"The Rug Got Pulled Out From Underneath Me"

I spent today leading a forgiveness workshop and afterward one of the participants asked if I might spend a few minutes helping her understand something about an event from her past.

While doing one of the forgiveness meditations, she became aware that there were various elements associated with a particular event and wanted to know why that was.  I let her know that, yes, our bigger forgiveness lessons often have many aspects associated with them.  Big painful events are often complicated and the emotion we feel about them tends to make then seem even more complicated in our minds.

When she began to speak about what happened, her face took on a confused clouded expression and she had a difficult time grasping what we were discussing, even though it was all easily clear and obvious to me. As we were making a list of the aspects of this event that she needed to forgive, she kept asking me to repeat each one over and over so she could write it down.  She would write down a word or two of my sentence and get completely lost and ask me to repeat it again. Now, this is a very smart woman, but her painful memories were creating emotional blocks that were keeping her from thinking in her normal clear head.

Here are the simple facts about the event that transpired in her past.  She was a young girl and she was given her first bicycle.  She was so excited that she could ride it that she wanted to share her joy and rode down the block to show her best friend.  She felt elated that she could ride, proud of her new bike and excited to share with her friend.  When she rode back home, her father greeted her standing on the corner with a willow switch in his hand which he then beat her with it.

Today in the workshop she was able to see for the first time that his response came from his own fear.  After all, she had ridden off without telling him where she was.  She asked me if her understanding of this now was forgiveness.  My answer is that yes, it is, but only partially.

Anytime you flip the switch from fear thinking to love thinking you are forgiving.  In this case, her willingness to put herself in her father's shoes is an offering of love to him.  This is definitely the start of the forgiveness for her.  

However, there's a lot more under the surface.  I said to her, "Let's talk about the fact that here was this incredibly big moment in your life.  Getting a bicycle is a giant step in the progression to becoming BIG, so important to us when we are children.  This was one of the most important, happiest and proudest moments in your childhood.   Here you are absolutely celebrating this big moment and then suddenly it all turned horrible...the rug got pulled out from underneath you."

When I said the words, "the rug got pulled out from underneath you", she looked stunned.  "Oh, my God", she said.  "That is the repeating theme in my life.  Just when things seem to be going their very best, the rug gets pulled out from underneath me."

Of course they do!  When we have an experience this big and emotional in our childhood, it creates subconscious beliefs that color our world throughout our lifetime. In Science of Mind studies, we call these false beliefs.  My friend's belief is that whenever things are going really good, there is going to be a nasty and painful surprise.  The rug will be pulled out from underneath her.

The only way for her to stop reliving this moment in her life is for her to forgive it.  When she accomplishes the forgiveness, the horrible repeating pattern will stop and she will be able to accept happiness knowing that it will not be shockingly, abruptly and painfully taken from her.

Here are some other aspects of this experience which may have created additional false beliefs she can be working to forgive:

I get punished whenever I feel big and free and I fly.
People I love can harm me.
Love has strings attached. Other people love me conditionally.
I am a helpless victim.
I get in trouble even though I do nothing wrong.
I can't trust life.
This is not a safe world.

True forgiveness takes some deep thinking and self discovery.  That's why I like to call it a forgiveness lifestyle.  It sometimes takes months and even years to unravel the emotions, fears and blockages we have created in our minds because of the events in our past.  However, if we ask Spirit to help us receive understanding about our pasts, it will be given to us.  It often comes in fits and starts over a series of weeks and months, but maybe that's because we need the time to process what we are discovering.

Filmed at Lake Tahoe (where I live). 

It's true that forgiveness is a commitment.  However, the process can be fascinating (after all, what's more interesting than ourselves?)  It's also easier than you may think.  Now that my friend has begun to forgive this important event from her past, she'll be given more information and greater understanding about it.  It will become easier and easier for her to forgive each aspect of it.  Pretty soon, she will have released the whole thing.  The emotion of it will leave her body and she will be at peace whenever she remembers it.  This will allow her to open herself up to new possibilities in her life.  Perhaps she will decide to trust the world a little more and open up to new experiences and relationships in a larger way than she has in the past.

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Are You Choosing Separation from Spirit?

