Discovering our Gifts

Wow. Another year has gone by. While channeling a message for our Heart-Centered Support Group I received a message that this year is all about uncovering our ‘Gifts’. As we contemplate who we are and become more authentic we get to step into our truth and we begin to see who we truly are from a perspective of BEing instead of what we Do. And what does that mean for us? It means that we are in an authentic state of BEing which is who we are – and this is our ‘gift’ to the world.

So it seems that this year – as it probably should be every year – the theme will be uncovering our ‘true gift’ and we may have many opportunities to rediscover this truth. Often we learn through challenges so remembering our ‘gift’ will make this an exciting journey and the challenges will not seem as difficult – as long as we are open to seeing. We may have many opportunities to see how we feel when we aren’t BEing our authentic selves but as we remember and share our authenticity with the world we will BEcome more aligned and will feel excited to share our ‘gift’ with the world.

Where we may experience challenges this year will be around the parts of ourselves where we aren’t being authentic. This year, since the goal will be to BEcome our authentic selves and share our ‘gift’ of ourselves to the world, we will have opportunities to see where we aren’t BEing ourselves. These will be the areas where we are holding onto suffering. Our natural state and gift will never be to suffer. Suffering is a ‘human’ quality and is caused when we are holding onto something that is no longer healthy such as when we hold onto feelings about past relationships or we hold onto emotions within our current relationships.

An example of holding onto emotions might be when we hold onto anger which is usually attached to a person or to an event connected to a person. As I have said many times: anger isn’t a primary emotion. So when we hold onto anger we have another emotion being completely suppressed. And any negative and suppressed emotion that we hold onto suggests that we haven’t forgiven that person. To ‘let go’ we have to forgive! We not only have to forgive the other person but we have to forgive ourselves. When we suffer – because we are holding onto unexpressed emotions – we can’t move on to healthier relationships either.

So I believe that we will be learning ‘forgiveness’ this year as this is the only way to truly let go and move into our authentic state to express our ‘gift’! To fast track this I suggest that you make a list of the areas in your life or the people in your life where you aren’t BEing authentic, where you are feeling the challenges, where you feel that you are suffering. Think of the people you feel stuck with: people at work, family or friends – people who you just can’t seem to forgive. These people will be highlighted for you this year so that you can move into your more authentic self. This process doesn’t have to be difficult – as long as you can forgive.

There are a number of ways to forgive people: putting yourself in their shoes, having compassion for them, or thinking of ways to be grateful for them. Think about the people on your list and apply any of these ideas on forgiveness. See how it works for you. And it is okay to remember that often we hold onto different grudges because there is a deeper core issue being triggered.

For me I have figured out that my biggest trigger is around not feeling supported. The people in my life who have triggered this the most are my family and I find it most difficult to forgive them. However, because not feeling supported is a very deep trigger for me it is not always apparent when I get triggered by that feeling. Once I can see that whatever it is that has ‘triggered’ the feelings in me is around ‘support’, I am able to consciously acknowledge my ego and my wounded inner child. Then I can offer the support to my ego and to my inner child that I have never felt from my family. And I can also acknowledge the support I have in other areas of my life so that I can ‘discuss’ with my ego that my belief isn’t true that ‘I’m never supported’.

Eventually, once we have truly forgiven from our gut – where our need is to feel safe – and from our heart – where our need is to trust – we will no longer be triggered the same way. For me it is an ongoing process!

Since this is a theme throughout the year I invite you to contemplate the ‘gift of yourself’ – the ‘gift’ of you without suffering, the ‘gift’ of you as a person who has forgiven others so that you can be authentic. As we move into the New Year how you would like to BE and what is your authentic ‘gift’ to the world? Once you remember who you are then practice BEing this from within yourself. Any time that you are taken out of this practice in BEing there will be something to contemplate. What triggered you to take you out of your authentic state? Who triggered you and what events lead up to you being taken out of authenticity?

And as part of your ‘practice’ in BEing take time each morning this year to connect with the Divine Spark within your heart, grounding it in the Heart of the Planet and then connecting it upward to the Heart of Source. This will create a space where you can get centered and where you can set your intentions for the day. It is also a space where you can contemplate your authentic self – and give forgiveness to those for whom forgiveness is required … for your own authenticity and ‘gifts’ to shine.

May your Dreams be realized in 2016 and may you have the Awareness to nurture this highest vision within! Happy New Year!

- See more at: http://www.intuitivesoul.com

 

Laurie Huston, Intuitive Soul, Intuitive Counseling, Setting Intentions for New Years, Clearing and Healing Techniques, intuitive counselor, Forgiveness, clearing energy, Happy New Year 2016, Discovering our Gifts.

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

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