If you are harboring resentments with someone, which you probably are, even without consciously being aware of it, you need to go within yourself and ask: Is it worth it? Does hanging onto this really help me?
The past is over and yet your body is a memory machine, your subconscious mind remembers everything that hurt you, until you reveal these hurts to yourself by allowing the memory to come into awareness. Beneath the surface could be the root of a pattern that has been troubling you for a long time. Only when you allow it into your conscious mind can it be healed. What you keep hidden cannot be healed, simply because it is hidden. From yourself.
So, for instance, I recently remembered something very significant from my past that was traumatic for me during adolescence. As I looked at it, I saw that it had affected every relationship I had with a male since then. It made sense then, that my pain came from me, from my memory of the event and that in the revealing of it, I was able to make another choice. I could choose to heal this event, to forgive the perpetrator, even for something so egregious as molestation.
I had not consciously ever looked at how this affected my life until now, while I am undergoing a breakup. The pain was triggered by the breakup of a marriage, and when I allowed it into my memory, I realized how much that event had affected me throughout my life. Then came the realization that I didn’t have to let this continue.
What truly astonished me was how I had buried it and dismissed it as insignificant, until this moment. I have been on a healing path for many years and this horrendous occurrence had finally come into the present moment for healing!
So, here are four reasons to forgive:
- You will discover something about yourself you need to know, that you may not be aware of until this moment.
- You allow the buried emotions are caused by your memory, so taking responsibility for the memory, not the event, allows for true permanent healing.
- In the revealing of the memory, you open up to the possibility of release forever from the event. Then the pattern stops.
- If you don’t do it, you keep the pattern going. So, what have you got to lose? Just painful memories from the past that keep haunting you.
Freedom from the past is worth every bit of pain you have to go through. Otherwise, you will continue to be affected by the past subconsciously and it will color every relationship you have. I have found that it is time to love myself and give myself the gift of healing, so that I don’t have to repeat these painful memories again. It is a gift of love to myself.
It is easy to release the cause of your pain, once it is staring at you and you can see it all clearly for the first time. You will be given the opportunity to forgive any time you feel the twinge of anger, the need to judge someone, the desire to hate, or to get revenge.
The path of least resistance is to accept that growth and healing is inevitable. You do want freedom from pain, and it makes sense then to allow it to occur.
Don’t resist evil. Don’t resist pain, don’t resist! Don’t judge yourself for having learned this way, the experience of healing is worth it.
Now it is obvious to me why every major spiritual teaching is based upon this one thing: forgiveness. IT WORKS if you work it.