Forgiveness is a great form of healing
This week I was fortunate enough to have a client book in at the last minute for a session. When she saw me, she told me how stressed out and angry at the world she was. This was understandable given a lot of things that were going in her life at this point in time.
As the session unfolded, we had a conversation around many issues and I felt very helpless to give her ideas on how to make the situation better. I began doubting a little bit about my ability to be able to assist in fixing certain issues. I really want to assist a person in dealing with all of their issues and when I can't think about a way to do it I get annoyed at myself (or perhaps not annoyance but more a feeling of shame because I can't help).
ANYWAY, we're getting to the 1.5 hr mark or so and I started to do some craniosacral therapy on her. Things started happening in her body and she was telling me what was happening. We dived a bit further and tried to understand the thoughts and/or emotions that came up whilst she was concentrating on the area of her body that was in a bit of discomfort. That was all well and done and she told me she kept wanting to ask me to go and touch a particular area of her body, so I did.
It was at that point that we discovered a major underlying cause of some of the issues she currently was having. It was a particular family member. Somehow I felt that the issue was related to forgiveness so I told her that to forgive a person is not to say that you are OK with what they did to you. Forgiveness is more about you acknowledging and agreeing that you no longer want to waste your energy thinking about that issue and that you are letting that energy release. I.e. You no longer want that to hold you back from moving forward. As I said that my client told me that I had said something that she had really wanted to hear - and I think that gave her a bit of lightness. In fact, I was later told that she went home and was just singing and dancing and smiling a lot which is absolutely fantastic!
So, the point of this post is this - if you have a great deal of resentment towards a person for what they did to you previously and find it really hard to "forgive" and "let go", remember this - that person probably isn't spending any energy right now thinking about what happened ages ago and most likely won't apologise for it anyway. If they aren't spending any energy thinking about it, why should you do the same? I.e. use that as an excuse to not move forward in your own life and do what you really deep down want to do? Let it go - release that polluted and toxic energy from your system. What they did was wrong, and will always be wrong, and you have used that experience to shape the person who you are now and that's great. Now take that learning and move forward.
I'll give you an example. A woman was in an abusive relationship with a man years ago. Through some twist of fate, the relationship ended (thank goodness), but she holds a lot of anger and resentment towards that man for treating her terribly. She has held onto this thought and used it as an excuse to not date other men (e.g. "I'm just going to get abused so I'd rather protect myself now and not bother exploring a relationship with someone else"). That doesn't help anyone let alone herself. She could very well have met a really kind, sweet, caring guy, the man of her dreams but she lets her resentment, anger and energetic cord between her and her ex rule her life and stop her from actually being with the right person for her.
Don't let that happen to you - condone the act, but don't let that be the prison in which you live the rest of your life. You are powerful and you can do it! I guarantee you will feel so much better once you do so!
As the session unfolded, we had a conversation around many issues and I felt very helpless to give her ideas on how to make the situation better. I began doubting a little bit about my ability to be able to assist in fixing certain issues. I really want to assist a person in dealing with all of their issues and when I can't think about a way to do it I get annoyed at myself (or perhaps not annoyance but more a feeling of shame because I can't help).
ANYWAY, we're getting to the 1.5 hr mark or so and I started to do some craniosacral therapy on her. Things started happening in her body and she was telling me what was happening. We dived a bit further and tried to understand the thoughts and/or emotions that came up whilst she was concentrating on the area of her body that was in a bit of discomfort. That was all well and done and she told me she kept wanting to ask me to go and touch a particular area of her body, so I did.
It was at that point that we discovered a major underlying cause of some of the issues she currently was having. It was a particular family member. Somehow I felt that the issue was related to forgiveness so I told her that to forgive a person is not to say that you are OK with what they did to you. Forgiveness is more about you acknowledging and agreeing that you no longer want to waste your energy thinking about that issue and that you are letting that energy release. I.e. You no longer want that to hold you back from moving forward. As I said that my client told me that I had said something that she had really wanted to hear - and I think that gave her a bit of lightness. In fact, I was later told that she went home and was just singing and dancing and smiling a lot which is absolutely fantastic!
So, the point of this post is this - if you have a great deal of resentment towards a person for what they did to you previously and find it really hard to "forgive" and "let go", remember this - that person probably isn't spending any energy right now thinking about what happened ages ago and most likely won't apologise for it anyway. If they aren't spending any energy thinking about it, why should you do the same? I.e. use that as an excuse to not move forward in your own life and do what you really deep down want to do? Let it go - release that polluted and toxic energy from your system. What they did was wrong, and will always be wrong, and you have used that experience to shape the person who you are now and that's great. Now take that learning and move forward.
I'll give you an example. A woman was in an abusive relationship with a man years ago. Through some twist of fate, the relationship ended (thank goodness), but she holds a lot of anger and resentment towards that man for treating her terribly. She has held onto this thought and used it as an excuse to not date other men (e.g. "I'm just going to get abused so I'd rather protect myself now and not bother exploring a relationship with someone else"). That doesn't help anyone let alone herself. She could very well have met a really kind, sweet, caring guy, the man of her dreams but she lets her resentment, anger and energetic cord between her and her ex rule her life and stop her from actually being with the right person for her.
Don't let that happen to you - condone the act, but don't let that be the prison in which you live the rest of your life. You are powerful and you can do it! I guarantee you will feel so much better once you do so!