In beginning this post on forgiveness I explored images that would put a picture to my words. I found there are a lot of images showing people (or birds) breaking free from chains. Why is that…?
Because forgiveness liberates us. It sets the forgiver free. I have seen these images before, many times. But it’s only recently that I am starting to truly comprehend the bright truth that the images convey.
The more I explore it, the more I am aware that forgiveness is rather like an unlimited supply of gold running in rivers beneath our feet, which most of us are constantly stepping over, without even noticing it. We don’t realise how potent a transformational force forgiveness can be in our lives. I know I didn’t. I had read a bit about forgiveness and been ‘interested’ in it. I had put it into practice too. But I will be honest here…it was more of a theoretical understanding, with a few tick the box exercises.
That has changed. For the last few weeks, I have been on a deep dive journey into forgiveness. I have been working with Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness programmes (click here to find out more)…forgiving other people in my life and myself. I am amazed at the changes it has triggered as I have had a fuller understanding of what it really means to forgive, how to put that into practice and a deeper experience of truly forgiving. It has been so liberating…! I feel a sense of freedom, lightness and peace that I have not known for some time.
Here are some of the gold nuggets that have emerged for me about forgiveness…
If we knew how powerful forgiveness is – we’d be doing it more often.
It can be hard to do…especially at first, however the benefits make the effort more than worthwhile.
It gives us a different vantage point from which to view the events of our life, one with a higher, more expanded perspective.
It sets us free from being stuck in the role of victim.
It does not change the events…it changes how we experience them.
It frees up stuck energy that has been blocked by our resistance to that person or situation.
When the blocked energy is set free it also liberates our own gifts and strengths that were hidden by that block.
It enables us to be calmly confident and able to hold healthy boundaries with greater ease (this one was a surprise to me).
The person or situation that we are forgiving can sometimes also shift in ways that seem unexpected…even miraculous.
It is much easier to do when we approach it from our heart…!
Our heart helps us access the gift of
forgiveness with greater ease.
Forgiveness is indeed a powerful, transformative force in our lives. But when approached from the ego-mind it can be slippery, to say the least, and at worst feel so challenging as to be darn impossible.
Our ego mind tells us that if we forgive…’I will be weaker. I will lose ground. It will make them right. They will have won. They will have power over me. I will be vulnerable. It is unfair. They will get away with it. They don’t understand me. They don’t care’. And on and on…the ego mind has an infinite list of reasons for not forgiving. But if we listen to that voice we lose out on all the benefits that forgiveness gives us. We keep stepping over the river of gold beneath our feet.
So I have put together an infographic that pulls together the main features of forgiving with the assistance of your heart power…because it makes it so much easier to do.
I hope you find this information useful if you are in a position where you are feeling any resentment, anger, distress or any other kind of emotional pain triggered by another person or situation. It is of course only a condensed version of what can often be an extremely deep and far-reaching process. This is just an overview to show what is possible.
Do get in touch with me if you would like to know more about
how to make this heart-based forgiveness work for you and how to apply it to your unique and personal circumstances. Book a free chat here.
Has anything in this blog post inspired you to comment, or ask a question? Please dive in and connect with me below…