Words from Jennifer Hadley:

"I’ve come to realize that all feelings of fear are the result of choosing separation from Spirit in some form or another. It always comes down to a judgment, an opinion.

The more I cultivate a pristine awareness, a release of all opinions and judgments, the more peaceful I feel. The more safe and secure I feel. The more I feel free to Love and be loved.

Fear is not caused by anything other than choosing to value a belief in separation from each other and from God.  Practice non-judgment and watch the peace emerge and the fear recede.

Don’t take my word for it.  Prove it.  When you choose to block Love from your heart and mind, you feel afraid.  When you choose to block Love from your heart and mind, you are cutting the communication with the ALL in ALL – and that’s why you feel afraid.

If you don’t enjoy feeling afraid, choose again." 

You can find more of Jennifer Hadley at: jenniferhadley.com/blog.

Judgments, Expectations and Behaviors of Wanting

I really love Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness forms and I have used many to forgive people and events from my past.  There is an entire chapter on Radical Forgiveness in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness", and I recommend them in my forgiveness workshops.  (The forms are available for free at www.colintipping.com under "Free Stuff").

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you know that I often encourage readers to "flip the switch" from fear to love as a part of the forgiveness process.  Flipping the switch occurs the moment we stop judging and condemning and offer any sort of love, understanding or compassion to our trespasser.

In Colin Tipping's form he asks a number of questions that build upon each other culminating in the flipping of the switch.  One of the questions I love is this (substitute your trespasser's name for the X):

"My discontent was my signal that I was withholding love from myself and (X) by judging, holding expectations, wanting (X) to change, and seeing (X) as less than perfect. List the judgments, expectations and behaviors that indicate you were wanting (X) to change."

So often, our hurt and pain occurs when we want either someone in our lives, or the world around us to be a certain way.

When we dis-attach ourselves from expectations, wanting and emotional needs, then we are free to live in peace and joy.

We often create "needs" in our minds.  We might think, "I can't be happy if (X) doesn't love me." Or, "My life is a failure if I don't get a job with an important company."  Or, "I need to live in a beautiful house to be happy."  Or, "I need to be healthy to be happy."  All of these kinds of beliefs are just things we tell ourselves. Think about each of these statements above.  Are any of them really true?  Happiness and inner peace come from  releasing judgments and accepting whatever is.

When we create desired outcomes in our minds and get attached to them, we are only setting ourselves up for failure and misery.  In fact, attachments of any kind only set us up for pain.  Attachments to people, to places, to things are what create most of the pain in our lives.  When we just allow what is to be and accept the world around us as it is, we begin the process of creating inner peace in our minds.

There is a great big, beautiful, joyful world right here in front of us and in our minds.  And it is "what is".  There is plenty here to keep us satisfied if we will only flip the switch from fear to love and allow ourselves to see the truth around us.

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Happiness is an Attribute of Love

Happiness is an attribute of love.  It cannot be apart from it.  Nor can it be experienced where love is not. --A Course in Miracles, Lesson 102

This is why forgiveness is the key to happiness.  When we hold grievances and judge others we are out of alignment with love.  When we are out of alignment, it is not possible for us to be truly happy.

We may have fleeting moments of happy experiences, but deep true abiding happiness can never be a significant and lasting factor in our lives until we forgive the world around us.

Many of us look at our lives and think, "But I have a good job and I found the right spouse.  We have money to live on and a comfortable house and children that are healthy and busy.  I must be happy."

Comfort and busyness are not happiness.  They are pale shadows for true happiness.  In true happiness, we feel a deep trust and utter knowing that we are completely supported, infinitely valued and always cared for in every way.  We are joyful and loves flows from us and into us.

This is the happiness that a forgiveness lifestyle brings.

Two Ways to Get Happy Quick

1.  Scan your mind for whomever is annoying, hurting, upsetting or victimizing you today and forgive them.  (Need help forgiving?  Download this quickie forgiveness process for $2.99, here)

2.  Click play:

When Thoughts Go Bump in the Night

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and find that your mind is filled with worry and fear?  Even those of us that work hard to eradicate fear thoughts during the day may find that our mind sometimes floods with upsetting thoughts in that state between waking and sleep.

The Witching Hour

This is a sign that we have some clean up work to do in our mind.  A forgiveness lifestyle will help lessen the fear.

