THE HEALING POWER OF FORGIVENESS

Two Tibetan monks meet each other several years after being imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese government.
The first monk asks the second: "Have you forgiven them?" The second monk replies, "Forgive them? Never!"
To which the first monk says, "Then you are still in prison."

We must forgive those whom we believe have wronged us.

Not because they deserve it, but because we feel so much love for ourselves

that we don't want to keep paying for these injustices.

(Miguel Ruiz)

For me, forgiveness is one of the fastest ways to become happy. Forgiveness is an act of self-love. Forgiveness frees you from the pain, anger and vengefulness that poison your own life.

As long as we do not forgive our small or big "enemies", we carry the thought ballast and associated heavy energy of a past event.
Every time we think of this event, we activate the pain stored in our cells, our thoughts darken, our body is flooded with stressful hormones.
Instead of facing this moment of our lives light-hearted and full of energy, we feel victimised and taken advantage of.

Try this out: Think of a situation in which you were emotionally hurt or, in your opinion, treated unfairly, put yourself back in that moment when
"this terrible wrong was done to you":

How does it feel?
Do you feel the pain and anger in your body?
How does your stomach feel?
Your solar plexus? Your shoulders?
Observe your thoughts?
Are they light and carefree or full of heaviness and resentment?

If you answer yes to these questions, then you are still holding yourself in this situation.
You are your own jailer.

One of the quickest ways to happiness is to free yourself from these inner shackles, open the door of the prison
and release your enemy to whom you have chained yourself internally by your bound attention.
You let the light of forgiveness into your common dungeon.

For this, imagine how you inwardly open the prison door and observe how you let your "enemy" go out into the light of infinite love. And you too are now free - enveloped in the light of the love you always carry in your heart.

Forgiveness does not mean that you approve of what has been done to you,
but forgiveness means that you allow yourself for a moment to see the pain and hurt of the other.
For no person who is truly happy and free will intentionally hurt another.

Shortly after Moritz's father split up with me and I gave in to my role as "drama queen".
and went through the day full of anger and pain, a dear friend and teacher of the "Course in Miracles" told me:

There is either love or a cry for love

As I let this wisdom slowly seep into my system, I began to realise that he, in his own way, he had longed to love just as I had.

Isn't that liberating?
How much more relaxed I can be with him now.