What's to Forgive About the 4th?

Perhaps your 4th of July celebrations went off quietly and without a hitch.  Your 4th was peaceful or uneventful.  If so, you are free of forgiveness homework for now, but do remember that forgiveness opportunities are a part of everyone's life and if you're not being given a forgiveness assignment this weekend, you'll get one soon enough.

If, however, you had a crazy busy 4th with lots of family and friends treading on each others toes, travel traffic to deal with, crowds, summer heat and burnt BBQ, you might have a little forgiveness work to do.  Spend a few quiet moments quickly reviewing your holiday today.  Were there disappointments or moments of frustration and anger?  Did anyone insult you or hurt your feeling?  Did your buttons get pressed at any point either by people you know and love, by strangers in the crowds or traffic or simply by the events of the weekend?  If you find that there were any moments where you felt any negative feelings at all, it's time to do a little forgiveness work.

Send a little love to whomever or whatever activated your emotions over the holiday.  Go ahead.  Just flip the switch from fear and negative thinking to love.  If you find forgiveness easy, just see the people or events you need to forgive enveloped in white light.  You can say the words, "I forgive you.  I release you.  I bless you with love."  Or, you can envision them floating skyward in their brilliant white light and say the words, "I raise you. I praise you." over and over until you feel the switch has been flipped from fear to love.  You'll know it in your heart when that has happened.  If you're in the habit of forgiving, a quickie forgiveness process like one of these usually does the trick.  Congratulations...job done!

However, if you're new to forgiveness or if you had a particularly unsettling run-in with someone, you can try a more structured forgiveness process.  You can go to Colin Tipping's web-site and download one of his radical forgiveness forms.  Or, you can download my audio forgiveness meditation, "Forgive Someone Now",https://www.tahoedreaminteriors.com/forgive-someone-now/ which will guide you through forgiveness for only $2.99.  You can load it onto your computer or cell phone so that you can listen to it anytime you need it.  It will teach you an easy forgiveness process that you can use anytime and anywhere.

Get in the habit of reviewing your weekend every weekend and clearing through any unsettling events with forgiveness.  A forgiveness habit will create peace in your life over time.  You'll be amazed at how much your life and the world around you will change with a forgiveness lifestyle.  Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

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Choose Acceptance for Peace

There is a larger plan for us and our lives are carefully orchestrated to lead us to love.  In every decision, choice and pathway, love is always an option.  In fact, our ultimate and true purpose here is to learn to make that choice for love every time.

And, as it says in A Course in Miracles, we don't really know what anything we see in the world around us is for.  Sometimes life seems confusing.  It may not always look like we are being taken care of.  In our human smallness, there is just too much that we cannot know.  However, if we always look for that choice for love, we can know that we are on the pathway to peace and happiness.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?" --A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 135

Sometimes that choice for love is in simply accepting the world around us as we see it.  We drop our defenses, quit battling with life and just breathe and accept.  It is never going to be the world our egos want it to be.  And, in fact, our egos don't have our higher interests are heart anyway.  What the ego wants is not necessarily the best for anyone involved.

So stop desperately wanting to get ahead.  Stop the constant wishing for a thinner body or a lottery win.  The answer is not in a fancier car, lower cholesterol, a fatter pay check or a better love life.  All the worldly things you desperately long for will never bring you the life you actually want.  Putting all your energy into planning, controlling, spinning, lamenting, begging and nudging the details of your life to become the life you wish it was will never work.  And here's the proof of this...has it worked so far?

The life you actually want comes through acceptance, forgiveness and love.   The world around you is the one that has been chosen for you, by you and with you.  It is the world that is very best suited to lead you to peace.  Make that choice for love in every moment you can today.  Just love and accept what you see around you today.  No need to judge it.  It's all good.  Forgive what bugs you and accept the rest.

And when you wake up tomorrow, make that choice for love again.

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Repeat Offenders

Many of us have someone in our regular everyday lives that repeatedly presses our buttons.  For some of us, this person annoys or triggers irritation in us just about every time we see them.

What do we do about this?

We forgive them every time this happens.  Yes, every single time.  Even if that means that we are forgiving the same person over and over each day.

It is very important to keep our forgiveness current, because when we go about our day with an un-forgiveness, we have switched ourselves out of a state of love and into a state of fear-based thinking.  Our day will then be filled with further problems and upsets until we get ourselves back into a state of alignment through our forgiveness.

It's also a good idea to review each day before going to bed at night and forgive this person once again before sleep. This will help to keep our dreams free of further disturbance and entanglement with them.

