How To Forgive For Good!

Learning how to forgive is the key to happiness .

People who forgive others are happier and have stronger, more loving relationships. They report fewer health problems such as anxiety, depression or stress.

Forgiveness is not a favor we grant to others. It is a gift we give to ourselves.

We don’t have to go through this process of forgiving by ourselves, we can ask for help… (Keep reading to find out.)

We are One

When you recognize your neighbor as yourself, you have connected with your true Self. In fact, we are in no way separated from our neighbor or anybody else. All there is, is One Life; One Being. And that Being is underlying everything around you.

When you feel that connection to Life, you won’t feel the need to harm anybody. You won’t feel that you have to defend yourself or your point of view from anybody either. Then, you won’t build unnecessary grievances that end up harming mostly yourself.

And pay attention when you passionately criticize somebody for something. Look first within yourself for that thing you are criticizing. You may be surprised to find out that life is actually showing you something that you have been very unforgiving about with yourself.

When you let go of grievances against the world or even grievances against yourself, you will have inner peace.

You cannot find true happiness until you forgive. Forgiveness sets you free.

Why Is It So Hard to Forgive?

• We think that we are excusing or ignoring bad behavior

• We feel that they need to be punished and pay for their offenses

• We don’t want to get hurt again

• We feel that the other person is undeserving of our forgiveness

As it turns out, how to forgive is not about doing a favor to that person that offended you. This is not true forgiveness. It can’t give you peace if this is the way you perceive it.

As it is perfectly stated in A Course In Miracles :

“You give charity to one unworthy, to point out that you are better and are on a higher plane than he whom you forgive. You think it holds out a gift to him, but hardly to yourself.” (L 126)

This “phony” forgiveness will never release you from your anger. It has no power to restore your unity with that person.

Learning how to forgive is actually a gift to yourself. When you give, you receive. “To give and to receive are one in truth”. When there is only One Life, you give and you inevitably receive.

In fact, nobody can take your joy away but your own mind. Your "offenders" are not the ones making you angry. It is your own thinking that is making you angry.

Forgiveness As A Medicine

Forgiveness is an aspect of your true nature. When you learn how to forgive you reveal the love that is bursting in your heart, the Love that you truly are.

The medical community is paying more attention to the role that anger and resentment are playing in diseases and addictions. Some researchers even suggest that holding grievances and hatred in your heart are risk factors in heart disease. People that manage to forgive their offenders show a notorious improvement in their overall health.

Sometimes it helps to realize that the people who have wronged us, are also hurting themselves. And here is where compassion plays a huge role. When you understand the suffering of others, it instantly turns your anger into compassion and makes room for forgiveness to take place.

If we could realize that the world is no more than a mirror to show us the aspects in which we have to work, we would utilize every unforgiving thought to turn it into wisdom.

How To Forgive Process (adapted from A Course In Miracles):

1. Recognize that you are not feeling at peace for some reason. Acknowledge the problem, the grievance. Bring it to the surface, to your awareness.

2. Recognize that you want peace instead of that grievance. That you are willing to see it differently and detach from the anger. Decide that you don’t want to hold that grievance anymore.

3. Recognize that you can’t accomplish that forgiveness with your small, limited ego-self alone.

4. Turn the problem over to your Inner Guide (Spirit / The One Life / Consciousness). Say; "take this, I can’t handle it. I truly surrender it to you. I ask that you take it from me and show me what the truth is".

The problem or situation is then transformed. It may be that it doesn’t even change but you are able to look at it with different eyes. Or it may be that the situation changes to manifest a harmonious outcome.

You have to truly relinquish it. If you still hold onto your own judgments about the situation in any way, then you haven’t really handed it over …

To For-Give Is To Receive

We need to understand in the process of learning how to forgive, that forgiveness is actually a gift to ourselves. But we need help to make this meaningful, because it is so alien to the thoughts to which we are accustomed.

That is why we don’t rely on our limited perception of the world to accomplish true forgiveness. We ask a higher, truer source to help us. The good news is that our helper is always ready to assist us. It is right inside of us, in our heart. We just have to ask, believe and let go…


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