I meditate every morning for 30 minutes to let my mind poop – letting shit-thoughts (you heard me right) be released. What came up for me this morning in my meditation is a word that is commonly heard in the world of self-help and personal development. The word is 'forgiveness.' Often times, the idea we associate with forgiveness is the idea that we are doing someone else a favor. 'I'm forgive you so we can move on'. The word ‘Forgive’ is about giving someone the gift of forgiving...or is it?
The word 'forgive' can be broken down into two parts:
- ‘FOR’ – the idea of forgoing – you’re forgoing the problems, anxiety & worry. You’re forgoing and...
- ‘GIVING’ - the idea that you are giving yourself the opportunity to have peace of mind. You’re opening up doors to have a happy, calm mind and the gift of peace.
So in essence, perhaps we've had it wrong this whole time. Perhaps forgiving is not really about the other person. Perhaps it's that you’re FORgoing and GIVING yourself the gift of a beautiful state of mind.
To be clear, it’s not about letting the other person walk all over you and saying ‘I am going to forgive you for being a jerk.’ It’s about not letting the outside world ruin your happiness. The truth is that we cannot control the outside world (i.e. the jerk) but we can control whether we let the outside world influence our beautiful state of mind. With forgiveness, you forgo the worry and choose to forgive by letting go.
A lot of us like to hold onto the worry, pain or the grudge because it gives us some satisfaction. There is this idea that we need to hold onto negative energy to remind ourselves not to put ourselves in that situation again. You can still let go of the worry and anxiety and still trust that when jerks, worry or anxiety show up in the future you’ll be able to stand your ground and not put up with crap.
Forgiving is never about the other person, it’s about you. As much as we need to forgive other people, we need to constantly forgive ourselves on the daily. Forgive yourself for making that poor financial decision or forgive yourself for not loving yourself. I have had several clients who have expressed anger towards themselves because they don’t love themselves – they are mad that they’re mad or sad that they're sad (it's a weird a vicious cycle). Giving yourself the gift of forgiving yourself and saying that ‘I am 100% enough’ is the best gift that you can receive. Acknowledging that your past has served you and seeing it as a victory or a learning experience, gives you the freedom to live from your heart and love yourself more.
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