Forgiveness Is A Practice Not A One Time Thing

We cannot do one forgiveness ritual and expect to be cleansed of the issue. Forgiveness is a practice of constantly recognizing our thoughts, deciding if they are helpful or if I want to change these thoughts.

Transcript

Hello beautiful people, Let's begin by taking an intentional breath together closing the eyes Inhaling deeply filling the belly with air and Exhale releasing Beautiful So what today in this video we're gonna be talking about forgiveness and why forgiveness isn't really a one-and-done thing You don't just say I forgive you and it's over So I think a lot of time we get a little bit confused about how forgiveness works if we're even trying to forgive people in general because I think there's a lot of pervasive if you forgive someone then that's a weakness or you're going to allow yourself to be stepped on or controlled or if you you're you know, You forgive someone you're gonna let them do it again and That is fundamentally wrong of forgiveness is more about you is about your Internal landscape then it is really about the other person and the reason is is that We control our thoughts and feelings Not our circumstances. So other people do not make us feel things we do We have thoughts about you know, Oh they hurt me. They did this and then we feel victimized Now I'm not telling you that that's wrong You can have those thoughts and feelings but you have to understand that they're coming and originating from inside you and when we go down the path of forgiveness It is about allowing ourselves to think new thoughts and to feel new feelings When we think of this person or this situation where my eyes were really opened up about this is whenever I was trying to forgive a work situation and I kept having thoughts and feelings about this situation that would come up all the time and following the advice of the internet because What else is there? I Decided I would do a forgiveness ritual, Right? So I wrote down, You know a thought download of every single thing that You know, I was upset about what what happened why I was upset what I was feeling and then on the other side I wrote down in that same situation all the things that the good things that came out the gratitude things the things that I was Thankful for from this situation and then I wrote down, You know on a piece of paper the situation and I folded it up And I like held it and I burned it you know right and I like watched the fire burn and the paper burn away and I Was cleansed I forgive I I could move on or so I thought so What in this ritual is beautiful ritual and maybe it works for some people maybe If you do it a few times but the thing is it wasn't enough because I felt Cleansed and I felt forgiveness and I felt happy about the situation and the way it turned out momentarily Right. So the next day it just wears away So you either need to keep doing the ritual which how much time do we all have right or you need to? Challenge yourself To you know, Maybe you do the forgiveness ritual and that's the start of an everyday practice of Practicing new thoughts and feelings about this situation. So for instance this really clicked for me when I Thought I had forgiven the situation But I was still feeling I would still think about it sometimes and get pissed off and that wasn't helpful It wasn't helpful at all. I was like why thought this I forgave this. I thought this was done and It was still in there so that means that's you know, Some part of my brain was still clinging on to it and That's when I realized I was like, You know driving around one day and I looked over at a sign a certain sign that made me think of a Different issue that I had already forgiven and I was like, Huh? That's interesting I wonder when I can look at a sign of this certain situation and feel Just fine about it feel neutral and I realized oh I Can do that every single time I? Can practice Feeling those thoughts and feelings so maybe my initial burst is to be angry or pissed, But I can say Actually, I forgive this situation I forgive this situation I can think of oh, You know It brought me this it brought me that I'm grateful for that and you can use this As a practice forgiveness is a practice. It's not a ritual. It's not a one-and-done You have to every single time you see a trigger that triggers the thoughts and feelings that you're trying to forgive You have to practice seeing them Seeing yourself first and foremost. Oh Hmm. I see you're still upset about that. That's okay but I'd like to choose to do something differently right and we probably need to go through a whole separate video about like how to Feel your feelings and how to allow, You know, Whatever is coming up to come up because that's totally valid I'm kind of skipping that part because for me a lot of that ritual was about feeling those feelings and about being upset and being mad and being victimized and being you know feeling like I needed to blame people and That allowed me to feel those feelings and then it allowed me to look at them and say Well, I'm I'm ready to move on. I don't need that. What is coming up for me? It's just not any it's just not helpful for me anymore. So bearing in mind that that did happen Once you have done that part and you see these outside triggers you can practice yourself into oh I see that I'm still upset. That's okay But I am grateful for the situation because of this because of that and I think once we start to move through this Process we realize that we're not the victims of you know, Seeing that sign on the road. We're not the victims of Those people that situation anymore we get to decide and we get to be in control, Right? So I hope that you can take this video and really Re-imagine what forgiveness is and about how it's a practice and everyday practice to forgive someone Or to forgive a situation or to forgive yourself really? So thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you in the next video. You