Forgiveness as a Doorway to Happiness...
When it comes to finding health and happiness, it helps to see life as a consistent series of choices that ultimately boil down to a single decision to be made in every moment.
The choice is simply this:
Are you choosing life, health, love, and goodness or are you selecting, either overtly or by default, pain, negativity, darkness, or fear?
Are you Loving with an Open Heart?
So many people choose to give their deepest love to animals...
This is not surprising because the beautiful gift that many of our pets give us is the experience of absolute unconditional love.
Pets seem to respond to our highest, best selves and never reflect back to us parts of ourselves that we wish to disown or ignore.
approaching life with a pure, open heart
The wonderful gift you receive when you open your heart to a person, however, is the opportunity to witness repressed parts of yourself based on your own reaction to the other person.
Experiencing your feelings towards a person you care for deeply, is a way for you to discover more about yourself—your needs, desires, fears, and wounds.
Another blessing that occurs when you give love freely is the incredible love that must come back to you.
What’s interesting is that this love doesn’t always return from the person you are directing your own affection toward, but it does always come back, in one way or another.
Just the act of being open and approaching life with a pure, open heart, invites beauty and goodness into your life.
When you are strong enough to let go of calculated measures about whom you give your adoration and in what amount, you are able to connect to the unconditional love that is deep within yourself.
This leads you to greater happiness, regardless of the outcome of any single relationship you may be in pursuit of, in your physical world.
“Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” – Karl A. Menninger
Release and practice Forgiveness Daily
What prevents you from keeping an open heart and giving the love at your core freely?
If you are like most people, it’s the fear of being insulted or hurt.
Face it, the world can be difficult and hurtful, and worse, it makes no sense at all from the standpoint of the intelligent, rational mind.
The more we analyze life, the more we come to see that it isn’t fair and that we can never understand why things happen as they do. This can be difficult to accept.
You can’t understand life with your conscious, analytical mind and most likely, you can’t even understand yourself.
But one thing all of us do know is that we want to be loved and appreciated and we want our mistakes overlooked.
How can we ensure that our mistakes will be overlooked?
We can’t.
But what we can do, towards that end, is begin to forgive the mistakes of others.
This can often be very challenging because your analytical mind will tell you that the other person’s behavior is unforgivable.
You may tell yourself that you would never do what the other person did.
That may be true.
However, what we often overlook is that we may be inclined to have done other things, either now or in the past, that were equally hurtful to someone else.
It’s so easy to judge and condemn others.
It can be quite humbling to realize that the forgiveness we are being asked to give (whether by the individual who hurt us or otherwise) is in reality the forgiveness that we ourselves are seeking.
Perhaps you would never scream at the top of your lungs and say embarrassing things to someone you love, which your friend may be guilty of.
However, in another realm, maybe you helped yourself to what rightfully did not belong to you, even if that was just credit for something that was due to someone else.
That’s a weakness that perhaps you’d rather be forgotten.
Upon closer examination, you may discover that your short-tempered friend would never take what belonged to someone else, and yet would freely forgive you for that shortcoming.
To release is to gain freedom from Forgiveness
Try working with this affirmation:
“I forgive you. I release you, I set you free and I am free.”
Make it a daily practice to let go of everything that’s bugging you.
If that seems difficult or even impossible, imagine the passage of time happening, in this moment.
Ask yourself, “How long does this event warrant me carrying it around with resentment and hostility?”
Clear all your fear, anger, hurt, shame, and guilt by letting it wash off you, just as you rinse the dirt off your body on a daily basis in the shower, or dust off the furniture in your home.
Since there is no distinct amount of time that is beneficial to carry around pain...
The quicker you can let it go the healthier you will be.
Fear, anger, and resentment create aging, illness, and disease.
It doesn’t matter if these emotions are understandable based on your life circumstances.
What matters is simply that you are carrying them and they are weighing you down (often literally).
You can let them go, just by deciding to.
Remind yourself that, “Nothing means what I think it does,” and “This too shall pass.”
In the big picture of your life...
Remember constantly all the goodness and love that are directed your way and let that overshadow the disappointments.
Stop looking for a cause...
There never is any one cause or single person to blame.
People treat you in less than loving ways because of their own emotional pain, fear, and anxiety.
Give them the gift of forgiveness and open your heart to receive all the redemption that is here for you.
