Arrogance and Forgiveness

When I was writing the “forgiveness” article,  an area that kept coming up for me – because it was brought up in the Support Group call – became a significant piece in the ‘forgiveness’ process. This is related to our arrogance around ‘forgiveness’. When we have a belief that ‘forgiveness’ is necessary for a situation or a person it is because we have a judgment of a right and a wrong occurring with this situation or person. This is a huge issue for many of us – myself included – because we have judged something as right or wrong and this judgment is just our perception. Let me explain how I became aware of a lingering issue related to arrogance and ‘forgiveness’ from a recent experience.

This was something I needed to see and curiously I saw it while watching a TV series. I realized how tense I was becoming while watching. And I noticed that the tension was around ‘betrayal’. Betrayal has been a theme in my life and it tends to bring up a great deal of anger in me and that means of course I have not forgiven those who I have perceived to have betrayed me.

Since last month’s theme was about perceptions (read last month’s blog) I know that my perception of betrayal is skewed. From my personal history, because I felt I needed to take the ‘higher road’ and forgive – knowing how important forgiveness is – I thought I had forgiven many times. However, due to my reaction to the portrayal of betrayal in the television series it was obvious to me that I still didn’t feel safe, that I still was feeling the sense of betrayal.

And I still believed I was ‘right’ in my personal history of my perception of betrayal. After all, in each perceived betrayal, I believed that I was ‘wronged’ by another person and it seemed that I was ‘right’ and took the ‘higher road’. Yet by my seeming to take the ‘higher road’ I now see my ‘arrogance’ in that stance.  It was arrogance because I saw the other person as wrong and I would show them that I’m better than they are because I’ll take the ‘higher road’ and forgive them.

By so-called ‘taking the higher road’ I thought I had forgiven the other person. I saw myself as ‘right’ and had gone through the steps of forgiveness but, of course, this really was arrogance on my part because I had judged – and continued to judge – the other person or situation as being wrong.

Because I still didn’t feel safe in certain situations related to betrayal I knew that my gut brain had not completed the forgiveness process. From my training in mBraining I knew that we don’t fully forgive if we don’t do this from the Gut Brain. And since the Gut is about feeling safe and protecting us, if we don’t feel safe, we haven’t fully forgiven.  The sensing of not feeling safe became more evident while watching the TV series: as I experienced betrayal in the story I was getting very tense. Clearly I hadn’t ‘let-go’ of the perceived betrayals in my own “story”!

In the past I believed that I had forgiven others who I perceived had ‘betrayed’ me. I knew that this was through a mental process and that is completely ineffective. I had been aware of the heart for years now and how to bring the process into the heart. By using the mental and heart approach (of compassion) only, I had actually denied forgiveness through believing I had done the “right” thing or that I was taking the ‘higher road’. To me the process came from an open, heart felt place, however, because I didn’t feel safe in my recent watching of the television show I learned that I hadn’t fully forgiven those who had betrayed me in the past. The forgiveness had never come from the Gut or from a place of feeling safe. And it was through my arrogance that I thought I was still ‘right’, that I had taken the ‘higher road’, and I justified it so that it made me feel freer. But it wasn’t forgiveness.

As soon as we judge something as ‘right or wrong’, ‘good or bad’, it’s arrogance because we judge and we feel we KNOW what is going on. We’ll never know. And it’s arrogance to believe we will. We’ll never truly know the bigger picture. God / the Universe / our Higher Self has a plan (it’s always to grow towards love) but from our filters, our beliefs, our experiences it’s impossible to see the truth!

That sense of feeling ‘right’ is part of judgment and judgment is a sign of arrogance. So really, after all of this, I don’t need to forgive others because it is just my ‘perceptions’ that have labeled them as ‘wrong’ for whatever they did. And it was just my perceptions that have labeled me as ‘right’ and my ‘perception’ that the belief that taking the high road and being gracious enough to give them forgiveness was also forgiveness! The belief that I am ‘right’ is arrogance! And THAT impedes forgiveness or any healing.

The arrogance of believing that I had done the ‘right’ thing didn’t allow me to let go. But, for myself, I saw – in a process of contemplation – the fears, the pain and the sadness of the inner child of those who had betrayed me. I saw how in each situation that the inner child, of those I had perceived as betraying me, had made a decision or series of decisions that I allowed to hurt me.  I don’t need to know the reasons for their inner child decisions. I may never know the reasons. I just needed to let go of feeling unsafe. I needed to let go of feeling hurt. I needed to let go of my judgment – even my judgment about their hurt inner child. I needed to let go of my belief of my own ‘rightness’. I needed to let go of my arrogance.

To let go is to forgive!

How about you? What can you do? Let go! Let go of the judgment and the arrogance behind the need to feel ‘right’ in the midst of ‘perceiving’ to have been ‘wronged’. Let go. There is no need to hold on to the belief that you have to be ‘right’ and the other ‘wrong’. This is judgment. This is arrogance. Just let go. Let go.

Let go.
See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/arrogance-and-forgiveness

Letting Go and Being Open

Surrendering isn’t easy, and staying open while letting go of things you want, is even more challenging.

