Forgiveness. Some late-night thoughts - PART 1

I had a telephone conversation with a troubled Facebook friend a few weeks ago and very quickly the discussion turned to forgiveness, and our inability to forgive ourselves for past mistakes.

This conversation made me really think about forgiveness itself and to make things clear for myself as well, I penned down some thoughts...

Don Miguel Ruiz wrote - 'We punish ourselves over and over for a mistake we made or some way in which we don’t measure up to perfection. Why? Is it fair? No other animal punishes itself over and over again for a single crime. That is not true justice.'

I live in rural Thailand where I have time to do these things, like thinking, walking, talking to God out loud. When I walk my two dogs at night, I have the time to ponder on certain aspects of my life, things that have come to the fore during the day or week. This is when I look up to the brilliant night-sky and direct my questions out loud to our Creator. And often get instant answers back (not so loud lol!)

I have lived a full life till now, not without its fair share of receiving and dishing out hurt, in equal measures. Invariably I felt lousy after these incidences, but not often did I have integrity (or clarity) to apologize afterwards for whatever what was done or said. In other words, I was just being human... These incidents stayed with me, turned slowly into guilt and by then it was too 'late' - I've moved on, the individuals involved have disappeared from my life, Life was hectic and I did not give myself Time to investigate these simmering issues. And some of these issues eventually turned into bigger ISSUES, morphed into guilt and GUILT started to weigh me down.

Life has taught me that there are few things as painful as living in constant guilt over something one has done. If you’re like most people, you’re probably your worst critic, and when you feel that a mistake was your fault, it’s hard to move on and accept it. How can you forgive yourself for something you did which had such awful results? And just being human again, I started to rationalize things, but this time with some help from the Stars...

You are Human. Imagine a crowded bar, full of the sights and smells of humanity. There you are, in the midst of the crowd, waiting for your beer. There are tall people, short people, smelly people, pretty people, old people... Suddenly you realize — we are all the same. We’re all human. Each one with a story of pain, joy, fear, love...a story of unforgiveness...

I find it very liberating, when dealing with emotional 'stuff' like guilt, to remember that I am human; I am like every other person on Earth. I’m not any better or any worse than anyone else. Sometimes, you might get into a thought pattern where you don’t like who you are, but this is only an issue of you liking yourself, an issue of ego, not an issue of who you actually are. You and I are awesome souls, even if we don’t always know it. Our society promotes dissatisfaction, negativity, constant comparison, and indirectly, even self-loathing, but we can decide to be different — to like or even love who we are. And part of loving who you are is forgiving yourself, because it’s natural to forgive the one we love.

Do you ever think that God/Creator/Source can forgive others, but not you? What makes you think you are so much worse than other people? Maybe you did terrible things, knowingly, on purpose to hurt someone else. You aren’t the first; if you think God can’t or won’t forgive you, this is an issue of ego, too. You can never be so far gone that the love of the Universe cannot reach you — that’s impossible! There is no distance to God. Spirit is everywhere, so it is always present for you to connect with, and forgiveness is just a thought away. But it must be a conscious thought.

And whilst we are on this Human path, we should realize that Mistakes Are Normal. The “seeing myself in perspective” train of thought helps me to realize that mistakes are natural and nothing to be ashamed about. Everybody makes them! Mistakes provide an opportunity to learn, and when we have enough sense to know and admit we did something wrong, then we also have the potential to learn something from it.

Some situations are extremely hard to go through, but if you have learned something — anything from them, start using forgiveness to help you decrease your resentment, and grow in wisdom, character and compassion. Start now, know that it’s a slow process, TIME is required to ultimately forgive, so, don't force it - just kind to yourself. I personally get to the point of forgiveness easier by walking outside late at night, voicing my troubles out loud to the Universe, the Milky Way, the God inside myself. In the process I get to hear myself talking, and if I'm quiet and calm enough, I get to hear God too, talking back. And you don't have to be religious to connect to Source - you are an unique individual created by Source, and therefore a 'child' of Source. Another topic though...

Being human again, I've realized that, when discussing ISSUES with other people, be they friends/shrinks, I am never 100 percent honest and there's always an element of 'fear of judgement' involved. So, outside, in the magnificent Nature, with no-one to distract or judge me, I TALK to God.

This may lead to a huge shift in consciousness for you. You may have been raised to think that only God really forgives people, and he may or may not forgive you. Why not try believing that our ever-loving God/Creator ALWAYS gives unconditional forgiveness, but you and I can choose whether or not to accept it. It’s like when someone gives you a compliment — you can choose to accept it gracefully and believe it, or you can choose to not believe it and argue with it instead. We can accept what Source offers us, gracefully and gratefully, or refuse the gift and feel worse. When we accept it, we still need to take it into our hearts and minds and BELIEVE it. This way you will get out of your victim-mentality.

Your life will change dramatically by telling yourself and the Universe that you want to be more accepting of everything in your life. Forgiveness is another facet of living in the present, accepting life, and appreciating it, accepting yourself and appreciating yourself.

Its important to know that you are only responsible for yourself. Think of a specific problem that you feel guilty about. If you analyze the whole event, can you really say that you are solely responsible for the way it turned out? Ninety-nine percent of the time there are other people involved. Don’t fall into the trap of taking on guilt for other people’s parts. We are each responsible for our individual part, and even if you feel like you influenced someone to act a certain way, ultimately, he/she is the one who acted. You are not responsible for what other people do, only for what you do. So, remove any guilt that you may feel over other people choosing their own actions.

Remember, your thoughts determine your reality, so if you decide to remove guilt, it’s gone. You may not be able to re-write your thought patterns overnight, but you can do it. It starts simply, with awareness of what your thoughts are. Rather than an instant 'wave of the wand' you can think of diluting your feelings of guilt. If you keep adding positive thoughts to your guilt, focused on love, peace and acceptance, you can dilute the guilt and find it easier to remove.

It’s all about being kind to yourself. About loving yourself. Letting others love you….