Please Forgive Me

Our life is a series of experiences. Our experiences are determined by the meaning we give things, the moments we are in, the things that are spoken, the actions we take or don't take. We often blame external forces when we have an experience that we do not like but mostly we blame ourselves for making the choices or decisions we make or the things we think we should have or could have done differently.

But I am going to let you in on a little secret!

Everything we experience happens to us in our mind! 

No! It doesn't mean we are all crazy! 

Our mind is how we give meaning to things and people we experience. Everything you see, everything you hear, every person you meet, you experience in your mind. We are responsible for everything we think, and everything that comes to our attention.

As a result of our mind and what we experience, there are tragedies in our life because we don't look at where the origin of the problem is and it's always in our self and so we repeat the same thing over and over. Resulting in continuing painful relationships or work, or experiences, or repeating bad habits. Then we blame ourselves more for repeating the same mistakes.

When we blame ourselves, we beat ourselves up, we give ourselves a hard time about not recognising 'the signs' or 'not realising earlier' or for 'not learning the lesson again!'

Don't you think it's time we truly started to forgive ourselves?

There is a Hawaiian practice of forgiveness that was discovered by a Hawaiin therapist named, Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len. He showed the power of healing through forgiveness with an entire ward of criminally insane patients, without ever having met them. This practice is called:

What is ho’oponopono? The literal translation is ‘to put to right; to put in order or shape, correct, revise, adjust, amend, regulate, arrange, rectify, tidy up, make orderly or neat.”

Ho'oponopono is simply a series of four simple steps. The order is not that important.

But the four forces that can have incredible power are:

Repentance, Forgiveness, Gratitude and Love

The best part of Ho’oponopono is you can do it yourself, you don’t need anyone else to be there, you don’t need anyone to hear you. You can “say” the words in your head. The power is in the feeling and in the willingness of the Universe to forgive and love.

 I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

The beautiful thing about saying these four phrases is you can say them to yourself over and over. It is about feeling it in your body. It is about learning to let go of all the things you are angry at yourself for.

It is about learning to find out who you truly are.

It is about replacing the anger, the judgement, the resentment or hate that we might have towards ourselves or towards someone else or something that happened to us in our life.

It's about letting go not holding on.

 What pain are you holding onto?

 What memory or experience is still causing you anger or resentment or judgement of yourself?

 Forgiveness does not change the past but it enlarges the future

Learning to let go of all the things that we have done or haven't done, or said allows us to heal and move forward with different thoughts. Repeating thoughts or behaviours or experiences that cause us pain only results in time passing by. It is about healing ourselves.

 Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it

As you look back on your life, you will discover there were times when you experienced something simply becasue you did not have all the information you have now. That is okay. Once we become aware though, it is our responsibility to be in control of our lives and our experiences. Forgive yourself for your faults and mistakes and move on.

Applying these lessons to ourselves seems far harder than teaching our little humans how to do it!

When I am speaking to students in my class and they have made the wrong choice, there are four things I feel are important to say:

1. Own it (Take responsibility for your choice and actions)

2. Accept it (You're only human! You're not perfect!)

3. Know it's okay to make a mistake (forgive yourself)

4. Learn from it (How can you fix it? How can you do it better next time?)

Here are some tips I try to remember that may support you too!

 Find the strength in you to forgive yourself. You need to be strong to forgive yourself. We spend our whole life beating ourselves up that it seems like such a normal and natural thing to do. It takes more strength to learn to forgive yourself than to keep being hard on yourself.

  Don't be so hard on yourself. You will mess it up. You are not perfect. Take the lesson and learn from it. Be kind and gentle to yourself, even when you completely mess it all up. You will eventually bounce back and you will make up for it!

  Let the memories go. Whatever has happened in your past, whatever you have done or experienced, own it, accept it and let it go. You are not perfect. In fact, you are far from it! You are capable of making mistakes. Don't keep hiding in the shadows of your past mistakes and stay trapped in those memories that are dark and shattered. Stop allowing those memories to influence who you are and your future.

Forgive yourself. It is the ONLY way to start again.

 If you want to change what's going on around you, change what's going on within you. We must learn to forgive ourselves first and foremost before anyone or anything else. What is the point in replaying a negative situation over and over again in our mind? Why do we say the same stories and relive our mistakes and talk about what we 'should' have done or 'could' have done! Let it go. Move forward.

You deserve a life of love and freedom from past hurts, pain and mistakes.

Forgiving yourself will be the ONLY thing you can do to move you out of your past of pain and mistakes into a future of love and freedom. 

Forgiveness is the gift you give to yourself. It frees you from the past, past experiences, and past relationships. It allows you to live in the present time. When you forgive yourself and forgive others, you are indeed free.

Louise Hay 

Until next week...forgive yourself, love yourself and have a wonderful week.

Clarissa xo