Soul to Soul...

A very dear Soul asked:  Does forgiveness have to do with emotion?   I've been thinking a lot about forgiving. It is something with which I struggle. Lots of people talk about it but no one seems to be able to explain how. I struggle with the balance of forgiving and setting boundaries. I was raised in an abusive home and that created a pattern for many of my relationships as an adult.

Dear Soul,

Thank YOU for writing and asking…I believe these are the first steps to freedom, liberation!  To recognize and to seek are priceless forms of action on your part.  Looking for ‘another’ way of seeing is full of hope.  Maybe we can journey together…I’m seeking too.  I’m learning to see through a ‘lens’ of spiritual love, the way God see’s His children…God only sees with love.

One new belief I’m embracing is that – when we or others act outside of ‘spiritual-love’,  we have temporarily lost our right mind…we are not in alignment with Divine Love… we have missed the mark.  It is an illness that needs forgiving…with the same compassion we feel for anyone with an illness we can ‘see’.  When I learned this precept, the AHA hit me.  I looked at myself, the many times I got angry and said things I couldn’t take back but just ached with ‘sorry-ness’; or when I gossiped about a friend; or when I told a lie…these things hurt me on such a deep level, in my soul.  I desperately needed to be forgiven but even further, I needed to forgive my-self. 

FOR-GIVE-NESS is all tied up in LOVE.  Love is the opposite of ‘fear’.  When I truly looked at WHY I did this and that…the reason was always ‘fear’.  I gossiped because of fear that I wouldn’t be liked; I was angry because of fear that I was losing control over the person or situation; I lied because of the fear of being found out I wasn’t good enough… all self induced fears! 

In all of these, I WAS ILL, I was not in my right mind…if I had been, LOVE instead of fear would have been present.  My mother, father, husband, friends have all abused me in various ways and because of not knowing they were ill, not in their right mind, I turned to abusing my-self. 

BUT NOW I am on the path of Knowing these truths and I FORGIVE myself and everyone because WE need it, deserve it and GOD knows this is the way to freedom from burdens…the way to living a liberated life. 

Soul, you speak of boundaries… I believe our boundaries are set by the way we respect ourselves and others.  I’ve learned that how I treat others is what I get back from them.  We have been given ‘self’ mastery, not ‘other’ mastery.  ANYTHING that happens ‘out there’ creates a feeling that is caused by our belief…we must look within ourselves to figure out why we feel this or that.  Everything that happens is ‘neutral’ UNTIL we attach our belief or feeling to it.  Everything is to be corrected inside ourselves…this is where the struggles start and end.  It is never “they did this to me” that causes anything…it is all in our beautiful mind that we need to learn (like a physical muscle) to control.

All of this is what I’m learning.  This Knowledge, this way of looking at my mind, is freeing me from my demons and feelings of unworthiness…I never want to go back to my old ways now that I’ve found the freedom to love myself and others unconditionally with compassion.  Abuse is crippling !!! but if we desire to live the best life we can, then we owe it to ourselves to be free of anything that holds us back.

With all my love, dear Soul !   blw

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