The Power of Forgiveness:

On September 21st, we will come together as a world wide body of conscientious citizens to celebrate the International Day of Peace. And one week after, we as Jews will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

This period of time leading up to these two celebrations is a universal time for completing unfinished business, healing the relationships we can and releasing the wounds of the past so we can enter the New Year with a fresh perspective.

In this regard, lately I’ve been contemplating the great capacity of the heart for Forgiveness. Though forgiveness is a great gift we can give to another, I think it is primarily an act of compassion towards ourselves to release the ways our minds, hearts and even bodies have become contracted around fixed ideas and past pain.

When we’ve suffered any kind of loss, naturally, there is a temporary and completely appropriate period of acknowledging and grieving the loss.  When we’ve been wounded or offended in a profound way, of course there is a period of time that is needed to process what happened, how the events impacted us and to make new decisions. During this phase of our healing, it may be necessary to intellectually explore what happened in order to glean every ounce of learning that we can so we can then regroup and decide a fresh course and strategy for our lives. I know this has been essential for me in the past, and I feel, for true healing to take place, this step cannot be skipped. In some cases, anger must and should be appropriately expressed. This may or may not include expressing that anger to the people who we feel hurt by.

But after we’ve taken time to feel the weight of the loss or intensity of the violation, after we’ve taken time to express our feelings, learn from past mistakes, make new decisions, what then? We are still left with decisions about how we will live our lives in the present moment. 

Every experience we have in our lives leaves a kind of vibrational imprint on the matrix of our consciousness.  When we hold onto the pain of the past, that matrix starts to gather and collect energy like a snowball that one keeps packing more snow around.   The pain and anger over the injustices of the past gather and become like a tight, stuck, contracted ball of energy.  Over time, this snowball of contractive energy binds our life force in ways that shut us down to the daily miraculous experience of being alive.vThe energy that coalesces around the pain is nothing other than our own precious soul and life force energy that has become stuck, and contracted around the heavy, dense center of pain.  Because our soul energy is congealed around the pain of the past, it is no longer free to circulate inside of us and through our lives allowing for healing, expansion, freedom and creativity in the present moment of our lives. We can even become so contracted around the pain that we don’t have the energy we need to enjoy our lives.   Every beautiful experience that we have is eclipsed by the pain of the past.   

When I’ve found myself in this kind of situation, I’ve turned back to my yoga practice for help. In our method of Anusara Yoga ™, our first principle is called “Open to grace”. To Open to Grace means to open to a bigger picture, a bigger energy, a bigger landscape, a bigger love. When I’ve found myself in contracted states, I ask myself what would “Opening to grace” look like, and feel like here?  

Usually the first thing that happens when I ask this question is that I cry. And, crying releases some of that tight, stuck energy, and life begins to flow again. I have to keep asking the question, “What would Opening to Grace look like here” because my mind wants to keep returning to the story of the injustice.  So I ask myself again and again, what it would feel like to open to grace even while swirling in the cyclone of pain.

What I’ve discovered is that when I ask that question, my field of vision immediately widens.  The pain is there but that’s not any longer all that’s there. When I keep asking the question, “What does opening to grace mean now” my heart softens and I start to breathe more deeply.  I’m able to see more layers to the landscape of my life. I start to feel that in addition to the pain, however agonizing, there is also beauty, joy and goodness.  I’m not any longer trying to push the pain away; I’m not trying to pull it in for self inquiry; I’m not trying to overcome my short comings and in a great gesture of nobility “forgive” the person who transgressed against me; I’m not rabidly trying to convince myself or anyone else that I am bigger than this pain;  I’m not trying to convince myself or anyone else that I’m a survivor, no none of this. 

The only thing I’m doing is stepping back far enough to see that there is in fact a bigger picture in which this energy of pain has occurred. There is the bigger landscape of my life which includes so many people, circumstances and activities that feed my soul; there is the weather, current events, the situations in foreign countries. There is God, there is spirit, there is beauty in nature, there are animals, there is my breath, there are my life affirming practices, there is a miraculous landscape of vitality and goodness surrounding me and infusing me constantly and to which I have the power to open to and enjoy fully - in spite of the pain.

In short, the energy of pain which previously took up the whole landscape of my vision is now only one small part of an otherwise stunningly vibrant landscape. My life force starts to flow, my mind is able to once again expand and I’m able to imagine how to enjoy and glorify life, even if this person or event did hurt me.  

Letting someone or some past situation off the hook in this way is so important, not for them but for us. When we hold onto resentment it’s not the person we’re holding a grudge against who is suffering.  It is us! We suffer deeply because our life force, our soul power is contracted into such a tight ball that we can even become physically sick.  When we soften and melt the hardness around our heart, miraculously, we start to live again.

When we’ve been hurt by someone, it may not be possible to be around that person for a period of time. You’re probably not ever going to have the same kind of relationship again, and that’s not the point of forgiveness. Softening and opening to grace is not about calling the person up who hurt you the most and declaring to them that you forgive them. It is about letting go of the pain that is strangling you.  It’s about allowing life to thrive inside of you once again. When you do this, you’ll be able to see options again; you’ll be able to enjoy your food, friends and activities again because your mind won’t incessantly be drawn to the pain and weight of the injustice of it all. Once you open to the bigger picture, what’s happened to you, what you’ve suffered, how you’ve been hurt diminishes in size. 

From that vantage point, you may even be able to see the other person’s side. You may even be able to feel compassion for the suffering in the other person that led them to act in hurtful or insensitive ways. You may even be able to understand that what happened wasn’t personal, that both you and the other person were just doing their best.  From the vantage point of the bigger picture, all kinds of understanding will come to you that you can’t imagine now. The forgiveness that flows when you see the bigger picture will allow you to open back up again and enjoy all the beauty, joy and goodness that’s already present in your life. That’s when the magic begins! 

 

Here are My Top Strategies for Releasing Pain of the past and Opening to the Power of Forgiveness:

1. Every time your mind returns to the story of the offense or injustice you’ve experienced, chant the sound AUM either silently or out loud, very loudly until your mind softens and moves back into the present moment.
2. If the wind is blowing, invite the breeze into your body, mind and heart to clear away the pain of the past leaving the inner chamber of your being free, spacious and available to the present moment
3. If you have a fire circle or even a wood stove in your house, build a raging fire.  Place as many pieces of paper, on which you’ve  expressed the pain you are holding onto, into the fire and watch these pieces of paper burn.  Allow yourself to envision that as the paper burns, so also dissolves the energetic trace of the pain that you are holding onto.
4. When it’s raining, go outside and let yourself get drenched by the healing waters of the rain. Envision that the rain is cleaning your energy body of the imprint of the pain.  Envision that inside of you, the waters of your own creative life force energy are starting to flow.
5. Visit a river that is flowing. Feed leaves into the river. Each leaf symbolically represents a piece of the pain you are holding onto being carried away from you toward the ocean of compassion.
6. As you walk in nature, gaze up at the unbounded sky, reminding yourself that the pain you are feeling is like a single cloud in the otherwise infinite sky. Your life is much bigger than this pain, and you can expand to know and see the bigger picture.  Keep gazing at the sky, chanting AUM til your mind and heart soften and open again to the greatness in life.
7. Gaze at the sky and remind yourself that life is big. You don’t know why things happen. You don’t know why this happened to you, but today you have the opportunity to live. Then, go do something great with your day!

Good luck!!  Write to me and tell me your story of forgiveness!