In my 30 years of working with thousands of men and women I have noticed that most people misunderstand forgiveness.
The forgiveness process is a healing method to help you release old pains you are holding onto. The biggest obstacle lies in your attachment to the outcome. Too often you get so caught up in wanting to make the situation better that you skip the crucial phase of the forgiveness process, which is focusing on what hurts.
We don’t know how to connect to our pain. We live in an environment that promotes running away from pain. The amount of drugs available to relieve physical or emotional pain is humongous. The list of distractions to never experience our own feelings and thoughts is endless. By running away from our own pain we simply don’t know who we are, we have no identity. From there nothing can happen.
The common resistances to focusing on what hurts are:
“If I connect to my pain I will hurt more” or “I need to stay positive I don’t want to dwell in the negative”.
In these above statements, there is no heart connection, just an ego or mind connection. When you connect to your pain from the heart center you heal and grow.
What will it take for you to feel more connected at the heart center? Journaling is often an insightful process. The following is an exercise:
Everyday for three minutes or so list your pains (physical, emotional, heart or spiritual) without analyzing them, just write them down. Depending on the amount of healing work and personal process work you have already done, this process can take ten days or six months. For each of you it will be unique but if you trust the process, you will be able to drop in a place of neutrality where you become curious; that is the sacred space of the heart center.
If you want to truly forgive you need to connect to your pain. There is simply no shortcut. Trust this process if you want to feel more vibrant in your life.
With much love
Tejpal