Forgiveness

Meditation can be an act of cleansing and healing. Like the myriad of benefits gained from practicing meditation, you don't necessarily have to meditate with the intention of healing to experience it. I'm not talking about dramatic, suddenly-I-can-walk-again healing, but emotional and spiritual healing on a deep level. This is something that comes with time and dedication, and it is one of the reasons it's so helpful to meditate regularly (daily or twice daily). Lifting into the superconscious state is a natural path to healing.

There are, of course, things we can do outside of meditation, in our conscious state, that can also help us purify ourselves and facilitate that healing. One of these things is forgiveness. 

It can be so difficult to release ourselves of the anger, hurt, and frustration which naturally accompanies a situation or relationship which requires forgiveness. When we've been wronged, our inherent desire for justice wants the other person to feel an equal amount of anger, hurt, and frustration. However, if you step back and look at it from a distance, you will see that it is not the other person who is suffering from your inability to let things go and forgive, it is YOU who is suffering. You are carrying these hurtful, vengeful emotions and it is poisoning YOU, ruining your moments. You are the one caught up in the indignation of how things should be; your heart is the one carrying the burden of the injustice. Your focus and attention on these intrusive thoughts and feelings aren't touching the object of your displeasure, but they are chipping away at your own opportunities for happiness moment-to-moment.

Think about the relief you could feel through forgiveness. Picture the lightness in letting go of old patterns of believing that someone else is responsible for your happiness. YOU hold the key to your happiness. Things can happen that are unjust, that are hurtful, and that by all accounts seem designed to relieve you of your happiness. But only YOU get to decide if that's true. You are in control of holding on to that hurt or releasing it through forgiveness.

It is not necessary to even involve the other person/people in your effort to forgive. Don't feel you need to call them up and let them know everything is water under the bridge. Forgiveness comes from inside your heart, and when you are ready to forgive the important thing is for you to really put the energy into it from within. In my own experience, I have needed to ask for divine help to give me extra strength to really work to get to a place of forgiveness. In those cases, through meditation I asked for the grace to see the divinity in the other person and the blessing of being able to let that thing go that I had been clinging to. It is also immensely helpful to send love energetically to the person in question. Remember that space and time are just an illusion, and energetic thoughts are very real and powerful.

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash