MORE ON FORGIVENESS

This will be short and to the point. I was watching a (really kitschy) TV program on my PC the other day, but one sentence of dialogue just popped out at me, despite the fact that I was barely paying attention. It was as if it was played on a loudspeaker at full volume and written in neon lights all at the same time. It was a lesson for me regarding a "test" I had been given the day before and which I failed miserably (and was frustrated with myself as well as very unforgiving of my own behavior, as well as the behavior of the other parties involved). It was also a direct message for a client who arrived just a couple of hours after I watched the program. It was a perfect case of synchronicity, being complimented by a card reading she did with me regarding a certain issue, and everything just flowed together to form a perfect answer to her confusion and uncertainty about how to move forward. Here is the quote:

BEING UNFORGIVING IS LIKE DRINKING POISON AND WAITING FOR THE OTHER PERSON TO DIE!

I wish I could give credit to the person who wrote it but have no idea who he is. Think about it and then perhaps take a moment to reread the following two links to other posts on this blog regarding the same issue:

Living in the Shadow of the Past and the Power of Forgiveness

Another Golden Opportunity to Get Yourself out of the Shadow of the Past

With much love, light, joy and laughter

Jane

Just for Today I Will Love and Respect Every Living Creature

…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself…leviticus 19:18

If we look at this, as it is worded in the fourth of the Reiki Principles, it appears to be fairly straightforward. It is pretty obvious to us that one of the most important things in this world is to love and respect others, show compassion and tolerance, patience and understanding etc. We also know that we must be kind to EVERY living being and this would of course include animals, insects, plants etc., etc.

The original wording of the principle as stated by Dr. Usui is slightly different, but the message is more easily understood with the above paraphrase which I prefer using in my Reiki classes and in my own daily meditation practice.

And the profoundness of the principle, if we truly think about it, opens the door to an entirely new way of perceiving the ups and downs of our lives, of relating to instances where we feel we have been wronged by someone, or taken advantage of, even purposely hurt or embarrassed, or injured in any way. Of relating to the different people who come into our lives and the way we accept and embrace all that is sent our way by God and the Universe.

In addition, if we add just two small words to the above principle, it changes the impact and intent even more deeply. Just for Today I will Love and Respect Every Living Creature…INCLUDING MYSELF!! If we do not truly love ourselves, how can we possibly love and respect our neighbor??

I will try and give insights into the following two questions we must try to answer:

1. Can we truly love and respect others if we don’t do the same for ourselves
2. Can we truly be expected to love and respect EVERYone??


Before going any further into the idea of loving even those who we perceive as causing us pain or wishing us ill, let us, just for a moment, think about our relationship with ourselves.

Do you love yourself? Are you proud of yourself? Do you respect yourself? Do you take yourself for granted? Do you put yourself down? Do you say unkind things about yourself ? Just for the next week, in addition to saying this principle each day with your daily prayers, meditation or whatever your regular practice is, try delving a little deeper into it. Pay attention during the day to the thoughts that you have regarding the things you do. Check the impulse to criticize yourself, or be compassionate with yourself. Note how you feel when you make a wrong decision, or get lost on the highway, or break a dish you are washing, or burn the supper, or simply forget to do something important. What feelings do you have, what words fill your head at the moment (stupid, clumsy, thoughtless, lazy). What sensations do you feel physically in your body? Where? Are you automatically hard on yourself, or, perhaps, compassionate and understanding.

Think about this for a week, and I think you will be quite surprised at what you find. Many of us cannot even say out loud “I love myself”, “I think I am great”, “I am perfect just as I am”, etc., but even those of us who CAN say these things and truly mean them, are still too often overly critical of ourselves.

I would even think to perhaps state the principle in a little different way. Instead of “Just for today I will love and respect every living creature…(including myself)”…How about: “Just for today I will love and respect myself in the same way I imagine I love and respect every other living creature” . Said in that way, it might make it easier for us to realize how much more compassionate we can be with others, how much more tolerant and understanding, how much more patient and loving, than we tend to be with ourselves.

