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The Power of Forgiveness

Updated: Oct 23, 2022


From the time we are born, our minds are looking out at the world and deciding who and what we are in relation to the people in our lives. Intuitively, we know how to hold onto things and let go of them when they no longer serve us. But when it comes to our emotions, we forget how natural this is for us, because few of our caretakers knew how to model this for us.


As a result, many of us are holding onto vast amounts of negative energy which is literally depleting our life force. It is why so many can get up in the morning and feel tired as if they haven’t slept at all. If you are carrying around not only the emotional burdens from yesterday, but from last week, last year and all the years of your life, wouldn’t it exhaust anyone?


If we are holding onto a significant amount of repressed pain, it can show up as:

· Recurring physical injuries or illnesses

· Addictions and compulsive behaviors

· Relationship problems

· Job burnout

· Child abuse and domestic violence

· Lethargy, depression, anxiety and even suicide


An exercise one of my teachers taught me many years ago was to carry around either a sack of potatoes or some form of weight with me all day for 3 days. Because I was working in a corporate environment, instead of carrying potatoes, I put a 15 lb. dumbbell in my backpack and carried it with me everywhere I went from the time I woke up in the morning to when I went to bed. Every time I went to a meeting, the cafeteria or even the bathroom, I picked up that backpack and took it with me.


Even with as little as just 15 lbs., I was tired of carrying it around after that third day and happy the exercise was over, but it made a lasting point with me. I realized how much painful energy I had carried most of my life that was affecting not only the amount of life force energy I had, but how much energy I had to focus on what I enjoyed about life. Because, if I am carrying “the weight of the world” with me, I am unable to fully focus my energies on what I want.


One of the other things that happens quite naturally is if we are carrying around this negative energy, it soaks into the cells of our bodies and interferes with their optimal function. Once that happens, we often develop beliefs that our bodies are defective or unable to heal or that we just have to live with recurring cancers or other conditions that show up in our lives again and again.


Forgiveness is a powerful tool with which we can release large chunks of repressed emotional pain.


Forgiveness does NOT mean that you are okay with what the other person did, but it’s like the quote from the Buddha, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the OTHER person to die.”


When we hold onto hurt, anger, fear and other negative emotional energies, we are not protecting ourselves from similar future events, as many believe. We are walling ourselves off from the highest potentials for our lives.


We are ensuring that similar events will show up in our lives again and again because the Law of Attraction says “like attracts like.”


I have heard some women create beliefs that all men are bad because a man hurt them in the past. Once a person anchors a thought into their mind with powerful emotional energy, it then becomes their reality…meaning it colors the way they see the world and attracts other similar experiences.


This can perpetuate a reality of feeling unsafe in the world.


But this is not who we are.


We are vibrational, spiritual beings who are far more powerful than we’ve been taught to believe. We are capable of creating love, peace and joy in our lives. But in order to create the highest vision of our lives, we have to let go of this energy we hold within us.


Our powerful imagination holds the key to forgiveness. Since scientists have proven that our mind does not know the difference between something real and imagined, it is not even necessary to tell someone you are forgiving them. If you feel you need an apology from someone in order to forgive them, you also have the power to imagine that. If you feel you owe someone else an apology, you will feel better if you imagine that as well. You also have the power to imagine them forgiving you. You have the power to imagine whatever you need to experience in order to let go of your pain.


Close your eyes and imagine a conversation between you and to whomever you have this emotion attached. Tell them why you are upset with them and allow them to apologize to you. If you did or said something to hurt them, allow them to tell you how they felt and allow you to apologize to them. Then tell them you forgive them and that you are ready to let go of the energy you've carried.


Take a deep breath, relax and allow yourself to really feel as much emotion as you can that you have attached to this situation. Feel wherever you feel it in your body. Notice if that area of your body feels tight, tense or some other physical sensation and really allow yourself to just feel it. For just a few moments, don’t think about why it is there. Just FEEL it.

Then breathe into it and release it with a loud sigh of relief. Exhale with a sound of “Ahhhh!”


The practice of forgiveness releases chunks of trapped emotional energy. And as you release it, you are then able to replace the pain with love, the anger with compassion and the shame with understanding...both for yourself and others.


While this exercise can be done on your own, it is far more powerful to have a coach walk you through it because your coach will gently pull all the pain you need to release to the surface so that when you release it, you release large amounts of energy, not just what your ego is comfortable to face.


Often the person we need to forgive is a younger version of ourselves, when we’ve hurt someone else. We can reverse the exercise to imagine ourselves apologizing to the person we hurt and allow our own feelings of embarrassment and shame to surface.


If WE are remembering it, WE are the ones holding onto this energy. Again, the only thing that anchors a memory in place in the mind is either a positive or negative emotional energy.

This week, I was interacting with a colleague on my companies internal messaging platform. He and I had an email spat a couple of years ago and I took the opportunity to apologize to him for my role in it. He took responsibility for his behavior and I told him I forgave him and hoped he would forgive me for my behavior as well.


When we forgive others, it opens us up to new possibilities and again releases little bit of that trapped emotional energy.


I remember many years ago when I realized how powerful forgiveness was. I would lay in bed at night envisioning everyone who had ever hurt me and who I had hurt. I would imagine them apologizing to me and allowing myself to release the pain I had attached to them. I took responsibility for everything I had said or done to hurt another and let it all go.


I encourage you to use the Power of Forgiveness to release the little hurts you can remember. The more you peel away those layers of pain, the easier it will be to replace this energy with the loving, joyful energy you deserve to experience in life.


If you need help forgiving someone, reach out to me for a coaching session. You can make significant progress in just one session, but to release the larger stores of energy, it often takes at least 4 sessions to pull enough energy to the surface to heal a significant area of your life.


Using the power of forgiveness alone on a regular basis will create permanent positive change in your life.


Namaste

Jeff


© 2022. All rights reserved.


Jeff Scholl is a Certified Spiritual Life Coach through Holistic Learning Centers and a Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner through the American Association of Drugless Practitioners.


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