Forgiveness Doesn't Absolve the Offender, It Frees the Offended

We need to get over the belief that, somehow, forgiveness is all about letting someone else off the hook for something they've done to hurt you. Forgiveness is not about them! Forgiveness is all about you--your learning, your progress, your freedom! Forgiveness does not make the wrong right. Forgiveness allows you to move out of harmful energy into a state of empowerment! Allow yourself to let go of hurts. You may find yourself in a whole new glorious way of BEing!

~CSE

Healing And Integrating The Dark Side Of Self

I believe emotions are instructional tools. When we feel strong emotions, those are signals that we need to pay attention to and deal with an underlying issue. Lately what has set my emotions off are the politics being played out on the national (US) stage. It dawns on me this morning that I need to work a little harder at resolving some of these issues with myself.

The person who sets me off the most at present is Hillary Clinton. Because of my dealings with alternative radio, I have done a lot of research into the connections between the occult and power. She has come up frequently in this research. I'm not going to detail what I believe because my issue is not something you need to add to your plate of issues. We all have our own work to do. I bring this up because I want to give you a concrete example of how I am working to heal myself through the issues that come up for me.

When I look at Hillary, I can see that I have personally put up energetic blocks between us. Much of this has been about my own protection from the forces I see around her. The other part of this is not wanting to acknowledge my own evil. The thing is, knowing what I know about Oneness, deep down I understand that Hillary and I are One. To deny her is to deny myself. To deny her is to deny what the contrast of her life has given to me. Without her, I am not able to acknowledge and learn from all that IS. Contrast is one of the best learning tools we have here in duality.

This is why Ho'oponopono is such a spectacularly helpful tool. (For more information on this healing technique, see "The Power Of Ho'oponopono" and "Ho'oponopono Revisited".) In a nutshell, Ho'oponopono is a healing technique that assumes personal responsibility for all the circumstances in our lives. Its four parts (I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you) acknowledge the role we have played in the problems that have been created and breaks down the walls we have built that keep ourselves from understanding all that IS. As we give thanks for the awareness, blocked energy is allowed to flow freely once again.

As I look at my own personal hangups with Hillary, I am able to see where my putting her in the "evil" box has had the effect of keeping her there. She is trapped until I understand what I need to see about her, the world, and myself. As I pray and meditate, I apologize for my role in the problem and ask for forgiveness. I thank her for her willingness to help me learn what I came to Earth to learn, and I acknowledge our Oneness through love.

Healing does not come from winning the fight. It comes from letting the fight go and allowing awareness to once again become part of self. As parts of Oneness, Hillary's struggle is my struggle, just as my struggle is hers. By acknowledging the roles of others, we allow what IS to exist freely in flow. We are able to integrate and heal the darker side of self.  

~CSE

Forgiveness: It's All About YOU!!!

I'm going to say something a little controversial, but hear me out. We have a tendency to believe that forgiveness is something we do for someone else--that having forgiveness miraculously bestows some tremendous blessing or favor on whomever or whatever has betrayed us. The fact of the matter is, we don't forgive in order to benefit others. We forgive to benefit ourselves!

Our society has forgiveness all wrong. Forgiveness is not about righting a wrong. It is not about absolving someone of their sin. By offering forgiveness we are not letting someone else get away with wrongdoing. Forgiveness is about letting go of blocked or stagnant energy.

Let's break down a situation where forgiveness is required. Pretend your significant other cheats on you with another person. You feel hurt, used, neglected. You stop trusting. Immediately a wall comes up between yourself and this person who has harmed you. You are the one who has put the wall in place in order to shield yourself from further betrayal. What you have essentially done is blocked the flow of energy between yourself and your significant other. You are also choosing to hold on to the pain of the situation by keeping the action within the forefront your mind.

Who is hurt by holding on to pain? The person holding the pain! Somehow we convince ourselves we are hurting the other person back by holding onto this pain. While acting and feeling hurt will sometimes make the offender feel guilt or remorse, more often than not it has little or no effect on them.

There are times when we are so upset about the pain we lash out in retaliation. This is where the laws of karma come around and bite you back. Ultimately, we cling to the hurt so tightly we end up victimizing ourselves even more.

When we choose forgiveness, it is not about allowing the offender to get away with something harmful. Forgiveness is the choice we make to let go of the pain. It does not require that you take the offender back into close association. It may not be in your best interest to pick up where you left off as the offender will not have changed in any substantial way. Forgiveness allows you to forge ahead in a more positive state of mind as you let go of your energetic block.

