This is similar to a lesson taken from the Spirit Quest Course presented by the Universal Life Church Seminary.
Today’s discourse is about forgiveness. This is a notion that we've all heard a lot about throughout our lives. It’s particularly prevalent in many religions, but do we actually know specifically what it really is and how to attain it?
Forgiveness is, simply put, about releasing. Letting go of the injustices done TO you, or BY you. This is actually a very basic idea, but typically extremely hard to attain. Whether to Forgive or not is your option.
To withhold forgiveness means you are making the choice to stay in pain. Remember that, you at all times have the option.
Forgiveness is done for you, NOT for the other person. The person you won't forgive . . . owns you! You have a lot of your own power tied up in your anger and resentment, when you should be utilizing it for producing terrific stuff for yourself. Rather, you are letting the other person to hold you hostage.
What about if someone sleeps with someone else? You can make the decision to forgive. You can also still decide to separate. Just because you decide to forgive, does not suggest you've got to stay in an unhappy relationship. That is certainly only and always your choice to make. The opportunity to forgive is also only and at all times yours.
“To err is human. To forgive, Divine.â€
Why is it Divine?
It is divine because when you forgive, you move one step nearer to God.
Let us examine what the word is all about.
Forgive: for (in favor of) give (to relinquish, make a present of, donate.)
So forgiving, signifies that you are ‘in favor of relinquishing’.
Let's talk about what occurs when somebody does you wrong. At first, you feel angry, betrayed, insulted, hurt, etcetera.
Following that, you wish to quit feeling like that, so perhaps you might look for the individual who induced in you this pain. You want to scream at them, insult them back, causing for them exactly the same type of pain they caused in you.
In other words, Revenge.
This is really a regular response if you’ve been hurt in any way. As soon you have moved past the initial feeling, it's a possibility that you might just let it go, but if it's a a painful enough thing -- you MIGHT (And I emphasize, MIGHT) think about the idea of forgiving that individual.
If you WERE to considering thinking about forgiving, it may possibly begin with you hearing a dialogue in your head with thoughts like, “Why do I need to forgive him/her?†“How will I be able to ever forgive him/her/myself for what happened?â€
When you keep a grudge and don’t forgive, the pain stays right there -- like a burning coal -- burning its way through every aspect in your life that matters.
Maintaining a grudge is akin to drinking poison and waiting for that other person to die.
When you feel hurt by someone, do not forgive them for "their" sake. This is a big waste of your time and energy. You have to forgive for your own benefit. It may be that the other person never asks for forgiveness, nor will that person extend an apology. If so, then that is up to them. They do not HAVE TO ask in order to be forgiven; it is YOU who must decide to forgive.
I'm going to be discussing some exercises to assist you in releasing pain. First however, stuff you need to find out about how it happened in the first place.
By ‘it’, I am talking about the pain.
Concerning pain, I've got some good news and I've got some bad news. Lucky for us, it's all a matter of perspective. The thing is: You are completely accountable for your own hurt.
That is both excellent news and a bad thing. It’s bad news because you must acknowledge that you are in agreement with the hurt on some level, and the discomfort ONLY gets in if there is a place within you that allowed it in.
It’s a good bit of news because if you permitted the hurt to get IN, then the hurt is a part of you â€" IT'S YOURS - and… you can only move out energies that are YOURS.
You cannot change OTHER people â€" you are able to only make changes to yourself. So if it’s part of you â€" MAKE IT YOURS!
The pain can get in because there's, for lack of a better word, a ‘button’ that gets pushed. It’s like riding on an elevator. The elevator can go to a zillion floors and has buttons for all of them. Once the button gets pushed, it lets you right onto that floor. A similar is true with hurt; when someone recognizes, on some level, that there is a button to push, it’s effortless to zero in on it, activate it, and just allow themselves in.
This is what I mean about you on some level in agreement to the pain. The pain wouldn’t get in if there were no button to push. The insult, the harm, and so forth would have no area to go and would move right on by.
This can be also correct when you have done a thing you don't feel it is possible to be forgiven for. You have another button inside you that tells you that you are bad or that you never can be good enough and that you just deserve whatever unhealthy life experiences that come your way.
Buttons like these are what enables you to hate yourself.
It is attainable for EVERY THING to be released!
Remember, that God adores you. You were designed in perfection, by perfection, for perfection. Your success is guaranteed.
Now that we know how the hurt got in, let's next talk about how you can send it packing. After you do that, you will need to bear in mind the moment you have forgiven someone for anything, you forever give up any entitlement for revenge.
This means you've released holding onto it. You aren't allowed to broach the subject later on, throw it in anyone’s face, or use it as a bargaining chip in any future conversations. Forgiveness allows you to move ahead. Nobody gains from forgiveness more so than the individual who forgives!
When you contemplate forgiving, there are a handful of things to recall which may support your healing. The initial thing is the one we previously talked about:
The pain is ONLY there because you let it in.
The 2nd thing to keep in mind is:
People are normally not AGAINST you, but merely IN FAVOR OF themselves. i.e. it’s generally NOT about you.
The 3rd is most likely the most important when it comes to intellectually releasing things:
Individuals react, behave, do things, as a reaction to their own pain.
This final one is usually seriously valuable to recall when anything takes place to you or after you do anything to trigger someone else's hurt. Everyone has discomfort.
It’s not personal.
Even when it feels completely like it's directed at you, they tell you it’s about you and it’s only happening to you, it’s still probably not.
It may very well be true that you pushed their buttons, but you did so out of own discomfort. Your task then turns into discharging your own personal pain so that you don’t become the victim of it therefore you won’t inadvertently cause any hurt to other people.
AND if they discharge their stuff, there’s absolutely nothing which will stick.
You do nevertheless have accountability for your actions, as others do for theirs. You also really should always apologize when you’ve injured another person, but that’s not what we’re referring to here.
For more about forgiveness, look for part 2.
Author Resource:
This class explains skills about forgiveness and releasing anger, developed at the Berkeley Psychic Institute, teachings of the Enneagram, the Michael Teachings, Spirit Quest Course and many other sources. We also offer an opportunity tobecome a minister for free.
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