The Power of Forgiveness

Forgiveness means being able to look into the past and coming to terms with all the things that have caused you anger, misery, or pain. It is the act of letting all those things go and moving forward in life with a clear mind and conscience. Forgiveness has immense power. It plays a massive role in our evolution, and it changes our life for the better.

Practicing forgiveness is so important because it helps you in liberating yourself. It enables you to free yourself from the clutches of hurtful memories and give yourself a chance to start afresh.

When you forgive someone, you give yourself and that person a chance to see each other as imperfect human beings who can make wrong decisions a lot of times. Forgiveness makes you more compassionate. It helps you improve your relationships and the overall quality of your life. It is a truly magical thing! 

Not Being Able To Forgive Creates An Unending Cycle Of Misery

Whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc., all religions talk about the virtue of forgiveness. But, very few adults actually practice forgiveness in their life. Instead, the world we live in today is where transgression is met with punishment. And this creates a sense of constant fear in our minds.

I spent the vast majority of my life in fear of being punished for any mistake that I made. This made me subconsciously attract people who gave me those punishments. Those punishments built a sense of resentment inside me, and thus, I waited to punish anybody for a mistake they made. You see, all of that created a never-ending cycle of misery, both for myself and for others.

People who cannot forgive others and instead choose to punish them get stuck in a constant loop of anger, frustration, and misery. This negatively impacts their minds, and they cannot lead a productive life.

No matter what others believe, punishing others is not a display of power. True power lies in forgiveness. True power lies in making amends. 

Anger Keeps You Stuck In The Past

The worst thing about anger is that it doesn't let you move forward in life. Instead, it keeps you stuck in the past, where you just keep on reliving those painful memories again and again.

When something unfortunate happens to us, something that was done to us by others that we didn't deserve, we feel extreme anger at that moment. And if we are unable to forgive those people, that anger just keeps multiplying.

It goes on increasing to the point where it starts interfering with your life. It won't let you pursue meaningful relationships, it stops you from trusting others, and it doesn't allow you to love yourself, let alone love other people.

When you have years of rage trapped inside of your heart, you will live in a state of constant conflict with yourself. You will be stuck in a loop of that original event of hurt and pain. This won't let you live in the present even if you want to. And this is not the right way to live, right? So, You need to let that hurt, pain, and anger go to live peacefully. And that's why practicing forgiveness is so important. 

The Power Of Rage Is Temporary

Now that we are talking about the power of forgiveness, let's accept another fact. There's power in anger too. Yes, you read it right! Rage can also make you feel powerful.

When faced with injustice, it is natural to be filled with anger. And most of the time, that anger is justified as well. For example, I was filled with rage in my case because my stepfather abused me in childhood. That anger was justifiable in every sense. It brought me immense power at that moment.

In fact, I felt the most powerful was when I was angry. I felt like I was expressing myself because my own particular childhood trauma was about silence; it was about things that happened to me when nobody was around. That trauma made me feel voiceless. So as an adult, when I projected that rage, I felt powerful in the moment.

We feel immensely powerful when we collectively rage against the system, right? For example, when we are projecting our anger against the injustices of racism, classism, institutional and systemic racism, etc., we feel invincible. But is that power real? Because after a while, everyone goes back to their homes and their completely different lives. And just like, all that rage goes away too. So, the power of anger is short-lived and temporary. It is more of an illusion than real power.

Furthermore, if not checked, anger often becomes addictive. It becomes a habit that you cannot let go of easily. So you start looking for opportunities to be angry. Ultimately, you start attracting angry people too.

And when you have a lot of people who are unhealed and filled with rage around you all the time, your personal growth is hampered. It starts eating you up from the inside. So, if you want to get out of that unending cycle of misery, practicing forgiveness is essential. 

How Do You Attain The Power Of Forgiveness?

If you want to attain the power of forgiveness, you need to be able to look at your side of the street. You need to be able to take up responsibility for your actions.

Instead of finding faults in others, you should be brave enough to recognize the wrongs that you committed. What were the harms that you caused? Did you hurt others in one way or the other? Contemplating these things will give you a new perspective. It will help you think about the ways to right your wrongs. 

Take Responsibility For Your Faults And Actions

As children, most of us always dwell on things done to us by our parents, guardians, and others or the pain others caused us and how others wronged us. So we start living inside a bubble of pain, in the victim mode. And all this hurt slowly builds a sense of resentment and rage in us.

