A Goddess in L.A.
Every challenge presents an opportunity to forgive. If you refuse this opportunity, you continue to suffer and keep the pain alive.
It’s common for decades old injuries to bleed fresh when you’re carrying the burden of unforgiveness.
Who suffers most from the anger, pain, or resentment you feel? You, always you.
Forgiveness benefits the forgiver and has little to do with the one forgiven.
It may feel as though your sustained upset punishes the perpetrator, or validates the wrong. It doesn’t. It robs you of joy and extends the reach and impact of the wrong.
You can’t dig another’s grave—only your own.
A regular forgiveness practice is vital to your health and well-being.
What forgiveness is and is not:
Forgiveness is the release of persistent negative thoughts and feelings that you harbor about yourself, someone else, or past events.
It is an act of self-love and self-preservation. Its purpose is to release you from pain and suffering, so that you can go on and live in love and inner-peace.
Forgiveness is the reclamation of your power. The event or person who caused you suffering no longer controls how you feel. It is a sovereign act of emotional strength and independence.
It is not the acceptance, approval, or allowing of bad behavior.
It is not the elimination of responsibility, or the withdrawal of consequences.
Take your power back with this forgiveness exercise:
1) Make a list of every person or event that you hold ANY unpleasant feelings or energy towards. Include store clerks, doctors, lawyers, family members, business competitors, spouses, and friends. Nothing is off limits and no perceived slight is too small, or too great.
2) Start where you can on your list. Sometimes it helps to build up to forgiving people you have intense feelings towards by working with lesser upsets.
3) Call up the feelings of unforgiveness towards the person or event. Go deep into the place of upset. (If this idea scares you, do it with the support of a psychologist, spiritual counselor, or mental health professional.)
4) Ask yourself: Who is suffering from these feelings? Recognize that you are bearing the weight of the upset and in doing so the harm carries on. You are its host.
5) Resolve to protect and preserve yourself—to take your power back.
6) Forgive the person/event you’re holding upset towards for not being what you wanted.
7) Forgive yourself for making them responsible for how you feel.
8) Forgive yourself for giving your power away.
9) Reclaim your place as the sovereign ruler of your being and take a joyful action (bathe, write yourself a love note, dance, celebrate, meditate, walk, hug a pet, etc.) to demonstrate your power.
10) When habitual vapors of feelings of unforgiveness arise, remind yourself that you are unwilling to give your power away. You deserve a happy, peace-filled, abundant life. No one can take this from you without your cooperation.
Forgiveness leads to freedom, joy, and inner peace. It’s the best revenge.
I’d love to know how you do. Comment below and share an insight with me.
I love you.
~Cynthia
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