Sometimes when we are going through change, there are little gifts being offered. Yet, most often we judge and try to control our lives. This closes us down and typically, we don’t even see, let alone allow these gifts to materialize in our lives. However, the gifts become more precious if we can remain open and allow them in.

Many have asked what “staying open” means or what it is like. This isn’t easy to explain in a world where we like to control everything and keep it the same. It means, allowing without judgement, all events and people to occur and happen within our experiences, consciously and with discernment. It means following the thread of passion or pleasure as it happens. To continue along this path as long as it brings you happiness. Also, it is about exploring your responses consciously. It means if you meet someone who makes you happy, even if they don’t meet your criteria (whether you are aware or not, we seem to have biases and a list of criteria for all people we meet), to remain open to it all. Because even if they may only be there for a short time, they ARE there to show you something. Even if it is just seeing your judgements!

We prejudge many people because of who we think we are. We have biases that restrict and control people we will be friends with, based on a definition of who we are, eg certain education level, similar interests and passions. Maybe our parents taught us to accept only certain people, and we limit who we let into our lives, and our growth, as a result. Relationships are the most key ingredient to our growth, and we often limit who we will be friends with based on certain criteria or judgements.

Our lives are controlled based on the decisions we make, and the only way we can grow is to let go and allow change into our lives. As I am going through my own metamorphosis and letting go of the predefined life I believed I “should” have… I found precious gifts waiting for me. Some have been to see my limitations and judgments. Others have been to allow me to open up and experience life from a different perspective.

I have realized that if we want change, we have to be willing to do, be and act differently. Opening up to all areas of our lives, letting go of the judgments and how we control each area is the beginning.

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/letting-go-and-being-open

Choosing to Deepen Commitment with Self

Last month I looked at Sabotage, this month I want to explore Choices and how we can “choose” to accept and love ourselves. What does deepening your commitment to Self mean to you?

Consciously choosing to love and accept ourselves for who we are is much more challenging than choosing from a place of fear and sabotage. We are full of old patterns and belief systems that are unconscious and judged by society. If we choose to deepen our commitment to Self, we are acknowledging that our Soul’s growth is crucial to our lives. We recognize that we ARE important and worthy of our own love, therefore deserving of others’ love too.

Choosing Us, means we choose love over fear. It means taking some time to get out of our heads and move into our hearts, literally. Fear permeates our society and our unconscious reactions. Examining our reactions helps us establish our patterns and how we unconsciously react versus consciously responding. Choosing love, means being more present and conscious of our actions. Being conscious of our actions means asking our self whether we are trying to be a better person because we want others to like us or because we are in service and are acting out of a place of unconditional love. These are two very different places. One comes from a place of fear and inauthenticity (so we aren’t disliked or judged), while the other is without expectation and from an altruistic place (being authentic and with integrity). We all want to be a “good” person (honorable, honest), yet it is in the expectation of why we do something, that we can establish whether we are truly responding from love or reacting from fear.

When it comes to “deepening our commitment to Self”, we are often coming from a place of fear, worrying if others will like us and accept us as who we are! We are afraid we will be judged as selfish. We sabotage our growth from this place of fear. Coming from a place of love means being committed to honouring our body, our diet, meditating and exercising. It means saying yes when you want to say yes, and no when you want to say NO! It means being conscious of every choice we make or don’t make and why we react to situations and people. It is balancing out our energy so that we are receiving as much as we are giving. And it means giving to ourselves as well as others.

Choosing love, comes from our Heart and the gentle guidance of our Soul. It is expansive and empowering. It opens us to gratitude and unconditional acceptance of who we are.

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/choosing-to-deepen-commitment-with-self

Magic and Grace

Every December, I write about the Magic of the Season. It is the Magic of love, compassion, and generosity. I know it is around all year, but I believe we all connect with it more strongly at this time. It has the power to open our hearts. And this year, I have become enchanted with the concept of “Grace”. Grace takes the Magic of the season and offers a gentle acceptance about life within our hearts.

It all began while watching the movie “The Tree of Life” where the mother speaks of Grace versus Nature. “The nuns taught us there are two ways through life, the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one to follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. And others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy, when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things…” [nature as defined in Bible book 3, chapter 54]

There is magic in these words that has stayed with me… pondering how to live a life of Grace. To know that beyond the fear that we can get stuck in, there is Divine Consciousness; Grace that breathes through our lives. That speaks of gentle acceptance of everything that happens, because it isn’t personal. That speaks of guiding us to respond with unconditional love and acceptance instead of fear. That speaks of seeing “Love smiling through all things”.

However, we must move beyond our minds, our fears and pain, to a place that exists within all of us. This magic and grace is the same piece of Divinity that is Source. It is our Home. It is what makes us all one. However, we have to nurture this Magic, or else its magnificence fades. We dull magic when ever we are disappointed like through our fears, pain and attempts to control our lives. It dulls every time we give our fears more power than the “magic” within us and our lives.