Like a caring mother
Holding and guarding the life
Of her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Hold yourself…. And all beings

…Buddha

“We might quite readily offer such care to others, but we can learn to offer this same kind of gentle attention to ourselves. With the tenderness we might bring to stroking the cheek of a sleeping child, we can softly place a hand on our own cheek or heart. We can comfort ourselves with words of kindness and understanding. “ Radical Acceptance”, Tara Brach, PhD.

For once again, if we do not GENUINELY love and respect ourselves, our pretense at loving and respecting every living creature is just that…pretense… Self love is the first step in truly loving our fellow creatures. And when we love and respect ourselves, everything and anything that happens to us, can be dealt with in a healthy way.

Only when we come to terms with our own shortcomings and learn to accept ourselves exactly as we are, to extend unconditional love to the beautiful person we are, to be compassionate with ourselves even when we are not all we expected of ourselves, to love and respect ourselves and recognize the beauty of our soul within…to feel worthy and deserving and freely offer praise and genuine respect to ourselves…only when we cherish our own being, no matter where we may find ourselves at a particular moment, or stage in our lives, only when we offer ourselves encouragement and love at each step along the way and appreciate our accomplishments-no matter how small, only when we stop taking ourselves and our own needs and wants for granted and understand that we are just as worthy and deserving as everyone else…only when we truly love and respect ourselves can we begin to truly love the next person.

Many people will say “I don’t expect anything from the next person (my children, my spouse, my co-workers, etc.) that I don’t expect from myself.” Well, perhaps we are much too hard on ourselves! Others find it easy to extend loving-kindness, compassion, patience, tolerance, understanding, forgiveness and encouragement to others, while they dole out to themselves judgment, blame, anger, belittling words, harsh accusations, lack of forgiveness, etc.

But it is only when we can find the way to love ourselves unconditionally that we can truly understand the words:

…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself…leviticus 19:18

The idea has obviously been around for a long time and is not a new concept developed by Dr. Usui… The Great Hebrew Sage Rabbi Akiva said “This is the most important point in the Torah…the rest is just commentary”.

The idea of loving the next person as we love ourselves becomes very easy as we simply extend the same gracious and loving attention to everyone that we do to ourselves.

And that will bring us to the second part of this discussion…loving and respecting EVERY living creature:

Let us look at this idea of loving and respecting EVERYone …. This would seem almost impossible when we think of some of the strange, difficult, inconsiderate, spiteful and even abusive people who we meet in our lifetime. But there is a profound lesson in extending understanding, forgiveness (see the post re: Forgiveness ) , compassion , patience and tolerance to those who truly wish us ill. It brings us once again in contact with the idea of FAITH…faith that God is sending these people into our lives for a loving purpose…no matter how difficult that may be for us to see.

We must learn to Cherish those we dislike, even those we perceive as enemies, for they are gifts from God and we must be thankful for this blessing and pray for the wisdom to learn the lesson these people have been sent to teach us

We draw to us those who will help us learn about ourselves. Each time we are presented with a challenge dealing with another, we are really being presented with an opportunity to look inside ourselves to see what about us it is that needs working on, so that we may grow.

The idea of loving each and every person, no matter what, is quite difficult, almost impossible, but I present the idea to you for further thought and consideration, together with the following collection of quotes and insights, and perhaps your comments will lead to further discussion which will benefit us all:

Every person sent to us is a blessing meant to teach us a lesson we need to learn.

In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.

Dalai Lama

Everything that irritates us about others

Can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung (1875-1961), Psychologist ~

I have learned silence from the talkative,

tolerance from the intolerant

and kindness from the unkind.

I should not be ungrateful to those teachers.

Kahlil Gibran

What angers us in another person is more often than not an unhealed aspect of ourselves. If we had already resolved that particular issue,we would not be irritated by its reflection back to us.~ Simon Peter Fuller (from 'Rising Out of Chaos') ~

No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) ~

Nothing can hurt you unless you give it the power to do so.

