Forgiveness and Your Health

Forgiveness, how we can get all of our energy back.
Holding grudges keeps your life force energy  bound up in the past.
It affects your health in many negative ways, and can be the root of a disease process. This is one of the most obvious reasons to forgive: for your health and happiness.  Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. Forgiving is  letting go of bitterness and resentment, and changing your relationship to what happened. By changing how you carry and connect with what disturbed  you, you are able to move on with your energy and reclaim your life force. Forgiveness is not rooted in making the person who judged, abused, or hurt  you change.  Forgiveness is  acknowledging the pain and suffering you feel. Wouldn’t you like to have all of the energy that is meant  for your body to be there to support your cellular function? Sometimes forgiving needs to be done on a regular basis to train our mind to not get stuck on the resentment or bitterness “radio station”.
Resentments are literally held in the tissue: the  spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental body.   In the long haul grudges end up hurting the people who harbor them.  
Here are some quotes from Carolyn Myss to inspire you:

"When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves,
or when we intentionally create pain for others,
we poison our own physical and spiritual systems.
By far the strongest poison to the human spirit
is the inability to forgive oneself or another person.
It disables a person's emotional resources.
The challenge is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves
and to develop the power of forgiveness.”

"Forgiveness is no longer an option
but a necessity for healing."

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

~ Caroline Myss ~

Here is what I do to forgive myself and others:

• when the difficult memories or thoughts come up I create space by putting them on a far away planet, or across the earth in my minds eye. I do this each time I remember the situation, until it is less charged. Depending on the memory this can take years for some people. It is a mindfulness practice.
• I realize that I cannot change the situation, but I can detach, and not be so affected by others actions, and if I cannot do this I try to figure out what will help me detach.
• Sometimes it is scary to detach, because of  fear of abandonment; this can happen with our family. Remember that there will be support  from places beyond what you know that will come into fruition. We may not get support from where we expect it, yet we should be open to having it from many places.
• I sometimes ask forces larger than myself to take care of the pain, and ask for help
• I look at the person who hurt me in a compassionate way and wonder what happened to them to make them act the way they did...usually they have unresolved traumas...
• I acknowledge the pain when it arises and let it blow through me like a wind, and pass moving on...
  
• I try not to talk about it when it is a “fresh” incident over and over again, this can deepen the trauma “groove literally in our brain, and change our neuroplasitcity to orient towards victimhood.
• most of all... I forgive myself for getting  hurt, and know that most people would be affected by the actions that happened, and appreciate the blessing of being a sensitive, awake person.
• lastly... I think of resources for me: dogs, trees, the ocean, chocolate, and those who love me... and remember all the wonderful love that I have in my life.