How to Forgive

How to Forgive

What do you think about forgiveness? It’s a big idea, full of lots of stuff, lots of emotional stuff, most of it not very nice. There is an old saw I like, “Resentment is letting someone live rent-free in your head. Now, I must say, I have never figured out how to get someone who lives in my head to pay me rent. If you have, please drop me a line and tell me how.

Resentment and forgiveness are quite the pair. Resentment is simply the re-feeling over and over of the bad feelings we get when someone does us wrong by our estimation. Forgiveness is choosing not to re-feel those bad feelings and replace them with peaceful feelings. This is sometimes very easy and sometimes ridiculously challenging.

It’s been my experience in life that a lot of how easy or challenging forgiveness is depends on how righteous we feel about holding onto our resentment.

Why do I forgive? What makes me let go? How have I changed from resenting to forgiving?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should just forgive and forget willy nilly. A lot of what I have now managed to forgive were egregious wrongs that no one should do to nobody. I mis-learned stuff from those experiences about how the world is, how I should be in it, and how I should expect to be treated. I needed to sort that stuff out. I needed a really good teacher. It took me a while. But I wanted to clean out my emo-basement. I needed to work through them, remember them, feel the feelings all the way through, notice what I had mis-learned, and then I could start thinking about forgiving.

For the stuff that isn’t so dire, though, forgiveness is a nice tool. It’s a good thing to practice with because we all experience stuff that gets our goat, so we get lots of things to hone our skills on.

It’s important to remember that resentment mostly just chews on us. That’s why forgiveness is so nice. I have had the experience several times where I found out that someone wasn’t speaking to me because they resented something I had done. No idea. No impact on me. Dang. What’s the point of resenting if it has no impact on the other person?

How do I forgive? You know me, I like to give you specific and easy instructions that work for loads of people if I can. So this is how I do it.

I check to see if I have work to do around the resentment I feel, and if there is, I do it. If not, I become aware of my thoughts. That’s a good habit to cultivate anyway, noticing what we are thinking. We spend an astonishing amount of time thinking the same thoughts over and over. If I’m gonna do that, I would just as soon they be supportive, uplifting thoughts, thank you very much.

As soon as I notice that I am resenting, I think something else. If I can, I will go to compassion for the person. That’s kinda high-level stuff and it took me a while to get there. It’s also good practice. I like to silently sing, “Let it go, let it go, let it go” to the tune of Let it Snow. I do something to distract myself. That is it. Usually, after a few rounds of this, I’m done with it. Nice. If I’m hanging on to the bad feeling, I will look at it a bit more to see where it’s hooked me. Surprisingly simple. Very effective.

The more I practice letting go of something that really only hurts me, the more room I have for nice stuff. I like nice stuff. I like feeling peaceful and happy instead of angry and seethe-y. I like spending my think time on nice stuff like how do I want my life to go? What do I want to accomplish? Why am I successful? So much better than rehearsing all the shit. Heh.

How have I changed from feeling the same bad feeling over and over to letting go and feeling clean?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2016 all rights reserved 01222016

Deporting the Demons

Deporting the Demons

How do you wake up in the morning? Do you drag yourself out of bed, feeling duty bound to get the day going, to get to work or to do your routine? Do you feel overwhelmed before it has even started?

Or do you wake up with a smile, excited to see what the day will bring, eager to engage with your life, feeling light-hearted and joyful?

Sometimes we have a problem, an issue, a topic that comes up in our lives and it seems overwhelming. Our inclination may be to try to push it away, to avoid it, to deny it. We start asking, often in our unconscious mind, How can I avoid my problem? And we start answering with answers like I can leave, I can shut down, I can be sick, I can die.

Wow.

These aren’t little topics. These are great big hairy topics. Sometimes we know what that topic is, but sometimes it is deep in our subconscious mind. Sometimes we are willing to address our topic, but often we step into denial about it, preferring to expend our life-force holding it down rather than deal with it and live fully and joyfully.

Ouch.

Why am I alive? How do I feel my life-force? What makes me enjoy living?

We know we have a topic like this when we are sick, or emotionally shut down, when we are depressed, when we want to leave. When we want to die.

We all have stuff. It is our birthright. I believe that part of our job of living, part of the meaning of life, is to address our stuff, to work through it, to clean out our emo basements so that we can be our best selves.

