Often we hold onto anger and blame because we believe that forgiving and moving on means that we condone what was done to us. We fear that somehow, on some level, we agree with what was done, that we deserved it. If we forgive, we find ourselves thinking, what's to stop this from happening again?
The power of forgiveness, however, lies in the fact that it ultimately brings healing and closure, and it is one of the most loving acts we can perform for ourselves. Forgiving someone doesn't change the past, but it has a profound effect on our present and our future.
When we hold onto wrongs, they are ever present in our lives, impacting our body and mind, our relationships and our ability to be our authentic selves. We keep ourselves stuck in the role of a victim and deny ourselves the opportunity to step into our power. It may seem counterintuitive, but holding onto our righteous anger actually has the opposite effect from what we believe - it keeps us firmly stuck in the role of the victim, which means that, far from making us less likely to experience what happened again, we find ourselves repeating the pattern.
The act of forgiving someone allows us to let go of a source of stress that is constantly present in our psyche, to accept what happened, learn from it and make better choices in the future. It empowers us to be better and do better. It allows us to access the high frequencies of understanding, compassion and love. It also lowers our brainwave frequency into Alpha waves (8-13 Hz), which let us relax, be creative, and easily absorb new information and make connections between different thoughts and parts of our brain.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smedes
Have I convinced you? Are you willing to give it a go? I highly recommend this talk by Vishen Lakhiani, founder of Mindvalley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7fIaCA3Qr4
Start with something small, let go of the anger, the judgement and the blame, and see the benefits for yourself, particularly when you reach the stage of being able to forgive yourself.
With love and gratitude,
Sophia
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