Forgiveness is not something we do for others. Forgiveness is something we do to benefit ourselves and our own lives. It allows us to take down the walls created by pain and move beyond them, enabling ourselves to be the powerful creators of our lives we were designed to be.

~CSE

   

Beyond Karma

While I believe that what goes around comes around, I'm not a big fan of most people's concept of karma. Karma is thought of by many as having to pay for mistakes you have made in the past, sometimes mistakes you have made in past lifetimes. I will confess that there are times when I can see someone else's bad attitude catching up with them and take a secret satisfaction in the way it plays out. That said, I don't believe karma is one endless prison sentence. Life isn't about paying for past mistakes. It's about making mistakes and learning from them so that you can go on and learn something new.

Karma is one of those religious concepts that can hold us in bondage. It does this by making us feel that the poor treatment we receive in life is something we deserve. When we feel we deserve poor treatment in life, that is what we receive. We block our own blessings!

Moving beyond our perceived karma is more a question of changing our frequency. That said, there are a good many things we need to overcome in order to be able to do that. For me, it is the journey of forgiveness. We have to be able to forgive ourselves for our own transgressions and mistakes. We have to be willing to forgive others for the pain they have caused us. We also need to be able to forgive the experiences, or traumas, we have endured as well as the energies that surround us in our environments. Moving beyond all these experiences changes our frequency/energy.

Karma is not so much about punishment as it is about controlling our state of BEing. Energy does carry over into the next life. Your choices in this lifetime determine where you end up in the next existence, based solely on the frequency you carry with you. Do what you can to rid yourself of blocks that come with living life. Choose forgiveness, and you will have the ability to move beyond your present problems into a new and beautiful life.

~CSE

Identifying Forgiveness Issues

If you think about problems as being blocked or stagnant energy, it becomes easy to see how such energy gets in the way of achieving what you want in life. What we often fail to recognize is that we ourselves are the reason energy gets blocked in the first place. By understanding ways we block our own energy we can begin to heal our lives and create blessings for ourselves and others. Although healing through forgiveness may sound very limited, forgiveness issues are at the heart of this blocked energy. Healing Thru Forgiveness is a process by which we look at life's problems with an eye to identifying relational issues, ask key questions, and allow the blocked energy to dissipate and heal.

There are four core areas where we carry unforgiveness.

1. Relational issues with others. These are the most obvious obstacles to forgiveness and what we tend to think of when we consider forgiveness. Someone in our lives has harmed us in some way, and we hold on to the energy in an effort to protect ourselves. 
2. Relational issues with self. This is where we make personal mistakes and hold on to feelings such as guilt and shame, which then become blocked energy.
3. Relational issues involving our environments. These are problems we carry due to the false teachings and beliefs of our families, cultures and societies. 
4. Relational issues involving our experiences. These are problems involving traumas big and small that we carry around with us until we consciously choose to let them go.

There can be (and often is) overlap within these key areas. Issues we have with others may also include environmental and/or experiential components. The same is true with relational issues involving self. When this is true, forgiveness needs to be approached from several different angles in order to completely overcome all blocked energy involved.

By identifying our forgiveness issues, we can begin to consciously let go of those stagnant and blocked energies holding us back from the lives we want. We are empowered to heal ourselves and the world.

~CSE

  

Defining Forgiveness

What is forgiveness? The dictionary defines it as several different things. To stop feeling anger or blame against someone or something. Another definition of forgiveness is to stop requiring payment on something that is owed. This could be money, but often it goes much farther than that. There is an element here where the offended person expects something back to make amends for whatever was given, lost, or taken.

There are many times in our lives where we hold on to unforgiveness. When we do this, we block energy from flowing. At these times we choose to hold on to sadness, or anger, or pain of some kind. Often we are not even aware we are doing it. The blocked energy may not be a total block. There can be areas where energy is still exchanged and flowing in our lives. That said, any area that has a block can be made better by removing that block.

I had a friend years ago who allowed unforgiveness to define her. She was a single parent (I was still a single parent at the time) and a fellow soccer mom. We became quite close when we discovered we were divorced for the same reason: our husbands had left for someone else. There was one big difference between us though. My friend chose to hang on to her anger against her ex. She dwelt on the anger and hurt. She did things to try to get back at her ex, including trying to turn their kids against him. She even allowed these feelings to come between our relationship because I chose to be nice to her husband and his new wife at soccer games! (On a side note: I was nice to my ex and his wife at soccer games as well.) My friend was just not able to let this anger go and it showed in almost everything she did.

