Olympics--Oneness vs. Separation?

Many people like to think that the Olympics are about oneness.  And in some ways they are.  After all, people come together from around the world to participate in the same events.  That seems like oneness, doesn't it?

This kind of thinking can be a sneaky trick of the ego mind.  Beware of it.  Yes, people are coming together in certain ways, but they are also separating in distinct ways, too.  They are separating into winners and losers, winning teams and losing teams, winning countries and losing countries.

As, one by one, we watch each athlete compete, we are secretly judging them.  Who has the greatest skill, the highest speed, the most grace, the best physical body, the best uniform, the superior coach, the most interesting story.  We are judging a multitude of aspects for each of these athletes, teams and countries.  We pick our favorites and we cheer them on.  Worse, we pick our least favorites and we secretly hope they will fail.  We are attacking them in our minds.

Judging is not oneness.  In fact, judging is the opposite of oneness, it is the act of separating individuals or groups of individuals out for "specialness", as the Course of Miracles call it.  We can be special because we are better than others or we can be special because we are less than others.  Either way, "specialness" thinking is separation thinking.

Seeing every one else as equally important is the goal.  Why not try to watch these Olympics from a new perspective.  Can it be done without judgment?  Can we simply watch to celebrate everyone's beauty, effort and accomplishments?  Can we enjoy the creation of participation?  Can we love each and every athlete for who they really are...a child of God, created in His own image whom He loves infinitely?  When we can do this, we are thinking with love, accepting and forgiving the world as it is.

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Painful Memories from the Past

Do you sometimes find your mind running through important moments from your past?  Do the same old unresolved issues pop up in your mind repeatedly?

When these memories come, give yourself a little emotional check-up.  Are you feeling calm and comfortable with what you're remembering or is there a tightness in your chest, an upset feeling in your stomach, an elevated heart rate or a shallowness of breath?

If you feel any physical symptoms associated with these memories, then it's probably time to forgive and release them.   After all, they are returning to you over and over again for just that purpose.  You're getting another chance to do your forgiveness work.  Perhaps you were too young the first time around and couldn't really process what was happening.  Perhaps you didn't know how to forgive then.  That's all perfectly okay, because you can take up now what you left off with then.

There is no time and space.  (This is not just a "spiritual" belief.  It is now scientifically proven thanks to Einstein's theory of relativity.)  What it means for your spiritual life, however, is that you can forgive anybody any time and any place and make things right.  You can forgive something from your past today.  It doesn't matter where the other person is now and it's perfectly fine if they are not even living.

You don't need to be with someone to forgive them.  In fact, it's not necessary that you even see them ever again.  Forgiveness is something that happens in the mind.    It is a mental shift in your thinking.  Because all minds are joined, when you shift your thinking now, you are offering healing to any other minds involved wherever and whenever they are (and you are allowing your own mind to begin its healing process, too.)  You don't have to apologize, take them to lunch, write them a letter or wash their feet.  You do, however, have to look at people and events from your past differently.  You have to flip the switch.  When we flip the switch we go from fear to love.

It's important to watch what the mind is bringing to our awareness.  Unresolved issues will be presented over and over again.  Sometimes they come as actual remembrances of the past.  However, when issues are left unforgiven, unaccepted and unreleased, those same issues will be given to us again as a real-life 3D event.  A similar situation to the original will show up in our lives, giving us one more chance to make a better decision and to forgive.

Just a word of warning here.  It's your choice whether to forgive or not.  But just know that each time you get the same lesson over again, it's probably going to be bigger, more in-your-face, more painful.  Unresolved issues don't go away, they fester in our sub-conscious minds and each time they come back, they are much more obvious.  It's best to face it now.

In fact, why not just feel grateful for the opportunity to clean up your mind on this issue right here and now.  It's a blessing. The memories are coming back to you as a brand new chance for you to get this right, finally.  The universe is offering you what you need most to grow and learn.  In the classroom of life, we are always being offered another chance.

Be vigilant in monitoring your mind, always looking for these gems.  They are the chance to see something from your past differently.  Forgiving, accepting and releasing old wounds from the past leads to inner peace.  It takes constant thoughtfulness.  This is what a forgiveness lifestyle is all about.  We must develop the habit of reviewing our thoughts each day to see what is coming up for healing, but it is so worth the effort.  Isn't inner peace worth it?

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This downloadable guided forgiveness process is a wonderful way to learn how to forgive people and events from your past:

Recognize the Oneness of All Life

We are all the same.  We come from the same source.  We are all a permanent part of that source.  This can never change.

It is only our perception that we are separate.  We come here to earth, and we think we separate into individual beings, but that is only a perception that we create as part of our adventures here on earth.  We can never change the fact of our true nature.

We are each and every one of us actually all a part of the same one source.  We forget that a lot here, but our forgetting does not change its truth.

Forgiveness is simply the act of remembering.  We remember the truth about the other people in our lives.  We see and know their oneness with us, with all others and together with our source.  They are perfect, whole and complete.  We are perfect, whole and complete.  There is only one.

"Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself.  It is the wish that you be joined with him and not apart."  --A Course in Miracles Chapter 26, VII, 9, 1

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Take a Deep Breath and Just Do It

Forgiveness can seem distasteful when we are feeling very wronged by or annoyed with someone.  In fact, forgiveness can seem like the very last thing on earth we want to do.  I admit it...there have been plenty of times when I felt so disgusted by someone that the thought of forgiving them felt very uncomfortable.

Just get over it!  Yes, you heard me.  Just take a deep breath and do it.  Forgive.  Flip the switch from fear to love.  From anger, pain and judgement to acceptance.  Use one of my quickie forgiveness processes and it will all be over in a moment.

