Learn to forgive through a deeper understanding of forgiveness and its’ relationship to freedom and love.
- Forgiveness does not mean we agree with what we are forgiving. It means that we’re no longer going to allow our past to hold power over us via our thoughts. The biggest misconception and roadblock to freedom that I notice people tend to have when it comes to forgiveness is this: That to forgive is to let off the hook, to say that what you, or I did is OK. I used to believe this myself as well. This was until I understood that forgiveness has nothing to do with what I am forgiving and it has everything to do with expressing love for myself. Allowing my past to control me was severely blunting my potential as a human being. It was blocking my ability to express compassion and love fully. Truth be told, I wouldn’t be putting myself out there in front of thousand of eyeballs on Instagram right now if it wasn’t for forgiveness. I wouldn’t have felt that my words are worthy. Now that my past doesn’t control my sense of self-worth, I am being vulnerable and putting my mind out there. I freed myself up to seek a higher potential and new levels of consciousness. Practice forgiveness to not allow your past to hold power over your present and control your future. You are worthy of living your highest potential… You are worthy of freedom from your past… You are worthy of feeling love and expressing love… ALWAYS
- Forgiveness isn’t about what or who we are forgiving. It’s all about us, we allow it for ourselves. It’s about replacing our resentment and tension for another, or ourselves, with freedom, understanding, compassion, peace and love within ourselves.
- Forgiveness is an act of love toward ourselves and freedom from the unforgiven.
- Forgiveness is a gift that allows us to live freely in an otherwise unfair and unjust world. If we hold resentments toward any action that we deem as unfair or unjust, we will continue to remain prisoners of our own minds. Our resentments hold us hostage and influence our every action the same way we would if we were held hostage at gunpoint by some lunatic criminal. This is not freedom my friends. Freedom is being able to make choices that aren’t influenced by resentments, but instead influenced by love.
- Forgiveness allows us to see what our resentments were blinding us from. There’s five things our resentments blind us from: understanding, compassion, freedom, peace and love. The stronger our resentments are, the more difficulty we will have in understanding others or ourselves, and in expressing compassion and love toward others or ourselves. I liken holding resentments to a horse wearing blinders. When wearing them, their perception is limited to only what is right in front of them. They aren’t capable of seeing the vast world around them. They are missing out on the big picture and incapable of understanding what is beyond their blinders. To them, what they see is all there is but all there is isn’t what they see.
- How do you know you have forgiven someone? You are no longer triggered by the mere thought of them. Instead, you feel a new found sense of understanding and underlying peace. I never understood this until I forgave my dad. I have a new understanding of how his history (childhood) influenced his self-concept, his morals, and his insecurities. I can now see how my history had influenced me up until my point of forgiveness as well, we are both human, we are one in the same. To take it one step further, I released my judgment toward him being wrong in the past because I now understand he was doing the best he could with the understanding he had, leaving me with nothing left to forgive. I am no longer triggered by the thought of him. In fact, I feel compassion and love when I think of him, which I never felt before my point of forgiveness.