Forgiveness is where healing begins! By defining and understanding all those places in ourselves where we hold on to negative emotions or feelings, we systematically begin to let go of the anger or blame that controls our lives. We allow energy to loosen up and becoming free flowing once again!

Isn't it time you looked at all those things holding you back from flow and abundance in all areas of your life? By understanding all those places where you hold unforgiveness, you set blocked energy free and allow yourself to live a life of beauty, hope and joy.

~CSE

    

Forgiveness: The Key To Moving Forward

My first husband left me for someone else. It isn't a subject I usually bring up publicly, as such statements are often designed to place blame. I bring it up today as a way to illustrate the thought processes behind forgiveness.

My divorce was the most painful thing I have ever experienced, including losing my newborn daughter. It was something I did not plan for and did not anticipate. In my way of thinking, marriage was supposed to last a lifetime. Its demise sucked the life right out of me. I felt hurt. I felt betrayed. I felt broken as I struggled to take care of myself and my small children. I mourned for the relationship that might have been. I struggled with the pain for months.

Then one day, I woke up and looked at the pain. In that moment, one thing became crystal clear. As long as I continued to dwell on the pain--my hurt, my brokenness, I would continue to live a painful existence. I understood that holding on to this pain was a choice, and I had the power change it. I could hang on to the bitterness of my circumstances--being a single mom with three small children and watching my ex in his new relationship, or I could choose to let all my hurt and anger go and forge ahead with a new life. In that moment, I chose to move forward.

I'm not going to tell you it was all forward motion. There were days I felt myself creeping back toward bitterness and resentment. The thing is, I was now aware my own personal happiness was dependent on the choices I made every single day. When I noticed myself falling back into discontent, it began to get easy to pull myself back up out of it.

Forgiveness was key to this whole process. I understood that if I wanted to move on, I had to let go of the negativity and thoughts of revenge. After all, I might superficially hurt my ex and his new love if I gave into these feelings. However, I also understood that ultimately I would end up hurting myself and my children more by following through on such actions. I chose not to go there.

Once I was able to forgive my ex and let go, I was able to move forward. I could make news plans for the life I wanted for myself and my children. There were times when new hurts would come up. Forgiveness can be an ongoing process. It is important to work through situations as they come up and deal with them so you can go on with life.

Holding on to unforgiveness is one of the most limiting things you can choose to do in life. It blocks all aspects of your life and keeps you living in pain. Forgiveness does not justify the poor choices of another. It frees you to live a life of hope and promise.

If we truly desire to create a better world, we must begin by letting go of the pain from our past. Forgiveness is the key to moving forward and creating something far better.

~CSE

Why Are We STILL Waiting?

As I sat in my quiet time this morning, I noticed what felt like a holding pattern. The energy wasn't "good". The energy wasn't "bad". It was churning and moving but going nowhere fast. It feels as though we are on the edge of breakthrough. I asked the question: why are we stuck here? From the deep resources of the heart I felt my answer: there is a lack of forgiveness.

I'll admit. When I realized the extent of what had been done to the Earth and the people and other beings who live on it, it was a tough pill to swallow. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. The hurts and pains of everyone and everything were so great, all my mind could think of was justice and even revenge.

There is a fine line between justice and revenge. While both are attempts to right wrongs, there are differences. Justice looks seeks to stop harmful behaviors by arresting them and making sure they can no longer continue while some sort of restitution is paid. Revenge is an act designed to inflict the same sort of pain on the aggressor that the victim has suffered. The difference between the two is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not something we understand very well in our society. Somewhere along the way, we were taught forgiveness is an act that absolves someone of the crime/crimes they have committed. Fact of the matter is, the act of forgiveness does not right a wrong. The act of forgiveness frees the victim from the pain of the crime and allows the victim to move forward toward healing and wholeness. Forgiveness says, "Even though I have been harmed, I am choosing to move past the pain in order to allow myself to heal." Forgiveness frees the sufferer!!!

It is time for all beings on the planet, and for planet Earth herself, to say in one accord, "I will no longer be bound by the pain that has been inflicted on me! I choose to move on toward health, healing, wholeness and freedom!!!"

Yes, we need to put a stop to the crimes that are still being perpetuated on humanity and all of creation. Yes, some of these people need to be incarcerated forever in order to keep them from harming others again. That said, this should not be our primary focus.

Our focus needs to be about fixing all those things that have been broken. Our focus should be about healing ourselves and the planet. It is only when we work toward creating a better world that we can truly get past the pain.

Isn't it time to leave our difficulties behind and work to create a new and improved planet?

~CSE!!!