Kevin M. Touhey, Amazon best selling Author  

This is always a tough topic. Forgiving everybody,everything, may be a tough concept but doing so will absolutely free the soul. If it is abuse of any kind that you are working on forgiving, remember that forgiveness is a feeling deep in your heart. It is not accepting that what happened is alright with you.

Forgiving does not mean you like the abuser,although you might,it does not mean you need to have a relationship with the abuser,although you might. It may mean you draw a total boundry around yourself from any contact with the person or situation. That is heathy if that is what you need.

However,forgiveness is changing the way you perceive the situation or person you are forgiving. It is actually a selfish act of taking care of yourself and freeing yourself from the shakles of the abuse. It is changing the way you feel about it rather than what you think about it.

I have had people who have read my book The Miracle of Optimism ask me how could I possibly forgive my father for the physical and emotional abuse. My response is that I suffered from the abuse once. If I chose not to forgive then I am giving those incedents the power to control me over and over again. Long after the abuse has ended. I would still be stuck in the cycle. Forgiveness breaks the chain.

Guess what? Forgiveness is not just about forgiving others. In fact, we only truly begin to forgive others when we look upon ourselves.Tune in and learn the pathway to self forgiveness and become more willing to see the light in yourself and others. Very Powerful

If you want your life to take flight like never before it is time to take a look at the people,places and things in your life for which you still hold a resentment.

Holding a grudge or being in sole possession of an unforgiving heart can be hazardous to you health. Not being forgiving is like you drinking poison and hoping the person you have not forgiven gets sick!!!

So let it go will ya???

“Forgiveness is the greatest healer of all.”

~ Gerald Jampolsky & Diane V. Cirincione

 

I understand that forgiveness is no easy task. This is especially true with the most important aspect of true forgiveness, forgiveness of the self. The ego screams loudly and clearly that we should focus on all the wrong doers in our lives. I can assure you from personal experience if you are able to hold up a mirror and be kind and forgiving to yourself, you are on the path to true freedom.

As Leo Buscaglia wrote, “Forgiveness can never be realized in an atmosphere of accusation, condemnation, anger, and fault finding.” You will be unable to move forward on your path to true personal growth if you are full of blame and condemnation and are engaged in default behaviors of escape rather than dealing with issues you need to address.

“Forgiveness is not something we do for the sake of another person. Forgiveness is something we do for ourselves,” says Greg Barrette. I couldn’t agree more. The path to peace of mind and optimistic living has its foundation in forgiveness above all else. Carolyn Myss wrote, “When we forgive somebody else we are really forgiving ourselves.”

Holding onto resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person will die. It is always about you. Responsibility is about making a choice to feel more vibrant. It is your responsibility to move out of the past hurts and into the true bliss of the present without the excess baggage of condemnation. As David Augberger puts it, "Forgiveness is letting what was, be gone; what will be, come; what is now, be." It is a freeing of self from the past and facing the future wiser, with renewed hope and faith. Forgiveness is often called an unconditional gift of love. This doesn’t mean, "I will forgive you if or when," but, "I forgive you because I must if I ever hope to continue my own healing.”

In a class sponsored by the Center for Conscious Living and facilitated by Reverend Pankaj Sharma, I was able to connect to the concept of self-forgiveness like never before. I learned that while forgiving all the people that had done me an injustice (real or imagined), it was also necessary to forgive myself.  By taking a hard look at the areas and actions of my life where I had served up an injustice, or two, I was afforded the opportunity of evaluating forgiveness in a new way. 

These were situations where my ego was in complete control.  I am not suggesting you dredge up every little situation where you may have acted negatively in your judgment. Just be aware that it’s very possible that by reacting from an ego state, you may have defaulted to behaviors that a new awareness would prohibit.

Pankaj Sharma shared a paragraph written by Catherine Ponder that speaks to the essence of this message. She wrote, “Self-condemnation leads to dire results in matters of health and finances.  Sometimes we are unforgiving of circumstances; an unhappy childhood, the loss or neglect of some material blessing. Sometimes we are unforgiving of God, blaming our losses, ill health and other problems on him.” I have lived most of the states of being described by Ponder. Intellectually I had come to a measure of forgiveness for all those people who I perceived had victimized me in some way. In my process of psychological and spiritual growth I laid the groundwork for a higher level of true forgiveness.

This entailed letting go of judgments against any of the people, places, or things in my life that I thought had treated me unjustly. Even more powerful, I stopped my own ego from the continual judgment of myself for all of the real or imagined injustices I committed. I stopped being the hypocritical bad guy in my own consciousness. When I really began to forgive myself, my actions and behaviors followed. When I realized that I was not exempt from wrongdoing and got real with myself, the level of forgiveness went to a depth that has brought with it peace and serenity.