking and the actions you take.
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) can help to shift out the dense energies, the energetic blocks stored inside you from all the painful, shocking and traumatic events in your life. It can help you to come out of freeze, shut down, depression and make it a little easier for you to then take action to move forward. It is just the old energy that weighs you down, clogs your system and leads you to feel hopeless, helpless and pessimistic like it won’t get any better. Life is changing every day as you release the old energies and open to the new. TRE is one of many useful tools you can use to help heal your past and move into enjoying life more.
Choose to see the flowers and beauty all around you. Choose to see the blessings in your life and how far you have come. See the love that is there at your core and in the core of all beings. See the love, joy and innocence of children and know that is who you truly are – a peaceful, loving, contented child who is in wonder with life, learning and growing with all you experience.
There is no such thing as good or bad. These are just judgements, labels we use. But in the bigger scheme of things all events help you evolve and grow. So let yourself and others off the hook. Just love them. Just honour them and accept them as they are – as beings of light on an evolutionary journey, waking up to love and kindness for all. Do not see yourself as more advanced than them or more aware. Try not to go into ego judgements. Just be love and kindness. As you give love and kindness to yourself and those around you, you will attract love and kindness back to you. While you are filled with hate and bitterness, you will attract more of that, people who feel that way or events that reinforce those feelings inside you.
Do the healing work so you feel peaceful and happy within, then your outer world will become that also. It is all up to you. So choose peace and happiness. Choose to focus on the light-hearted things and let the old stories go. They don’t serve you. Each time you relive a past event, you reignite those feelings, that vibration within you. That is why you feel stuck and like it never changes. Because you have hit pause and replay on that video in your life, that memory, that story. You are just stuck in an endless loop of replay, so you never see the later scenes in the movie, where it all turns out okay. You don’t see what is still to come, because you’re focused on that scene only. Let it go, let the scene disappear as you progress forward in your life open to the new possibilities, trusting in life to lead you forward and help you heal. Feel what needs to be felt and move on.
You can reprogram the subconscious beliefs that keep you stuck, thereby making it easier to move forward. Change ‘It never works out for me‘ to ‘Life is always working out for me.’ Change ‘I can’t trust others, they always hurt me‘ to ‘I attract in loving and kind people I can rely on’. Change ‘I hate my parents and my life‘ to ‘I am grateful for my life which is filled with loving and supportive people’. Change your mindset and your life will change. Feel the peace and ease which comes with these belief changes.
Make such changes through a conscious focus on stopping and replacing negative thoughts, through affirmations and repetitive thinking of the positive thought/belief OR make the change more deeply in your subconscious mind using Psych-K, Lifeline Technique, Hypnosis or other methods of reprogramming subconscious beliefs.
There is much you can do to help move towards peace and happiness. It does not have to be hard or a struggle and you don’t have to force yourself to forgive those who you see as having hurt you. False forgiveness is condescending. It is almost like spitting on the other person as you say I forgive you. In essence, you are saying “I judge you, I despise you, I hate what you did, but I forgive you because I am a better person than you. I forgive you and walk away because you are not worth my time or energy“. That isn’t forgiveness. It isn’t loving or kind. It is just emotional pain that hasn’t been healed. It is like having a nail in your foot, you are stuck, you can’t move, it hurts, yet you are saying to the nail ‘I’m going to ignore you and move forward’. You can’t, you’re nailed to the ground! You have to feel the pain, acknowledge it, release it, so the nail dissolves, then you are free to move forward. But you can’t skip the emotional healing and pain. You have to feel it, move through it, to get to the other side.
Life will guide you there. The right people and events will come to help you through it all. You just have to relax and allow. The less you fight against what is, the less you will struggle. Accept and flow with life. Be honest and kind with yourself. At least if you admit you still feel cross with the other person, you are knowing the truth of the situation for you at this time. It may change in future as you heal and it may take a long time, that’s okay. Be as honest with yourself as you can be, then you can stay connected with your heart and its power to heal you, as opposed to being stuck in your head, which can drown you in negative thinking.
Life will lead you forth in perfect timing for your growth and evolution. That is all you need to know and trust in. It will happen regardless of what you do or how much you resist. Life leads you to where you need to go and what you need to feel, to return back to a state of wholeness and love. That is the goal of life and the journey we are all on. We all make choices we later regret and wouldn’t choose to do again. No need to hold ourselves or others accountable for it. No need to shame or blame or degrade someone for their choices. Choose kindness instead, for we have all made poor choices at times and no one likes to feel ashamed or embarrassed about their past. No one wants to beg for forgiveness. They shouldn’t have to. They are learning and growing, evolving just like the rest of us. We can choose to do so peacefully or painfully. The choice is yours to make. Choose wisely. Blessed BE. Amen.
By Jodi-Anne (24 November 2015).
Further free guidance on healing techniques and self love are available on the Life Insights and Healing from child abuse pages of this website.
