All Forgiveness is Self-Forgiveness

How does forgiveness move us from feeling trapped in the pain of the past and into new possibility and feelings of freedom?

How to we transcend beyond the hurt?

Offering forgiveness isn’t a way of putting aside what happened to us, rather it’s moving beyond and transforming our experience of what happened to us. During this sacred movement of forgiveness, deep healing and recognition that there is another way of being presents itself.  

We begin to remember that life happens with us, not to us. As we shift our attention from what happened to us, to the message or teaching that the experience brought to us, the realm of Spirit is able to transmute the pain and stops the mind from reinventing the story of the pain.

This is transcendence. We look beyond the messenger to the message.

Our willingness to forgive opens new possibilities. We are thoughts within the mind of God. Our wounds heal as we reach out to the hearts of others, and as we surrender into a larger solution, our own healing begins. As we allow ourselves to fully feel our emotions and commit to respond versus react we are able to get in touch with and integrate the experience that our feelings were originally rooted in. We are able to meet ourselves and others with deep compassion and ultimately forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the miracle that invites us beyond our pain and suffering. Without forgiveness, there is no love, no true healing. Suffering remains until we forgive and until we remember that all forgiveness is self-forgiveness. Forgiveness becomes the gateway to truly loving self.

Art by Mary Pines