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Why is forgiveness so important?

How to find it within yourself to offer forgiveness

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Why can forgiveness be so hard to offer?

Offering forgiveness releases the other person of their mistake, a momentary lapse in intention, and it also releases us from ruminating on the story. The yogis talk about the lake of the mind. A clear calm lake represents a peaceful calm mind free of vritti, or thought waves. Holding on to a heavy moment, whether your moment or another person's moment, is like throwing the weight of a pebble into the glassy surface of the lake. Ripples of thought waves radiate outward, concentrically, and may even create interference patterns with other ripples or thought waves. Plus, it's hard to release a story when we repeat it or hold onto it incessantly.

True forgiveness returns the energy between people to a healed and loving state and surrenders the moment of lapse to a place of forgotten stories, a place of sunken pebbles. True forgiveness returns the lake of the mind to a clear calm surface. When we make mistakes, the only way to be released from the mistake is to forgive the error so that the energetic imprint of the hurt can be dissipated. This requires that we learn not only to forgive others, but also to forgive ourselves as well.

This is the ultimate form of relating, the opportunity to offer another what you would surely desire for yourself.

Why is this so important? Well, let's look at the outcome when we do not receive forgiveness for our own mistakes. When you make a mistake, do you wish to be allowed to learn and grow from the mistake? Or would you prefer to be held in the moment of time that slipped from your intentional grasp with the choice that lead to the mistake?

Unless you struggle with self-forgiveness, your answer is likely that you would like to be released and allowed to process forward from that moment in time. If you find this release a struggle to accept, consider why you would linger in the moment of error. We are so much more than one moment in time, and yet this moment is the gift of opportunity.

All of us have a moment in our journey that changed the trajectory of the path. For some that moment alters the life path profoundly. For others, a single moment is like a nudge to a road less taken, or to the path in the woods that opens to a meadow unknown before. Regardless of the impact of the moment, the future unfolds.

And the only moment we can live from is the one we have right now. 

Forgiveness releases the past

and allows the unfolding of the current moment

untethered to the story of a previous moment.

If you would wish this gift for yourself regarding moments of lapse in intention, then by all means, offer it to others, that you may lead by example to treat others the way you wish to be treated in the world.

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