~ A Course in Miracles ~~

The main teachers of patience are our enemies."
Dalai Lama

and with this I wish you all much love and compassion, patience and tolerance, and freedom from fear to accept and embrace all that is sent your way by God and His Loving Universe.

Jane

Another Lesson From India so Appropriate Here as Well

Still working on my journals from India, and again came across the following, which happened in 2001 but is so appropriate to what I have been writing about here on this blog. Particularly the post about "Living in the Shadow of the Past". Hope you enjoy this personal insight and would love your comments.

Much love to all of you...and success on your own inner journeys.

Monday October 8th, 2001-8 AM

I didn't really know how to write about what just happened but it has been another turning point for me in my work with myself and my quest to come to terms with my painful past experiences which have had such enormous impacts on my whole life. To know the past
and to perceive it in a neutral light and to truly be able to forgive and put it all where it belongs...in the past...and not have it always accompanying me in subtle forms in all I do and in my relationships up to this day......I very often felt I had managed to do just that, but certain memories would keep coming back to haunt me and the same painful emotions were always still there...dealing with this and freeing
myself from this has eluded me… until today.

The fact that this happened on the very last day of my 2 months alone is for me, at any rate, very significant...it means to me that this was the time I
needed to purge myself and it is now perfectly suitable for me to be getting on with my travels with someone else...I no longer so desperately need this time "with myself". It is just another proof to me that we must never worry about "what will happen
when..." as the natural flow of events, the overview, is always in place and perfect for our needs...we do not need to waste all of our valuable energies worrying if we made the right decisions and analyzing each move before we make it and what if it will not "work out" and maybe we should have done something else. The idea is to just "DO".

I just read a quote by Ray Bradbury (of all people)
which is quite appropriate:

"Make your journey be a joyous one!
Don't think! Thinking is the enemy of creativity
It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is
lousy...
You can't try to do things.
You simply must DO things!"

Very apropos for all of us actually.

I really am still working on quieting my mind but that will still take time but the basic idea is "to do" and "enjoy" without thinking so much. All will always happen for our own personal best interest.

Now...What happened was I have been trying all kinds of techniques and exercises and processes to rid myself of several poisonous memories which have been keeping
me from truly feeling completely forgiving of the past and these memories were still preventing me from fully getting on with my life and with certain
relationships. I felt that none of the things I was doing was helping and again went to sleep last night feeling quite disturbed by the fact that I couldn’t overcome these feelings which always flooded back to me every time I tried working with the past.

One particular memory headed the list always and perhaps is representative of the injustices I felt as a child and I could never seem to see it in any
perspective other than a child being unjustly treated. No matter how I approached it, it just remained the same and hurt me and angered me every time over again.

It is an incident involving an ice cream tart and probably I am the only one who even remembers it, but, I have finally broken free of not only that incident,but every feeling of pain, anger and injustice it represented from my past.

In the early morning hours when we have "those kinds of dreams", a kind of video film of my childhood started to play. But it included feelings, smells, sounds, sights and impressions which placed me in the role of both participant and at the same time neutral
observer of the events and scenes. Places and people and sights and events and memories arose going back to when I was as young as 2 up to about the age of
10-12. So detailed was the "video" that I was actually there once again. I can still feel the
essence of the places and smell the food and hear the traffic noises while I sit here and write!! Most of the places and people I had not thought of in 50 years
if ever, and these came flooding back to me, candy stores, movie theaters, my grandmother(!), dancing school, on and on and on...friends, neighbors, it was unbelievable!! I wish I had some kind of dream video recorder to save it and replay for all of you to see!! But I guess the idea was just for me to BE there just once more and live through it as well - and neutrally observe it in order to finally purge myself.

Now this all sounds clever and nice and I know even while still watching it that it was working to finally get me moving on without the burden of my past...but as I opened my eyes (at first I had to rub them to be sure I was now really awake) a sparrow sat on the string which acts as my closet here and just looked at me...When I opened my eyes, it chirped as if to say "Oh, now you are a "free bird" just like me!!" (sparrow in Hebrew is called a "tzipor dror" meaning a "bird of freedom") and this is truly now how I
feel. I helped the sparrow find his way out of my room (don't know how he got in...was he here all night??) and then had an enormous cry of overwhelming joy and here I am writing!! I feel "light as a bird" inside and cannot truly believe that this happened to
me. Having the bird here to confirm it and physically emphasis the impact of what happened is almost unbelievable. But true!! So...that's if for
today...must truly assimilate what has happened to
me...it is quite amazing!!

Tuesday...October 9th (still in Mcleod)

After reading something by the Dalai Lama now I had an even greater insight into that ice cream tart incident I mentioned yesterday. It says when someone hurts you or angers you...not only to see it from the other persons point of view which is obvious...but to think
what opportunity it gave you to grow or something positive from YOUR point of view. Up until today I had actually not seen anything positive from my point of view in the incident...when all of a sudden it dawned on me...just now...and I burst out laughing...Am still smiling as I write this... I was given the opportunity at a VERY early age to learn
that you "cannot fool Mother!!"..a fact which probably made the next 15 years of my life a lot easier for me (or maybe you CAN fool her but you've got to be very clever and subtle to do it...so I was forced to develop some very useful tools for the rest of my
life!!)

The Jewish New Year and Another Golden Opportunity to Get Yourself Out of the Shadow of the Past

You don't have to be Jewish to use this opportunity. It is simply another chance to journey within and see what we find, explore the inner workings of our soul and try and move forward into a new place. There will always be things which need to be questioned and challenged, and always new ways and opportunities to make profound changes which will help us move forward in our Sacred Contract, our reason for being here.

Let us all pray that we be granted the guidance, clarity and direction we need, as well as the wisdom to understand and perceive the blessings given to us, no matter what form or disguise they may take.

This would be a good time to take a minute and go back and check out the previous post on Living in the Shadow of the Past and the Power of Forgiveness and finding the ways to release all that is no longer necessary or healthy for us in the coming New Year. It would also be a wonderful time to begin doing the forgiveness exercise explained in the post for all those in your life who you still need to forgive. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to discard everything which we do not need to move forward in peace, tranquility, love, laughter and good health. Let's move out of the Shadow of the Past into a beautiful, sunny and tranquil New Year.

I am now reading a book which I highly recommend to all by Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Sacred Contracts. Her latest book is called Invisible Acts of Power-Personal Choices That Create Miracles-quite amazing and highly recommended. I would like to end this post by sharing with you the following quote (pp.58) from the book since it gives amazing insights into many things we have discussed and opens doors to much further thought. If you already know these things, than think about them often. If this is the first time you are encountering these ideas, than think about them deeply and begin to question and contemplate. You will get much joy from understanding the ideas.

• You are where you are supposed to be and in every moment there is an opportunity to seerve another or to receive support.
• There are no such things as coincidences or accidents. Look for the meaning in your synchronistic encounters.
• Any form of assistance you offer is an act of healing.
• Anything you do for others, as well as the support you receive in your own life, has healing consequences for the whole human community.
• You will always receive help within a second of a prayer. To recognize the help, you must see everything in your life from that second on as a part of the answer to your prayer.
• Everything you do consciously is an invisible act of power.
  
  SHANA TOVA TO ALL...A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
  

Disappointment is Hell

I have just finished reading, as I do on a daily basis, an article from the Yoga Journal. (A link to the website is on the sidebar for your information). At first I thought I would summarize it here, as it relates in many ways to what we've been discussing recently re: mindfulness, getting out from the shadow of the past, living in the present moment etc. But it is so well written, I have simply given you below a link to the article. It is quite long but I hope you will have the patience to see it through to the end. There are some very important truths in it, very well written, and quite thought provoking. Just click on the link below and it should take you directly to the article.Your comments are most appreciated.Enjoy with my lovehttp://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/445_5.cfm

Living in the Shadow of the Past and the Power of Forgiveness

Like your shadow on the sidewalk when the sun shines behind you,

holding onto painful past memories

darkens each forward step

which could instead be filled with light.

The above statement may seem obvious, and simple, but it is most profound and warrants further thought and attention.

Holding onto the past is probably the most universal of all human behavior patterns. It is the rare individual who lives his life entirely in the present, unburdened by influences from the past. At the same time, it is one of the main causes of worry, tension, pain, sadness, depression, anger, grief, hate, jealousy, discontent,even physical illnesses - just about everything and anything that each of us would be much better off without.

So, how can we rid ourselves of this terrible burden? There is only one way.

Forgiveness!

Forgiveness does not necessarily mean condoning things that happened to us or that were done to us by strangers, and even more difficult to deal with, by those close to us. It means reaching a point in life where we simply decide "Enough!". I will no longer allow the past to rule my life and take possession of my thoughts, feelings, reactions and dictate the way I live each day. The burden of the past is heavy enough to weigh us down until we are bent over and unable to move, stuck in a place we do not wish to be but which we do not have the energy to move out of. Only by dumping this terrible burden can we again feel light, joyful, fresh, young, energetic, enthusiastic, creative, loving, caring, compassionate, patient and tolerant, content, vibrant and full of peace and tranquility.

I am attaching some wonderful short statements, dealing with the power of forgiveness...and how our past effects each step we take in the present. They are taken from a very long list of ideas for further thought called "Your Biography Becomes your Biology" which I will post in full in a later post. For now I am just "picking and choosing" for the particular idea of forgiveness.

There are also many wonderful techniques for releasing the past, and I will explain at the end of this blog the one which I find most effective. This is from both personal experience and the experiences of many of my clients who have moved on to wonderful new places in their lives after combining the technique with other subtle forms of energy work such as Reiki and Bach Flower Remedies-but it is a technique which can work entirely on its own if taken seriously and done properly and with intent.

Look for it at the end of this post!

• "Healing requires taking action--it is not a passive event.'

• 'What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body.'

• 'We have converted our wounds into a type of relationship currency that we use in order to control situations and people.'

• 'Healing means getting over the pain, not marketing it.'

• 'Therapy is a boat to cross the river, we just have to remember to get off on the other side.'

• 'Master your responses to external events--don't attempt to control them.'

• 'Forgiveness is like a rough diet with no payback -- you won't like it until it's over.'

• Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.’

• 'Forgiveness doesn't look attractive until we get to the other side.’

• Present time energy is its own transformer. The more energy you have in present time, the more voltage you can move through you.

• ‘Call back the energy you are wasting on events of the past.’

• We are never being punished, only being taught. Everything is a teaching.

• ‘It goes without saying that not every healing crisis will have a 'fairy-tale ending,' but every effort you make, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you, will always bring you closer to a state of spiritual and physical health.’

• What is wrong with us that we have to have yesterday's grief with us today?

• Forgiveness is a path to my inner laboratory.

• Get bored with your past, it's over! '

• Release the need to know why things happen the way they do.' '

• Never look to another person to make you happy--happiness is an internal, personal attitude and responsibility.'

• 'Life is essentially a learning experience. Every situation, challenge and relationship contains some message worth learning or teaching to others.'

• 'Practice forgiveness of others.'
• 
  'Positive energy works more effectively than negative energy in each and every situation.' '

• Our emotions reside physically in our bodies and interact with our cells and tissues.'

• 'Nothing empowers our ability to heal as much as our love and forgiveness.'

• 'The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.'

• 'Spiritual teachings encourage us to grow past and through painful experiences, each of which is a spiritual lesson.'

• 'Illness can develop as a consequence of behavioral patterns and attitudes that we do not realize are biologically toxic until they have already become so.' '

• I am forgiving not for you, but for me. I am forgiving because I want my power back.'

• 'Get over it.'

• 'Feeling victimized only adds to your illness, and should it become a full state of mind, would qualify as an illness in itself.'

• 'We are addicted to the power of the wound.'

• 'Release victim consciousness and embrace forgiveness.'

• We can achieve a genuine sense of peace about life only by releasing our need to know why things happen in terms of human reasoning and by embracing Divine reasoning.'

• ‘We cannot seek to heal an illness without first looking into what behavioral patterns and attitudes need to be altered in our life.’

• For every time zone that we are in, other than here, we drain our life energy.

• Law of the gods: get bitter or better.

• A forgiving heart is an honest heart.

• Blame is a form of energetic cancer.

• If anyone tries to complicate your life - turn and walk away from them

• If it's not about you, it's not about you

• You can't understand what you can't understand

• Don't make simplicity hard

• Your task is to learn the lesson that the teacher has for you rather than to resent the teacher

• Seen symbolically, our life crises tell us that we need to break free of beliefs that no longer serve our personal development

• Our lives change externally as we change internally

• View every experience as a blessing and a remedy that serves your well-being.

• Illness can be a teacher, companion, or challenge-but not a punishment.

• Healing requires that you admit the truth about yourself.

• Embrace the changes in your life.

• Bless your difficulties and ask to see their hidden guidance.

• Be mindful of how often you judge others.

• Become mindful of your reasons to stay angry

• To be unable to forgive is to live in hell, burdened, miserable, angry

• Get in present time and forgive the people who have hurt you

• We are not meant to stay wounded

• To blame the other players in our drama for helping to teach us what we need to learn is the height of foolishness

• Understand that all experiences either make you bitter or better

• Practice the art of transformation

• Become mindful that remaining in a conflict is a choice

• Learn that the way to set change in motion is to bless and appreciate even the most difficult parts of our life

• Recognize whether you love yourself enough to heal

• Realize you choose to stay angry when you can choose to heal

• Sometimes the strings to our past are burned because we need a new beginning

Forgiveness Exercise:

1. Using a full size notebook or pad (A4, letter size), take a page and fold it in half lengthwise.
2. Number each line from 1 to 70.
3. Choose a person you wish to begin forgiving. This can be as simple as a teacher in the first grade who made you stand in the corner or as deep as an abusive parent. It can be yourself (but this is better left until later on in the forgiveness work) or even God! You may want to begin with something small and move on to the heavier duty things once you get the hang of the exercise, but there is no reason why you cannot “jump right into deep water” if you so choose.
4. On the left hand side of the page (remember, there is a fold line down the middle of the page), start on line one, and on each line up to 70 write: " I (your name) completely and totally forgive (name of other person)."
5. You will write this 70 times.
6. While writing this short but powerful sentence, thoughts will begin to come up into your head “Why the hell am I doing this?” “This is silly” “There is NO way I will forgive this person”> “Look at what he did to me when he….” Etc., etc. Every single thought, without censorship and without comment or contemplation, you simply write down on the RIGHT side of the fold. As they come, as they flow, just write and then immediately go back to writing the other sentence 70 times. DO NOT STOP TO READ OR THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FOLD LINE.
7. Once you have written this 70 times, take the piece of paper and BURN IT.
8. Do this for a full 7 days FOR EACH PERSON. And burn at the end of each day.
9. At the beginning of a new week, choose someone new to work on.
10. As the days go by, the thoughts that immerge from the depths of our subconscious will become less and less. There will probably be no more left by the end of the week regarding the person involved. If there ARE still many thoughts, do the same person for a second full week! But this RARELYhappens.

Once the person is taken care of and the papers are burnt, you will feel an enormous lightness overtake you. It is quite remarkable. It really does work!

If something is unclear about the above, please feel free to comment below and I will explain further. I wish you all wonderful new days filled with the relief of "dropping" the weight of the past from your shoulders, and standing tall of joyfully embrace each new day.
With much love, light, health, tranquility and laughter.
Jane