Forgiveness is a superpower fostered by internal skills we are being invited to master as humanity transitions through a growth chapter into love, truth and wisdom.  

All too often forgiveness remains superficial despite our best efforts. This is because we try to forgive through our minds. 

And how do you know when you are trying to forgive through your mind?

From the mind, forgiveness shows up as justification. 

I forgive my mother/ father/ friend/ lover/ etc because… blah, blah, blah (insert reason) 

This will not provide the healing power of forgiveness. Just spend a week with your family over Xmas and watch them trigger all the past baggage you’re still holding onto. 

Plus, 

There are too many things you will not be able to justify i.e. reason into forgiveness. Like the recent tragic Wieambilla police shootings. This heartbreaking and devastating event requires healing that goes way beyond what the mind can make sense of.

You may have discovered that ‘self’ forgiveness is even more difficult. It doesn’t seem to matter how much of a ‘good person’ you are or what you have ‘achieved’ – somehow you will find reasons to generally feel at odds with yourself or perhaps spiral into doubt and regret about past decisions. 

So how do you forgive yourself and others for real?

Firstly, consider for-giveness as ‘giving’.

And what are you giving?

You are giving your willingness. 

And when it comes to forgiveness, what you are willing to do…? 

You are willing to let go.  

Without being consciously aware of it, most people sit in the energetic position of, 

“I’m not willing to let go”, 

Driven by the attitude of… 

“Why should I be willing to ‘give’ when so much has been ‘taken’ from me”. 

This results in holding on and suffering the consequences long term.

Why do we hold on? 

To protect ourselves from ever having to experience what happened again. 

To cut a long (painful) story short – holding on doesn’t work. Period. 

In fact, it does the opposite. You end up attracting more of what you don’t want to happen in very complex ways that you essentially experience as unhappiness, relationship drama, anxiety, depression, toxic emotions, mental health, chronic health issues and so much more.

In the case of forgiveness, holding on sets your energetic vibration at the level of victim mode. 

Let’s face it, being a victim of situations, circumstances or events is bound to happen in our lifetime. And there are natural processes and cycles necessary to heal from these experiences (I’ll unpack those in another post).

What’s important here, is not to deny when you have been a victim and also not to identify yourself AS a victim. To do this often requires expert support and specific internal skills and processes we didn’t get at school, or at home, that nurture the healing process.  

And I’ll let you in on a secret most people don’t want to admit…

Without undergoing the healing process of forgiveness the victim becomes the perpetrator. 

This can be a very tough pill of truth to swallow for the victim. And the denial of this energetic certainty continues to perpetuate the victim/perpetrator cycle.

This can be seen right now in movements such as gender identity, gender pronouns, trauma-informed care, feminism, black lives matter, to name just a few very important movements of change that can easily become contaminated by the unhealed victim that becomes a self-righteous and self-justified perpetrator (I will discuss specifics around these emotionally charged topics in another post)    

Furthermore, 

One of the major barriers to forgiveness, i.e. letting go, is to mistake forgiveness as condoning poor behaviour or mistake it as invalidating what happened. This is the Ego talking. The Ego always tells you the opposite of what is true. 

Why? 

Because Ego feeds and thrives off negativity. The unhealed victim state is Ego heaven. It can live on that energy for a lifetime and therefore cause a lifetime of drama and suffering. 

But let’s say you are willing to let go…

What are you letting go of and how do you let go? 

Let me break it down into two simple steps…

Step 1: Identify the limiting thoughts, perceptions and beliefs 

In simple terms, what you are holding onto are specific thoughts, perceptions and beliefs about the situation you have unknowingly become identified with. 

What’s important to understand here is that any thought you have unconsciously added to your sense of self you won’t let go of because you would be letting go of ‘yourself‘ in the process.

From this position, any attempt to forgive will merely be a mental justification – which, as discussed, doesn’t work. 

Discovering the thoughts you have become identified with that stop you from forgiving is a skill that requires expert support and guidance to navigate. Once you learn the skills, you become the empowered master of your internal environment. 

Step 2: Dis-identify 

Holding on is an identification process. Letting go is a dis-identification process. By skillfully becoming aware of the thoughts that are preventing you from forgiveness, you can then become the witness. 

The witness is your true self. In the Self Intelligence Course, you are given processes, including Self Recognition Practices, Emotional Release Meditation, Trigger Enquiry and much more to discover who you ‘really’ are – as the witness.

As the witness, letting go is a natural process. You don’t have to try to let go, witnessing and letting go are synonymous.  

In the seat of witnessing, Ego constructs dissolve, which is when healing can naturally take place. Grief and a wide range of emotions, feelings, mental impressions, and energetic patterns can surface, process and heal.    

By discovering who you are beyond the circumstances that caused you to hold on, the unforgivable event has now become a vessel for self-discovery, wisdom, truth and love.

You have discovered the superpower of forgiveness that all the great mystics of the past have revered as quintessential learning to be at peace in this tumultuous existence.

Watch this video to discover more about the specific thoughts that block forgiveness and subscribe to the Self Intelligence Channel to receive free processes and guided meditations to support your healing process.