There are things in our way. We may be afraid to look at our topics, afraid of what that examination might do to our relationships, to our beliefs, to our daily lives. Sometimes we are angry and resentful and we want to stay there, seething in our own sense of self-righteousness. Sometimes we are sad and get locked into the habit of grief.

What do I want? Do I want to live my own life, clean and full of joy, a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of purpose? Or do I want to nurture and provide safe harbor for old hurts and traumas, using my precious life-force and spirit to keep me back, to hold me fast to old traumas, old hurts, bad beliefs, and mislearnings?

Why would I choose to live fully?

This choice is one of the most powerful we can make. Choosing to let go of the past, to complete our painful experiences so that we can release them, choosing to face our darkest topics will only bring us more life, more room to experience joy and peace. Taking this leap of faith may be the only way to achieve true peace at our very core.

How have I changed from protecting my demons to exorcising them in favor of being fully alive?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 08172015

Luxury of Mind

Luxury of Mind

Today I drew the Luxury card. I love that card. It got me thinking, like Creative Questions often do, and I found myself thinking about the luxury of mind.

The Luxury of Mind. I love that phrase. I find it so evocative.

How do I enjoy the luxury of my mind? What makes me aware? How do I luxuriate in my thoughts?

My mind is a place where I like to think I am in complete control. That’s kind of true. It’s also really not true, but there is a lot we can change about that.

They say that about 12% of our thoughts are conscious, and that of those, a goodly chunk are habit-thoughts. A part of cultivating the Luxury of Mind is noticing what we are thinking.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love habits and routines. The things that fire off on autopilot free up my little 12% for other stuff. Getting up; yoga, bathroom, kitchen, coffee, cats, breakfast, lunch all get done so fast that I am sitting down and enjoying my coffee before I’m even aware of being awake. Hand washing laundry, vacuuming, dishes, and dusting are also tasks that don’t require me to be paying attention. I’m mindful in that I try to avoid vacuuming up cat toys or dusting fragile things onto the floor, but you get my drift.

When I am luxuriating in my mind, I am doing any number of think-y things. Perhaps I am daydreaming about a holiday, or having a little fantasy about living in a cloud city with winged horses, or gelato in Venice. Perhaps I am imagining the goals I would like to achieve, or appreciating the joys of my daily life.

Sometimes, in order to clean out my emo basement, I have to think about stuff that is really challenging and I get all full of heavy feelings. It might be that I have to go to a dark place, or look at things I may have done, or things that were done to me or around me, that have caused harm. This is another kind of luxury. What’s that you say? How could this be?

In order to look at our dark stuff, we need courage. We need to have some sense of our own strength. We need to have goals, like being free of our dark stuff. We need time. We often need a teacher. These things are luxuries, necessary, yes, but luxuries, like indoor plumbing or heat.

When I am being aware of my Luxury of Mind, I pull out my favorite Creative Questions. I practice thinking about what is good in my life. I practice thinking about how abundant my life is, how I have filled it with joy. I practice and I let my heart be light.

Sometimes, I bump into a scary memory, or the emotional hurt, and use my mind to work through the topic to the end when I can. I feel the feelings, I stick with it until it dissolves. Oh, man! If THAT moment isn’t Luxury of Mind, I don’t know what is.

Recognizing the difference between luxuriating and wallowing is crucial. When I am all focused on my physical discomfort, I am often wallowing. That’s a good time for me to distract myself. When I am focused on self-care, I am often luxuriating. It’s all about perspective and judgment; do my thoughts leave me feeling light or heavy?

How have I changed from wallowing in my dark space to luxuriating in my mind?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 01282015

Changing the Past

Changing the Past

A two-card draw today, on the same theme, curiously. Why am I positive? and Why am I a winner? What a nice set of questions.

How are you doing with changing the way you talk to yourself? Are you still yammering at you about being a loser, listing all your faults, criticizing your own efforts and results, acting like the way things are is somehow not the way they should be?

What would it mean to you to understand that the present moment is perfect? That you, in this present moment, are perfect? Would that help inspire you to speak to yourself with more kindness, more respect?

I would love to do that for you, show you so you really get it, your good qualities, your skills and talents, the wonderful things that make you, you, and take out all that negative self talk, but I can’t. No one else can, only you.

