Don’t hold a grudge for being hurt in the ast – no matter how hurtful that insult was. Grudges are heavy and tend to make the take off for a new life quite difficult. The longer you hold that grudge, the more difficult the take off will be – if it will happen at all. It’s only forgiveness that will lift you off.
It’s often misunderstood that forgiveness is about another person. It isn’t, it’s about you. When you forgive you don’t impact the other person in any way. You can only impact yourself.
Letting go is about your own burden, not theirs. Forgiving will make you feel better in the end, not them. Nobody owes you anything. The moment you realize that, forgiveness will be your natural behavior.
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die, said Carrie Fisher and she was damn right!
Forgive Somebody And Forget About It
Another thing that is very often misunderstood about forgiveness is the “public” face of it. How loud should your forgiveness be? How public? How many of your Facebook friends should know about it?
The answer: zero. It doesn’t work better if it’s a big public representation, if it’s a show. On the contrary. The more you’ll make it public, the less focus you’ll have on the inner process. And that’s where the healing process takes place, on the inside.
We often think that if we just made the announcement, we’re set. That’s it, I said it out loud, I should be ok (even if deep down I still have those ugly feelings about you). Well, it doesn’t work like this.
But there’s also another way in which we literally cringe to forgiveness, and that’s the “eye for an eye” approach. It’s the approach in which you don’t do it because it’s sane and good for you, you do it in order to receive something. You do it because you expect some reward. You do it and then you turn back to the Universe and say: “see, I forgive that bastard, now make me rich”. Well, maybe not those words exactly, but you got the point.
In my experience, that doesn’t work either. Because the Universe doesn’t give a shit about you or about the other person. As much as you don’t want to accept this, for the Universe you’re both just projections. You’re characters in an ever changing novel.
What the Universe understands is truth. It’s exactly what’s in your heart, without expectations (because expectations are tainting the end result, they’re putting pressure on it, they’re pushing things so the result should be in a certain way). The Universe understands only that you’re not concerned with revenge. It understands that your focus is now on something else and that you left behind all those heavy feelings of hatred and rejection. And it responds to that new focus by mirroring it with new opportunities or with new persons in your life. That’s how it works. If you have some expectations, the Universe will say: “Oh, so you’re not yet done, you’re bargaining forgiveness for a certain result. Well, that means you’re not yet done with resentment completely. So, I’m giving you more resentment, until you understand how things work”.
If you’re forgiving and you’re having expectations you’re doing only half of the job.
Just let it go. No expectations.
It’s not even necessary for the other person to know about it, although it wouldn’t hurt.
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