Some people are just difficult for us.   I've mentioned before that we come into this life with forgiveness challenges.  Life is a classroom and we have particular lessons to learn.  Some of us are given certain people that we need to learn to forgive.  It's part of our growth and purification process.  That means that we might find ourselves married to a spouse that irritates us frequently, or we might have a boss or an employee that is a constant challenge for us.  Perhaps one of our children is difficult for us to deal with.

Rather than letting this situation unduly frustrate or upset us, it's important to view it as what it is, a forgiveness opportunity.  This person is in our lives giving us the chance to grow and learn.

It's also important to take a good long deep hard look at why we feel annoyed with this person.  Chances are this person is mirroring back to us something we don't like about ourselves.  Look at what it is that makes this person difficult for you.  Are they too critical, short-tempered, easily frustrated, quick to lose control?  Whatever it is, you will probably find a little of that same characteristic in your own make-up.  As part of your forgiveness work, you'll need to go deeper in developing a more realistic understanding of this aspect of yourself and releasing and forgiving it in your own psyche as you work to forgive it in theirs.

Now, here's the good news.  Over time as you forgive this person again and again, you will find yourself becoming less frequently annoyed by them.  Part of this is because as your forgiveness washes over them, they will actually begin to lesson up on the annoying behavior.  Additionally, as you work on releasing this aspect of your own mind, you will feel less and less activated by their behavior.  This might be a slow process and take weeks, months and even years to resolve completely.  However, keep at it and you'll find that your life steadily improves as you do this work.

Remember, we're all here to see the truth about the world.  And that truth is that we are all really only LOVE, that we are One and that each and every one of us is the same.  We are going to have to figure out how to live this belief one way or another.  Be in a state of gratitude that this irritating person is in your life, showing you the way to Truth.  You have an easy everyday assignment that will get you there.  Just forgive this one person that annoys you over and over, every day.  Bless them and show them love through your forgiveness and bring on a happier state of mind for both of you.

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Let It Go

Here is the plain and simple truth...you can never be happy if you are judging and holding a grudge against someone else.  That is how this world works.  It's a universal law.  It just is.  

And yes, I know that it can seem scary to forgive.  It is the unknown pathway.  And we grasp on to our grudges and betrayals.  We cherish them...and nurture them...and our lives become all about them.  I know, I know.  I've been there.

The thing is, here's the truth.  Judgment and grudge-holding are the source of guilt in your life.  And guilt leads to separation from your Source.  

This is not happiness, this is life at it's smallest, most restricted and contracted.  It's not really what you want.  It's only what you think you want.  You simply don't know how to be otherwise.  No one has shown you a better way and a reason to follow it.  

But here it is, right now, right here...  

If you let your judgments and grudges go, you will be happier.  That's it.  So very simple and yet so very big.  You can be a happier person.  Your life can be easier for you.  You can feel safe and cherished in this world.  You can feel trust that you are protected and loved.  You can experience inner peace.  It's all there for you and you just have to do one simple thing...

Let it go.  

Repeating again from yesterday's post, because it bears repeating:

All this is so much bigger than holding onto that miserable pain-inducing, tight-fisted, life-long grudge against that most annoying someone in your life.  This is huge.  This is everything.  Do you see that?  Let it go.  Let it go.  LET IT GO.  Choose to live a happy life.  Choose to know your real truth.  Choose to be so much more than the smallness you are living now.  Forgive and be happy.

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Forgiveness is for YOU!

"Each time you forgive, you take yourself deeper into the purity of your own consciousness."  ---The Way of Mastery p. 25

Forgiveness is for YOU!  

It's not something you do because you ought to, or you think you should.  You don't forgive because way back when your Sunday School teacher told you to.

It's not something you do for others (although forgiveness is very healing for everyone else).  You don't do it because long ago your mother told you to forgive your sister when the two of you argued.

It's not something you do to heal the world, although it does contribute to the healing of the world.

It is simply for YOU.  It is through forgiveness that you discover your own magnificence.  You discover that you are loving and good inside at your core.  You are connected to the divine and that purity and innocence flows in your veins.  It is only as you forgive the world around you, however, that the awareness of your own beautiful divine nature begins finally to dawn on you.

When your forgiveness work begins to congeal into a new way of seeing the world, you subconsciously start the process of actually forgiving yourself.  You learn that if purity is at the heart of everyone you've forgiven, then it is at your own heart, too.  You begin to see yourself differently.  You recognize your inherent goodness and wisdom.  It is there, and actually has always been there.  But it is only as you practice forgiveness that you are able to recognize its presence.

And as you forgive more and more in your everyday world, your life begins to change.  It becomes easier, Lighter.  Good things flow to you.  Life's lessons become gentler.