You'll be so glad afterward that you did this.  The twisted up feelings of hurt and anger will leave.  You'll feel so much better. Don't do it because "you should".  Don't do it because "God wants you to", or "It's what Jesus would do."  Do it for yourself.  You need it.  Forgiveness leads to happiness. Your happiness.

Forgiving is Easier Than You Think

It really is.  It's just a change of habit.  It's a swapping out of old ways of thinking and a welcoming in of a new one.

Forgiveness is a lifestyle change.  And like any other lifestyle change it may seem strange and difficult, even overwhelming at first.  Not to worry.  It will get easier as you practice.  And once it's a habit, it WILL be easy.

You can do it.  You really can.

Just dive in where you are now.  Find someone who's irritating you and let it go.  Here's how.  Do it today.  Do it now!

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A Forgiveness Practice Happens Everyday

Forgiveness is not something we pull out for special occasions.  It's not only for those moments in life when we are desperate with fear and hurt.  If we want to develop authentic happiness and peace in our lives, we need to get in the habit of forgiving on a daily basis.

Things to Forgive on a Daily Basis:

Annoying and Upsetting People  Each night before sleep scan through your day and forgive anything and anyone that pressed your buttons during the day.  Even if it seems illogical for you to have been upset by whatever occurred, forgive it.  If you got activated, you need to release it.  (I use Practice #1 Seeing the Higher Truth which is explained in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" for my nightly clearing and releasing of events and people that upset me during the day)

Yourself  Each night before sleep scan through your day and forgive yourself for anything you feel you did or did not do, said or did not say, thought or did not think, which is creating feelings of discomfort for you now.  (I use Practice #1 for this, too.)

Other Worlds  Each night before sleep think back to anything you saw on television, the internet or in any reading you did that pressed your buttons.  Yes, we have to forgive the Housewives of Beverly Hills as well as anyone from the news that harmed anyone else during the day.  If it activated your emotions and you judged it as unfair, wrong or scary, you need to forgive and release it.  (I also use Practice #1 for this.)  Also in this category would be any bad experiences you remember from your dreams.

Frequent Protagonists   We also need to forgive the people that repeatedly press our buttons over and over.  This might be a spouse, boss, child, friend, co-worker.  There are just certain people that annoy us over and over.  These people will continue to upset and annoy us until we have forgiven them on a deep level.  (You can use Practice #1 to forgive them, but it will probably take some deeper work such as Radical Forgiveness, or a Feel the Feelings Process which are Process #3 and #4 in my book.)

Your Past   On a regular basis, be alert to any memories from your past that trigger any level of upsetting emotion when you think of them.  Save these for your nightly work and before sleep use Practice #3 Feeling the Feelings, or deal with them the next morning using one of Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness forms (available at www.ColinTipping.com under "free stuff").

Mental Blockages   These create areas where you are experiencing lack, disappointment, frustration and fear in your life.  Mental Blockages exist due to beliefs you created early in your life. These might include beliefs like "I'm not good enough", "Everyone abandons me", "I'm not loveable", "I don't deserve to have what I want", and "I'm not worthy", among many others.  These beliefs prevent us from living in the fullness of life.  If we do not dig them up, look at them and clear them through, we will continue to experience some form of lack in our life, whether it be financial difficulties, relationship difficulties or health difficulties.  As long as we believe that we are not deserving of better, difficulties will be a part of our world.  In order to clear these up, I use Practices #3, 4 and 5 in my book.  I also work with a mentor who asks me the questions I'm not always willing or able to ask myself.  Together we route out and heal the pain from my past that created these mental blocks.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by all this, go easy on yourself.  Start your forgiveness practice by simply focusing on forgiving the things that occur each day.  In a few months time you'll be ready for the deeper work.  In fact, you'll want the deeper work because you'll be starting to feel better about your life and you'll want to see how much better you are capable of feeling.  Start out slow, but make the mental commitment to become a regular forgiver.  If you do so, the universe will deliver you gifts.  You'll receive the tools and knowing you need to make this happen in your life.

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For downloadable recorded audios of guided forgiveness processes:

No Bad

When we're living here in our earthly world, it's easy for us to get caught up in worry, fear and anguish.  We focus on everything that's wrong with us, all our mistakes, everything we've done wrong.  We convince ourselves we're "bad".

And we convince ourselves that the other people in our life are "bad", too.  They're bad drivers because they cut us off in traffic, bad husbands because they don't cherish and adore us the way we'd always hoped to be loved, bad children because they don't pick up their rooms, bad bosses because they are impatient and sharp-tongued...and on and on it goes.

Bad Baby

None of this is true.  We are all exactly as God created us.  He created us in his own exact image and God is only Good.  In this earthly world of dreams, we've created pain, hurt and fear.  But in the "real world" where the bigger part of us is always with God, there is only good.  One self is true, the other is not.

 "Try to experience the unity of your one Self.  Try to appreciate Its Holiness and the love from which it was created.  Try not to interfere with the Self which God created as you, by hiding Its majesty behind the tiny idols of evil and sinfulness you have made to replace It." --Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 93

We are all exactly as God created us.  When we see and know this for the people in our lives, we are forgiving, overlooking the silly things they do here in this dream world where they have forgotten their true identity.  We accept their flaws knowing the real truth behind them.  This is what true forgiveness is all about.

"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.  Over and over this must be repeated, until it is accepted.  It is true.  Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.  Nothing can touch it, or change what God created as eternal.  The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless.  Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God and light and joy and peace abide in you."  --Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 93

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To download a $2.99 guided process for forgiving someone who is causing pain in your life today: