Forgiveness Three – …and forget

Part Three of Three

First LET IT GO and then forgive. Forgive and then FORGET. When I re-member something, I am bringing it back into my energy field. Once I have looked at something that I have done to another or that another has done to me and have gone into it to see what the situation is calling me to look at, then it remains for me to take in the lesson into my heart. The final step is to SET IT FREE. I am setting free the emotional energy of that encounter. I am no longer holding it captive in my energy field. That energy is now free to move freely again as it will.

Only if I am able to put myself in the other’s place, and, as they say, ‘walk a mile in his/her shoes’, only then can I really understand the other. Once I am able to see the situation out of his/her eyes, I realize why things happened as they did. Then resentment melts away and compassion takes its place.

In the same spirit, once I am able to look at my situation from a higher point of view, the ‘supra-personal’ viewpoint, I understand myself and see how I came to take action that may have harmed another. I begin to see the whole chain of events reaching back into my early conditioning as a wee child and even further, into generations that lead up to my life today. Then judgment of myself is replaced by understanding and, of course, compassion for myself.

I will only realize that that situation is truly over when I have ‘swallowed’ it – have taken in its medicine for me and there is no residue left. Then the mind, which is hardwired to judge, may still hold on to that past impression. Then it is the time to tell myself: “Die to that past moment”. In this way I allow its energy to leave my field.

Now I am ready to acknowledge my innocence. I let go of the past and realize that all the situations I may still need to forgive will show up when it is time for me to learn their lesson. Looking into the Still-point at my deepest center I sense clearly if there is something for me to look at now, in this moment, something I have been in denial of. It is like an itch or a gnawing feeling of some kind. I ask to see its source and I am lead clearly to the impressions from the past that I was not able to digest at the time. They are energy, nothing more. Most importantly, I see that they are MY energy, the way I reacted in that situation. They are there, on the shelf, waiting to be looked at, honored, taken in, consumed, digested and set free.

I recognized that many memories from my childhood were impressions of my Mother being in overwhelm, trying to raise 11 children with no extra help, and additionally working nights as a nurse to help make ends meet. All of those memories then turned into a judgment of my Mother. The neglect I felt as a child and the chaotic circumstances in our household translated into the view (subconsciously) that my mother just wasn’t capable of doing what needed to be done – in other words, she was inferior. This judgment solidified further into a belief: WOMEN CAN’T GET THE JOB DONE.

My Dad, on the other hand, was someone to respect out of fear (he ‘disciplined’ us physically and emotionally with spanking, verbal and psychological abuse), so if someone was to blame it had to be my Mother. When I, in recent years, was able to see the whole scenario from a higher vantage point, I found forgiveness.

It is not that I forgive my Mother and Father, but I found forgiveness, which is to find that understanding that everyone did the best they could, all things considered. We use that phrase so lightly sometimes: “all things considered”, but it is the expression of a very deep attitude in life: I was able to see things from many different sides and really understand how my parents did what they could as best they could.

Today I hold both my parents in deep love and gratitude. Of course, after healing these sources of inner turbulence and resentment, my appreciation and respect for women changed radically and I see now how my own feminine aspect was throttled because of the emotional energy blocking me from being vulnerable towards women in my life, and blocking me from being vulnerable towards life.

Forgive and forget – blessed words. Let us begin to clean up our sacred language. Look at all the words that we can begin to remove from our usage: resentment, rancor (which comes from the  same root as ‘rancid‘), grievance, ill-will, grudge, retaliation, bitterness, enmity, hostility, indignation, rankle, antagonism…  When I feel into the energy of these words it is clear that it can only exist when I am holding on to a past situation that I have not cleared. Once I have cleared it, I would like the other to have cleared it as well, but that is nonsense. That is not my job, not my concern. I am free to move on into my life’s unlimited experience, untethered and free.

Related articles

• Forgiveness Two – I Set Myself Free (newearthpulse.wordpress.com)
• Say Cheese for Forgiveness (everydaygurus.com)
• The Truth About Forgiveness (omtimes.com)
• Power of Forgiveness – A Young Girl’s Story (seraphim6.me)
• Forgiveness as Front Page News (stevesthinkingspace.wordpress.com)
• Blog for Peace (bloggers4peace.wordpress.com)

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