Setting Free

This is so true.  I hated that it might be true when I first read it, but as I have learned to apply this wisdom I have been so grateful for it.  I think the block for so many of us is we are challenged by forgiveness.  One of the most helpful things I have learned about forgiveness comes from Myrtle Fillmore who said that forgiveness is simply giving love where we previously gave an error thought.

Giving a loving thought where we are holding an error thought dissolves the emotional link that is stronger than steel holding us to what we don't want and sets us free!

Powerful Forgiveness

Day 21 of 21 Days of Prayer Outside the Box

I may have repeated this forgiveness prayer more than any other.  It seems when I ask for God to teach me true perspective it is about a relationship with another person that could use forgiveness more than 90 percent of the time.  When I first started learning about forgiveness I thought I only had a couple people I needed to forgive.  I thought I didn't hold many grudges.  I thought I was very forgiving and only had difficulty forgiving a very few.

My first really big aha was when someone told me I wouldn't reach forgiveness with those few people if I didn't allow myself to release the anger I harbored in a healthy way. I had no idea how angry I was.
 I didn't even know anger could be released in a healthy way.  So I started down a journey for many years learning about that.

On the journey I found that actually I spent a lot more time than I wanted to admit in anger.  I found that I needed to forgive.  I learned that forgiveness was not something I did for the other person.  I found ultimately that the person I most needed to forgive was myself.

So here is the prayer my mentor gave me.  I use it a lot like affirmative prayer from Day 5.

I love you.
I bless you.
I release you.
I fully and freely forgive you.
Now be on you way.

I have used it in this way for years.  The last line reminds me of a gentler version of the Day 19 prayer. (Sometimes Day 19 may need to proceed this prayer). Recently I have begun to change the last line to "May your life be filled with joy."  Forgiveness has been a journey and a process for me, a freeing journey and process.

Happy New Year

Forgiveness the Gateway to Moving Through Grief

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.  Letting go of the past that we thought we wanted." Oprah, The 21 Day Meditation Challenge with Deepak Chopra

I recently heard Oprah stating the above quote, and it resonated in that place within me that says, "Ah ha.  That is the key to what I have been seeking."  Little did I know that even though she practically said it in that statement, forgiveness could be the gateway to moving through grief.  Or, maybe it was the resistance to forgive that brought me to the gate and the willingness to allow Oprah's statement to work through me moment by moment that opened the gate.

Sitting with the statement, patiently a clear path began to unfold before me. When I say patiently, I mean being with it moment by moment even when it feels like I am getting nowhere. I mean after sitting with it in the quiet I got up and continued on with my day.  I mean having the faith that what looks like no understanding, no progress on the outside doesn't mean it isn't "working."  I could feel that it was hitting on a place within me.  I didn't understand.  I couldn't put it into words, but I was willing to wait.

After waiting with it a couple of days and many tears from my core I began to feel the lightness, the freedom we so often hear we receive through the process of forgiveness. I felt like a secret had been revealed to me.  So many times I had been willing to forgive but felt it had alluded me.  In this experience I had learned that by opening up to it and allowing the process to move through me on faith,
the forgiveness had come to me and yes it truly gave me the feeling of being set free.