As a child, I had a difficult relationship with my stepfather. I was physically, emotionally, and mentally abused by him. I had so much rage towards him that it started negatively affecting my life as I grew up.

I played that rage out towards everyone around me- my friends, partners, colleagues, and everyone else. I projected all my anger on systems, institutions, and people in positions of authority and power.

Not only that, I turned that rage inwards, too, through self-destructive behaviors. It affected my friendships, my relationships, and almost everything else. Basically, I let the anger that I had towards my stepfather define me and shape my life.

But as I moved along on this path of recovery, I realized the power of forgiveness and amends. I started looking at my faults instead of focusing on what my stepfather did to me. I started taking responsibility for all the harm and hurt I have caused to other people. I started seeking their forgiveness. And this, in turn, allowed me to have compassion for the people who had hurt or harmed me in the past.

This is because if I want forgiveness for my actions, I indeed have to be able to forgive other people. All of this brought a massive paradigm shift in me. I was able to see my stepfather as a human being just like me. When I did this, the weight of rage and anger chopped off to the point where I could have loving conversations with him. It was a magical moment for me! This is the power of forgiveness- it changed my whole life for the better!

And if I can do this, you can do this too! 

Get Out Of The Victim Zone

To improve your life and start the process of self-healing, it is crucial to get out of the victim zone first. Because if we keep seeing ourselves as victims, we will never be able to break that cycle of anger and pain.

You need to accept that whatever happened to you in the past is a fact, and you cannot change that now. But no part of our past should stop you from being your greatest self today. Because no matter what happened to you in the past, you and only you are responsible for reliving those experiences again and again in the present.

If you don't get out of the victim zone, you'd just keep being stuck in those painful events. You will just keep living out those memories and never truly move forward in life.

But letting go of this victimhood will give you the power of choice. You will have the ability to choose to keep living those painful experiences out, or you can choose to let them go, stop beating yourself up, stop feeling like a powerless person, and be compassionate towards yourself. 

The Power Of Forgiveness Meditation

If you want to start on the journey of forgiveness, practicing forgiveness meditation can do wonders for you! It can be life-changing.

Forgiveness meditation starts with forgiving yourself. You should forgive yourself for what you have done to other people, forgive yourself for what you did to yourself, and forgive others for what they did to you. Forgiveness meditation helps you free yourself from the clutches of all the painful memories.

As humans, we often forget to forgive ourselves; we carry all the guilt inside our hearts while we move forward in life. And this never lets us heal completely. Because a small part of us still feels guilty for our past mistakes. Even if other people forgive you for what you did to them, your healing process will remain incomplete if you aren't able to forgive yourself.

So, it is crucial to forgive yourself for what you did to others and forgive others for what they did to you. It is an integral part of your healing process. 

The Journey Of Forgiveness Starts With Forgiving Yourself

Forgiveness starts with us. The world has convinced us mistakes are meant to be punished. And even though we try to forgive others for their mistakes and rebuild our relationship with them, we never do the same for our own selves. Unfortunately, the concept of self-forgiveness is absent from society.

We have been socialized and conditioned to be hard on ourselves. This has developed an ego in us. We don't want to be self-forgiving. Instead, we have been subconsciously programmed to be unforgiving to ourselves and keep punishing and hurting ourselves for our past mistakes. And it's high time that we change this.

As an adult, you have the responsibility to take action for yourself. You are in charge of shaping and defining your reality. Thus, the only person who is really in control of your forgiveness process is you. Unfortunately, this is something that most people often fail to realize.

You are in the driving seat for your forgiveness process. You have the choice to go towards your soul, which is about harmony and peace, or continue down that path of ego, which is about self-conflict and the correlating misery that it produces. The choice is yours! 

Don’t Hang Onto Guilt And Anger

Hanging onto guilt, anger, and shame is not serving any of us. All it does is create a lot of unhelpful and negative energy that acts as a monumental barrier to the true purpose on this planet. As human beings, our true goal is to simply love each other. And all that anger, guilt, victimhood, etc., serve as distractions and prevent us from loving each other.

But what is love? The answer is simpler than you think. Love is the sense of oneness- oneness with ourselves and others. And you cannot truly love yourself if you cannot forgive yourself.

So, sit down in peace, take as much time as you may need, and truly forgive yourself for whatever guilt you are carrying in your heart.

Treat yourself with the same compassion that you'd show to your loved ones. Because whether you believe it or not, you deserve every bit of self-love and compassion. The sooner each of us realizes this, the better we will be.

The act of forgiveness has immense power, and it's time for you to experience it!