Forgiveness – Your Path to Inner Freedom

Recent weeks and perhaps months may have been more challenging for you than usual. Possible patterns of frustrations and hurt may have been showing up with people around you or indeed with yourself. You may have stepped into a realisation that seeing to scars and healing emotional wounds is a vital step into living more peacefully. For sure, it can’t be done without changing ingrained false beliefs and patterns.

Forgiveness is key on such a journey.

Many fear forgiving because they feel it sends a message of accepting a situation, a status quo, or a person’s behaviour. But this is a wrong take on forgiveness and misses the point. Will you stay stuck with old belief systems, outdated beliefs or will you choose another way – forgiveness and ultimately freedom and joy?

Forgiveness is not something we do for other people.
We do it for ourselves to get well and move on.
~ LiveLifeHappy.com

Others may have moved on from the emotional hurt while you are still dwelling in it. Isn’t it time to move on, too?

The relevance of forgiveness in the Age of Aquarius

As the Age of Aquarius allows new thought forms to enter your consciousness more easily, make sure that you are prepared to let them. First of all, make space. Especially, if you are carrying dislike of people or past situations along with you. This will only cause clutter, making it difficult for new energies to enter and inspire you. It can also lead to a depletion of your energy reserves, something even more detrimental at this point in time as it can easily negatively impact your immune system.

But also because, in short, in this age things seem to be happening faster than ever before – maybe they actually are. And because whether you are forgiving yourself, asking someone to forgive you, or aiming to forgive someone else, it is all amplified at a time when it is becoming apparent to more people how truly interconnected we are. Have you considered the thought that we are not really operating as isolated individuals, but as an interconnected whole? If nothing else, perhaps the virus pandemic has made it clear, at least on some level. Therefore, forgiving others will be good for you, too.

Kundalini Yoga teacher Snatam Kaur Kalsa mentions that the yogis developed the Aquarian sadhana (spiritual practice) specifically for this time period. The Aquarian Age began on 11^th November 1991 and was followed by a two-decade transition period. She tells us, “we are now firmly in the Age of Aquarius.” I much relate to her description of these times.

In short:

• We are becoming more aware of interconnection (highlighted by discussions of a global vaccination programme as an example).
• Knowledge is easy to access (although it is often difficult to discern what is true).
• People are getting tired of wearing masks (literally!) and tired of trying to connect with others wearing their disguises.
• There is a difference between pretending to be OK with someone (including yourself) and truly releasing any contempt.

“Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them.”
~ A Course in Miracles

So, how can you start your journey of forgiveness?

• A first important step on any path towards forgiveness is to realise that we can’t alter the past. There is not much point in going over something in your mind, again and again, wishing that it had not happened. Looking back instead, unafraid, to see what truly happened is another matter and is what is useful. Key is that once it is understood that you can’t change what happened, you may ask yourself, what can I do now? You can forgive!
• Understanding the detail of the background, what might have happened to trigger someone’s behaviour, perhaps they (or you if you are working to forgive yourself) had a troubled childhood or dealing with a trauma which is more common than we think. It helps to remind ourselves that we are all only human. Can you forgive another and/or yourself for simply being human and acting out of a complex set of emotions? Looking at it this way can make the forgiveness process easier.
• In general, looking back on a situation with a necessary distance is easier to see it more clearly than when right in the middle of it happening. Bringing mindfulness to the past does not mean forever dwelling on or remaining stuck in the past. Seeing this we can let go of the chains to the past and help bring on the present that will give us the future that we wish to experience.
• It is possible to forgive someone and yet to not want to see them anymore (except in the case of yourself!). You can be compassionate, and yet feel the need to put up boundaries between yourself and others. We are all only human; you are, too.

• There is much to be learned from forgiving. It is a process of understanding what has happened, of accepting and releasing. This is healing emotional wounds, perhaps festering since childhood. This is shadow work of the highest order, and the Age of Aquarius as mentioned is making us look within. It will be necessary to integrate the whole being, the whole of yourself, all that you are, and make it lighter, to raise your vibration to stand in your own truth. With this we can feel gratitude also towards painful episodes of our past.
• If you feel so inclined, organise a meeting or write a letter to express your forgiveness. If you don’t want to deliver a letter, just the process of writing it will have helped a lot. You may also wish to burn the letter as a symbolic act of letting go. Whatever helps you let go of the heavy feelings weighing your heart down.
• If it is about forgiving yourself for causing harm to another, you may want to “set things right”. In addition to or as an alternative to writing a letter, you may want to speak to someone, to feel heard and to have them open up to you. Or to at least speak your mind to them again try to do so with love and compassion. It is important not to come from a place of accusation, judgement or hurt.
• If it all feels too overwhelming or you are not comfortable with being vulnerable, find a good and ideally recommended therapist or healer to support the work at hand. Remember: Vulnerability is an act of courage that leads to an inner power.

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
~ Haruki Murakami

Close the tap

Think of not forgiving as a water tap not being properly and tightly closed. Day after day, your energy seeps out, wasted. It is eating you up instead of nourishing you. Why would you not tighten that tap and bask in your own glorious energy field at its optimum? For a practical example, nursing a long list of people that we feel unable to forgive can be a huge burden. Just think of the energy spent trying to avoid people, feeling flooded with resentment, and so on. Whether it is people that we meet on a regular basis or never, space is being taken up by not forgiving, letting go and moving on.

Love and Blessings, – see you for “Article 4” shortly,

Claudia

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More about the Author:

It was at the height of Claudia’s high-fly corporate career that she arrived at a turning point. A meeting in the forest of a spiritual community in the south of India presented her with a vague notion that she was about to depart from the highway of business success. Little did she know that her life was to radically change.

Claudia now dedicates her time, wisdom and knowledge to support people who want to live a heart centred life. In her work, she draws on a lifelong interest in how our energy field is influenced by our thoughts, beliefs and emotions and how this in turn influences our lives.

Claudia runs a global community which holds space for conversations exploring a future based on a new and deeper understanding of self. Working with individuals as a Quantum Energy Coach, she also facilitates retreats and offers personal change programmes. Her guided journal Your 28 Days to Self Love is available on Amazon and other major book retail platforms.

All original material copyright © 2021 Claudia Roth