In the meantime, what can we do when we wake to find ourselves in the dark shadow of the night?  We have two choices.  We can elect to deal with the subjects that are coming up right then and there.  If we are willing to just go with it and lose a few hours of sleep, this is a perfect time to do some forgiveness work.  The Feel the Feelings process which can be found in Chapter 3 of "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" is perfect for these times.  (There is also a downloadable audio meditation of this process available here for $2.99.  Why not just slip the headphones on and do the work right in bed?)

Or, for those of us that have to be up early in the mornings to deal with jobs or kids, getting back to peace so that we can sleep is essential.  It's important to "flip the switch" in our minds from fear to love.  One way to do this is with affirmations.  When we concentrate on repeating positive words over and over, there is no room left in our minds for the fear thoughts.

Flip the Switch from Fear to Love

Before starting the affirmations, it is a good idea to give the fear thinking over to Spirit.  You can just say in your mind, "I am giving this over to you, Spirit."  Or, if you are visual, you can create a beautiful white and gleaming marble altar in your mind.  Make it all lit up, glowing and gorgeously bright.  Place your fear thoughts on the altar and watch them be consumed with white flames of Infinite love.

What affirmations are best?  I like "I accept the love of God" or "Thank you God, for creating me."  An affirmation I'm currently working with is "I accept the happiness that God intends me to have."  Of course, you can choose any affirmation that works for you personally and flips you over from fear to love.

I once read someplace that an hour of meditation is equal to three hours of sleep.  Is this true? If this is so, you can calmly enjoy your affirmations, knowing that each moment you spend with them is contributing to a positive, powerful and energetic day tomorrow.

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We're the Ones That Feel Bad

When we don't forgive, we're only creating more suffering for ourselves.  Leaving negative emotions unresolved eats away at us.  It damages out bodies physically and it damages our minds.  When we allow grievances to accumulate in our mind, they block any chance we have of accessing our natural inner peace.

Do the words natural inner peace surprise you?  Yes, our natural state is inner peace.  However, from our earliest years, we start to harbor psychic wounds.  We allow the hurts to accumulate and clump together in our subconscious.  We start to believe ideas like these:

I am a bad person.
I am not smart.
I am not worthy.
Nobody likes me.
I am not love-able.
Life is unfair.
The world is cruel.
Bad things happen.

When we allow these ideas to take over, we suffer.

And the more we think thoughts like these, the more we draw events toward us that re-enforce these very ideas.  We work a theme.  Perhaps it's a belief in abandonment.  Maybe there was an incident as a very small child where we felt abandoned.  We may find that throughout our lifetime we re-experience those same feelings.  On a regular basis, events transpire in which we are "abandoned" yet one more time.

The only way to stop the cycle of hurt is to forgive and release the grievances.  We can start by working on the most recent experience of abandonment.  We can forgive the event and anyone involved in it.  That will go along way toward resolving this issue.  However, it is best to root it out fully.  We do this by searching our memories for the earliest time when we felt this emotion.  We sit with these feelings and experience them fully until they move through us.  We remember, contemplate, feel the feelings and release.

This takes time and it takes a commitment to look deep, be open to epiphanies, to keep studying ourselves, week after week and month after month.  Things will be revealed.  Aha moments will happen.  And as we understand more about what occurred in our past, as we forgive and release, we will begin the process of restoring that natural inner peace.  

We all have a choice.  We can continue to let fear run our daily lives, or we can do the work and forgive our world.  It takes a lot of inner work to create a forgiveness lifestyle and it unfolds slowly over the course of several years, if one is fully committed.  However, once we do this work, we live largely in peace.  Happiness is once again our ordinary state.

Ask yourself, are you really truly happy?  Or are you substituting a nice car, a good job, busy children and a comfortable house for true happiness.  Are you just telling yourself that this is what happiness is?  Because happiness is so much more than a busy comfortable life.  True happiness comes from a deep inner peace that only forgiveness can bring.

Forgiveness is a lot easier than you may think.  If you would like to forgive, but don't know how to start, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" outlines many easy processes to help you learn to forgive.  Amazingly, forgiveness actually becomes pleasurable and something you will look forward to.  

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