In one of my meditations this year I wrote the following: “How is not forgiving showing up in your body, your mind, and your relationships? Forgiveness is a means whereby ALL experiences and relationships happen FOR us. Forgiveness is the freedom of peace and the peace of freedom.”
Earlier this year I read Colin C. Tipping’s book, Radical Forgiveness – Making Room for the Miracle, and experienced a ‘radical’ way of looking at forgiveness. I contemplated the concept that everything happens FOR me and not TO me. I began to stop playing small, playing the victim, and began appreciating people for what they could teach me. As I became more open and available to life’s lessons, I was able to see relationship patterns and how I was responsible for all of them. Suddenly, I experienced an inner peace like never before. I was showing up in relationships with family and friends in peaceful ways. More of my relationships began to expand.
I began to deeply listen to shamanic and coaching clients I was working with and their struggle to forgive themselves and others in their life. Clients expressed how they were clinging on for dear life for an apology or to their anger over a situation. With this in mind, I asked how willing they were to look at forgiveness in a new and radical way. I invited clients to imagine all the energy it was taking to hold on tightly to the anger and hurt and instead imagine this space being used to create more joy, more peace, and more love. Upon reflection I have come to discover that forgiveness is a journey, a process, and a resting – of getting to a place within and just resting. As part of this journey, I have read some profound thoughts on forgiveness from many teachers. These quotes have helped me make room for more love and I am hoping they might do the same for you.
“Forgiveness does not mean that we suppress anger; forgiveness means that we have asked for a miracle: the ability to see through mistakes that someone has made to the truth that lies in all of our hearts. Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness. Attack thoughts towards others are attack thoughts towards ourselves. The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.” Marianne Williamson
“Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.” Martin Luther King
“I could see peace instead of this.” A Course in Miracles
“Forgiveness is realizing that what you thought happened, didn’t” Byron Katie
Are you open to making space for more love, more peace, and more freedom? As Mother Theresa says, “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
If you are open to making yourself available to a radical way of looking at forgiveness, join me for an upcoming 4-week telecourse, “Resting in Radical Forgiveness”, starting Wednesday, November 18, 2009. For information & to register: https://www.toningtheom.com/upcoming-events/#resting
“Forgiveness is the freedom of peace and the peace of freedom.”
Peace, Mary Anne