A few weeks ago when I wrote a blog about money, I mentioned that my client had to forgive in some of his life areas to be able to give and receive more money.
-> Check-out my blog about: Money!
After that I started writing a blog about forgiveness but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Who am I to tell people how to forgive? How can someone forgive who has been abused as a child? How can a someone forgive who has lost his family in a plane crash?
While researching I stumbled across some quotes:
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Or
“It takes a strong person to say they're sorry and an even stronger person to forgive.”
Yolanda Hadid
Or even
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
Bruce Lee
So you have to be strong to forgive? And the other person has to show regret first and admit their mistake? So someone has to be right which implies that the other person is wrong?
I wasn’t satisfied with this, so I did more research.
Eckhart Tolle writes in his book “A New Earth”: “Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than strengthening a false sense of self, to keep the ego in place. Trying to let go, to forgive, does not work."
In other words: As long as you see yourself as the victim of that story that happened in the past, you will never feel forgiveness in the present moment. Because with every time you keep telling the same story to yourself, you strengthen the energy around it.
But you can CHOOSE how you feel about a person or a circumstance today by taking responsibility for your feelings. You can take the ABILITY to RESPOND rather than RE-ACT in the same way over and over again.
It is your CHOICE to take ACTIONS to let go of your grievance by healing and clearing your own emotional baggage.
“You can never change the past – but you sure can change the present moment and the future!”
Bernard Meltzer
This resonates the best with how I understand forgiveness! What about you? What are your thoughts around forgiveness?