What do you need to start noticing how you speak to yourself? Why would you treat you with kindness and respect? What would make you own your power, feel competent and capable? We can do this anytime. We don’t need to be old, we can change to this way of thinking no matter how old we are. And as we feel more empowered, we find compassion for our former self, and for our loved ones who may have helped us learn to be so cruel to ourselves.

Have you ever paid attention to what you find most comforting? Me, I have two particular gestures that really help me when I need comfort. But I will also tell you a secret I use to help me change stuff.

We all have particular times in our lives that we remember as hard, painful, and scary, like maybe we weren’t somehow going to make it through. I have resources and wisdom and skills now I didn’t have then.

When those times pop into my head, I have started “going back in time,” and I sit with that savaged former self, and I comfort her in the best ways I know we like, and I let her know it will be okay, and then it will be good, and then it will be great. Poor little thing often can barely take in what I’m saying, but she gets the comfort, and the soothing words, and something deep inside both of us changes; my current self for treating me with deep compassion, and my former self for getting exactly what I needed at the time. It may not change the past out there, but it does seem to change my internal experience.

Feeling compassion for our former selves is powerful. Forgiving our former selves is powerful. Comforting our former selves is powerful. It helps us release shame, and fear, and all sorts of icky stuff.

And, then, practicing our positive Creative Questions, changing how we talk to ourselves, appreciating our value, will do a lot to cleaning out our emotional basements.

I find it gets way easier when I remember that I am, we all are, perfect divine and infinite beings at our core. Speaking to our own selves with compassion, gentleness, and loving kindness will go a long way to helping us live our natural lives.

How have I changed from dissing myself to death to treating me with love and respect?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05102014

Closing the Harbor on Resentments

Closing the Harbor on Resentments

What do you think about forgiveness? Is it something you do, or do you nurse and nurture your old emo stuff, refeeling old hurts, rehearsing betrayals, let-downs and disappointments? Does forgiveness strike you as something lame, for dorks or dummies?

Forgiveness was a tricky one for me. If someone was cruel to me, how could I not be mad at them? If someone betrayed my trust, how could I not just feel betrayed forever and ever? If someone stole from me, or cheated me, or lied to me, how could that not just be part of my sordid and miserable past? Wasn’t that the reasonable response?

Why do I forgive? How do I let go?

An analogy I really like is thinking of my unconscious mind as a basement, full of stuff. Some of if is nice, carefully packed with tissue paper and lavender, or cedar balls, but some of it is shoved willy-nilly into rotting paper bags, stuffed in a damp corner picking up mold.

One of my tasks as a grown up is to clean up my emotional basement. I need to spend some time there, paying attention to what I find, and, at the very least, identify and let go of, my old emo crap around you. My resentments, in general, have very little impact on you, but a huge impact on me. They can screw up my sleep, knot up my guts, give me headaches, and wreck my relationships.

What makes me dump my resentments? Why do I choose to live clean? How am I free?

In some cases, I found that I had to work through and complete some kind of traumatic experience around an old resentment. Sometimes, I needed help to do that. I tells ya, it was so worth it.

Do you know how to let something go? Is that a skill you’ve been practicing? This is a very useful skill in general, but if you have trouble sleeping because you can’t seem to shut off your thinkin’, you will benefit greatly by mastering this skill.

I am the boss of my thinking. I am not the boss of my thoughts. My thoughts just flow, like stuff on the banks of the river. That’s the job of the mind, to make thoughts, but I get to decide what thought I will follow, if I choose to follow any at all. A meditation practice helps develop this skill, so does just sitting, being aware of thoughts moving through, noticing when I follow one, and bringing my attention back to just noticing them.

When I need to let go of something, that means it is flowing into my awareness, I latch onto it, and think on it, usually getting myself all worked up and mad, scared, or something. It gets in the way of what I’m doing, it gets in the way of my feeling good.

So I will do something like, imaging the bad thoughts as turning into dandelion fluff, and blow them away, thinking “let it go, let it go” and imagining the seeds taking root and blooming into beautiful flowers.  Or I will imagine them as a bunch of balloons, and release them, imagining them floating to the sun to be turned into good energy. Then I ask good Creative Questions, especially ones like, How to I feel when I feel light? How do I feel when I feel happy? How do I feel when I feel clear and right?

I love making room in my emo basement.

How have I changed from giving safe harbor to bad feelings to allowing my center of light to grow?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 03012014

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