You begin to see that you can trust life to take care of you and that allows you to accept more peace.  You understand inherently that you are safe.  That everything that is important in this life begins with forgiveness and love.  That as you forgive and love, you are tapping into the essence of your purpose.

And this makes you want to go further in your forgiveness.  So you probe into your past wounds and release and forgive.  You see the distorted, false, difficult world around you and you accept, accept and accept even more.  You release the old false beliefs that blocked you from seeing the truth in your heart.

More peace flows in.  Life lightens even more.  And one day you know that you have reached the beginning of living what A Course in Miracles calls "the happy dream".   It's not all always perfect, but it mostly is, and you know in your core that as you continue to live in forgiveness, it will become more and more so.

You've found happiness.

All this is so much bigger than holding onto that miserable pain-inducing tight-fisted life-long grudge against that most annoying someone in your life.  This is huge.  This is everything.  Do you see that?  Let it go.  Let it go.  LET IT GO.  Choose to live a happy life.  Choose to know your real truth.  Choose to be so much more than the smallness you are living now.  Expand into love.  Forgive and be happy.

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What Really Occurs When You Forgive?

I am preparing this week to lead a discussion group class on the third chapter from "The Way of Mastery".  The topic of this chapter is forgiveness.  I have read this chapter over and over, many many times in the past, but I find that each time I read it, I get new lessons.  This little section below jumped out at me this morning and I had to share it with you:

"What really occurs when you forgive?

You are a conduit of energy.  To the degree that the conduit is in working order, the energy can flow so radiantly that the conduit actually becomes transparent.  That is, it no longer blocks.  There is no barrier or limit to the Light.  

When you judge, it is as though you contracted and made the walls of the conduit smaller, just like building up rust in your pipes.  And the flow becomes less and less.

As you forgive judgments, it is as though the rust in the pipes is dissolving.  It is as though the walls of the pipe that are carrying the liquid of God's Love begin to expand and become thinner and thinner and more transparent.

Judgment is contraction.

Forgiveness is relaxation, peace, trust and faith." --Way of Mastery p. 33  

I really do feel this.  When I am in a state of un-forgiveness or judgment, I feel a tightness in my chest, a density to my physical body, a heaviness.  However, after I forgive, I feel light, happy, comfortable and easy in both my body and mind.  And the more I work at forgiveness, the more I experience this.

I experience the most happiness when I am doing the most forgiveness work.  When I am truly practicing what I call a "forgiveness lifestyle", I find that I almost feel like I am walking on air.

A "forgiveness lifestyle" means that every night before I go to sleep I scan my mind to see if there is anything that happened that day that I can forgive. This is what I call forgiving the present  (see here for more).

It also means that I am constantly alert to the workings of my mind, looking to see if any old memories of hurt, anger or upset rise to the surface.  When I do, I forgive and release them (using techniques you can find in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness").  This is forgiving the past (see here for more).

It also means that I am constantly thinking, ruminating if you will, looking deep into my mind in search of the false beliefs I have created in my mind as a result of these past memories.  False beliefs are beliefs such as:  "I'm not worthy." "I'm not love-able."  "I don't deserve to have good in my life."  "I am a bad girl."  "I am stupid."  "Nobody likes me."  "I am ugly."  "I am poor."  "I am sick."  (see here for more on understanding and forgiving false beliefs).

There are many more false beliefs but these are a few key examples.  If we are to really and truly forgive ourselves, we need to dig up these false beliefs and root them out of our minds with our forgiveness.  This is self-forgiveness, of course.

Forgiveness is mental and physical freedom.  It opens the door to inner peace.  Without it, we simple can not have peace.  However, with it comes the peace that leads to true happiness.

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"All events are neutral. They merely provide you with a chance to choose love."

As a student of A Course in Miracles, I like to look at life here as a classroom and I try to use those times in my life when I feel hurt or angry as opportunities to learn and grow.  

"What if you merely chose the "insane" way, according to the world, of looking at one who has just done that act as a brother or sister who is crying out for help and healing?  What if you chose to look upon them as one who does not know how to live in this world without being of this world, who does not know the way to self-forgiveness, who does not know the truth of the Light that lives within them, and who does not recognize their great power to create whatever they want in a way that is not hurtful to anyone?  What if you chose to look upon them with compassion rather than reactivity?"--Way of Master p. 30

When something brings me pain, I try to realize that I have drawn this event toward me so that I can learn and grow from it.  It is in the act of forgiveness and acceptance that I become more magnificent.  My forgiveness opportunities are really the gems of my life.  They are my gifts to myself because in each one I can choose to become smaller and less effective in my world, or I can choose to open myself up to the reality of my truth as a glorious and powerful source of love and healing in this world.

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