Magic and grace exist, we just have to hold it within our hearts. And make a conscious choice to seek this. This time of year magic is strongest, touch upon it… remember it… rejoice that we have a touch of the Great Mystery within each of us. Let that magic overflow in all you do. Let your heart remember what it always knew. Find your own way to let Magic and Grace nurture and foster your Divine Essence. And let that Essence flow out into your life.

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/magic-and-grace

Do You Forgive?

This month has been a powerful one for me. It began with an interview with Eric Altman and continued with our support group calls and another interview with Jean Adrienne. The topic was around ‘forgiveness’! I know that for most people ‘forgiveness’ is just a mental exercise, similar to prayers and affirmations. We just go through the exercise of saying I forgive you, I forgive myself … or do the Ho’oponopono (I’m sorry, Please forgive me, I love you, Thank you). Many people realize that mentally, as in just saying the words, isn’t enough and so they try to bring it into their hearts. This is where true ‘forgiveness’ lies. However, there is one more layer of ‘forgiveness’ – beyond the mind and beyond the heart – and that is bringing ‘forgiveness’ into our guts. This is how we can truly ‘forgive’ someone.
 

The role of our ‘gut brain’ is to ‘protect’ us. It is all about survival. And our ‘gut brain’ informs us, if we are willing to listen, as to what is safe, and our ‘heart brain’ tells us what is to be trusted. When we can’t forgive, we aren’t trusting! And when we aren’t trusting we don’t feel ‘safe’.  Our lack of trust, which is accompanied by the feeling of being unsafe, is a deep issue with most of us and it runs to the root of our survival. It runs so deep that we tend to expect that this is our natural state. And this is not a feeling just for us as individuals. Our collective unconscious promotes that this – wherever we are – isn’t a ‘safe’ place. The major religions suggest that we were thrown out of the ‘Garden’. Our trust issues run as deep as not being able to forgive or trust God as a result! And THAT being the case, we will obviously have trust issues and will not feel safe.

Since ‘forgiveness’ is directly related to trust and trust is directly related to the feeling of safety, which is directly related to the role of our gut brain, we aren’t forgiving anyone because we don’t trust anyone – including ourselves. And how could we? We don’t even trust God. Therefore, one of our first goals is to address all areas where we don’t trust and can begin to feel safe. Then we can forgive ourselves, others, and even the Divine/Source.

Personally, the need to forgive myself is a big issue and it seems to be based on the unconscious beliefs that: I don’t trust the Divine Guidance within my life; I am alone; I have to have some control over my life; I don’t trust ‘Source’ to do what is needed for me; and I know better than ‘Source/God’! Can you see this as arrogance? (I will be writing a follow up article to this and it won’t be sent as a newsletter: it will be available by 15/06 on my blog labeled ‘Arrogance and Forgiveness’)

Do you see how unconsciously I’m judging the Divine? Do you see that I’m unconsciously suggesting that I could know better than the Divine? I need to forgive myself because these unconscious beliefs are just based on my lack of trust. After all I want to ‘know’ that the Divine is guiding my life and that I can trust this guidance!

If we realized just how much harm we do to ourselves by not forgiving and not letting go of our feelings about the situation and/or person – including the Divine; if we saw the harm caused by the amount of anger, frustration, and energy that builds up in us and gets stuck within us when we can’t let go – we would never want to withhold forgiveness. But our arrogance in thinking that we are ‘right’ and others are ‘wrong’ – as well as our innate distrust in the world and the role of the Divine/Source – makes it so difficult to forgive! All the pain and discomfort we feel stems from our failure to forgive and let go!

This last piece was just as big for me: I knew how to ‘let go’… but explaining it to others was often difficult for me. Letting go is forgiving! When we can trust and feel safe, when we can realize that it is just our perceptions that have made us hold onto something, then we can truly forgive and ‘let go’!

I believe the place we first must start is trust; to trust in the Divine Wisdom within our lives. Would you like to join me in gaining back the trust and restoring faith? I believe that the best way to do this is to remember all the times when we felt wronged – even by the Divine – and for us to realize that whatever we think was done was not what we perceived it to be and that we will perhaps never see the ‘bigger’ picture of our lives to understand what really happened. Yet in looking in on these past events where we think there was ‘wrong’ done to us we can acknowledge that our perceptions were not likely in alignment with the ‘bigger’ picture and as a result we have misperceived and judged and failed to communicate properly and allowed the misunderstanding to get ‘bigger’ inside us somehow. And we justified our thinking to ourselves and refused to forgive, refused to let go, refused to feel the relief of forgiveness – the feeling of safety and trust.

I invite you to determine what areas in your life still require forgiveness – and don’t forget yourself! And remember that we don’t ‘forgive’ just to be nice or to follow some religious principles to be ‘good’ … we forgive in order to make our world experience ‘safe’ through building our trust with the Source of all things – including ourselves as part of All That Is. And we do this by incorporating not only the mind and heart but also the gut: our very survival depends on it! Take some time to truly examine all of the situations and people – and the Divine – where you still hold this blocked energy of ‘non-forgiveness’ – you’ll feel it in your ‘heart’ – and see where you just didn’t know any better but did the best you could. Now, just forgive: have faith and trust in your own Divine Guidance and Let GO!

See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com/do-you-forgive