The Miracle of Forgiveness

A lack of forgiveness, for yourself or another, keeps you stuck in negative emotions, draining attachments, a prisoner of your past, and blocks greater love, happiness and joy entering your life.

There can be resistances to forgiveness. You may think that if you forgive someone you are condoning their behaviour. You can forgive the ‘why’, rather than the ‘what’, however, – namely the pain, fear, insecurity, lack of self-love, anger, ignorance, ego or dysfunction that lies behind a behaviour, rather than the behaviour itself.

The more you take responsibility for your life, the easier it is to forgive. From a more metaphysical perspective you create or ‘allow’ your experience at some level. In this sense, the first person you may need to forgive is YOU – for allowing something painful or negative into your reality, for example.

It can be empowering to explore the ‘why’ behind anything untoward experienced. You may be projecting negative aspects of yourself onto another, for example. This ‘shadow side’ may be repressed or denied, yet may show up in others and trigger judgmental reactions in you. Outer-projected judgments also transform through self-forgiveness. The more compassionate you are to yourself, the more compassionate you will be to others.

Perhaps the behaviour of someone you feel you need to forgive manifested out of negative beliefs you hold about yourself, others or life itself, or because of a lack self-worth and deserving, a victim pattern, buried guilt that leads to allowing maltreatment from others, etc.

Perhaps the experience is a blessing in disguise, or a soul-level challenge, and holds gifts that are not obvious initially. You may end up feeling grateful to the very people and situations you were once hurt or angered by.

Be compassionate with yourself as you seek to unravel meanings.

You may not know why something has happened, yet forgiveness will still set you free.  

Forgiveness lifts you beyond ‘right or wrong’ so that you are free to sing a higher song.”

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.

To forgive someone, including yourself, you may need to process some of your feelings first (e.g. feel them, write them down, express them creatively or verbally to yourself, or to a loving friend – allow them to be experienced and move through you).

It is hard to forgive through a wall of anger or hurt, for example. Honour your emotions to enable their release.

When you forgive, you also let go, so one resistance to forgiveness can be a resistance to letting go.

My sister made me aware of this when she realised she still chose to be angry with our deceased father (who was an alcoholic and died over a decade ago) because it was a way she could hold on to him. If she forgave him she would have to let him go, and feared greater loss, pain and grief through doing that. 

Forgiveness is a gateway to freedom – freedom from negative emotions that may be weighing you down and freedom to be happy!

If you don’t forgive another, you become bound and captive to the negativity you hold resentment about, which lowers your resonance, both through the resentment itself and being more attached to that negativity. It keeps you in judgment and can stop you from receiving any potential gift, moving forward in your life and rising to a higher level.  

If you don’t forgive yourself you can get caught in patterns of guilt, sabotage, self-punishment, and so on. Subconsciously you may deny yourself the levels of success you desire because you don’t feel you deserve them because you have not forgiven yourself.

You are human and you will make mistakes. You may have ‘less than pretty’ sides and darker thoughts, feelings and deeds.

It is important, rather than to judge, blame or condemn yourself (which only compounds negativity), to recognize, acknowledge, and forgive yourself. This enables letting go, self-acceptance, freedom and a new birth in your reality.

Let yourself off the hook once and for all!

Everyone experiences darker constrictive thoughts or feelings at times in their life. If these aspects of self are judged, buried, disowned, repressed or denied, they can get projected out and witnessed externally in your world in the people you meet and the judgments you make about others.

Negative attributes, be it control, self-pity, manipulation, victimhood, judgment, anger, etc., are potential pathways of human experience. They are not ‘who you are’. Being compassionately conscious of these is a first step in relinquishing them.

Choice and willingness alone are powerful allies in letting go of that which is un-serving, and forgiveness helps to unhinge the grip of ego agendas.

Being aware of negativity does not mean focusing on it or giving it undue attention, but more allowing it to come to light to be shed so you can embrace more of your true nature and essence, your goodness, beauty, and love.

Forgiveness heals and releases whole clusters of negative emotions and opens the door to love. It enables you to let go of the past and who you are not, so you can embrace more of who you are.

As you accept yourself as you are, you more easily let go of what you’re not.

Allow yourself to own and acknowledge your inherent innocence and worth and give yourself and others the gift of forgiveness.

With love,

Aine Belton