Forgiveness Problems

Byron Katie says when you’re wondering where to start with The Work, think of someone whom you haven’t forgiven 100%.

Seriously? Someone who I haven’t forgiven 100%? Isn’t that like everyone who even looked at me funny?

And what about money, not showing up enough and being hard to get? Or my body not erasing all signs of cellulite or cancer growth?

What about God/Source/the Universe/Reality for being so freakin’ confusing? Or me, for not being perfectly enlightened at all times in every moment?

Ahhh, there’s the rub. The difficulty at forgiving the self, and all the more subtle ideas about what forgiveness is and how much better it is to DO IT.

Today in the last session of the wonderful teleclass Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven we looked at forgiveness and making amends, ultimately towards ourselves.

One dear inquirer spoke for many as she said that she had discovered, during a powerful inquiry session in the past, that she had great expectations for herself to be forgiving.

The following kinds of thoughts can be very stressful, even though they sound true and we’ll nod our heads in agreement.

  • I should be forgiving
  • it’s better to be forgiving
  • being forgiving means I feel all love and tenderness towards the person who harmed me
  • being forgiving means I am quiet, kind, I hug them, I converse with them
  • being forgiving means I live with them, I care about them, I contact them

It’s like The Voice, or the Committee for Spiritual Awakening and Goodness, is demanding you to be an angel, or Jesus Christ, or Byron Katie, or Desmond Tutu….

….but you are not them. You are you.

Your job is to be you. It’s all you can be of course. And if you haven’t been forgiving so far in the past, then that’s what was just right, so far.

What if you turned all that you think about forgiveness, every little stressful belief about it and what it is supposed to look like, around?

  • I shouldn’t be forgiving—maybe not THAT version or definition of forgiving
  • it’s worse to be forgiving—can you find examples of this opposite belief?
  • being forgiving doesn’t mean I feel ALL love and tenderness
  • being forgiving could mean I am loud, apparently unkind, hugs have nothing to do with it, and I may never converse with them ever again
  • being forgiving means I move out from living with them, I don’t care about them (in that same overkill co-dependent way) and I do not contact them

I think about Gandhi, Tina Turner, Martin Luther King, Byron Katie and other great leaders who spoke out, very direct (some people thought of them as unkind) and full of love.

The thing that seems to work best, step by step, is simply to look at what causes or creates stress inside your own mind, and what doesn’t.

Questioning every thought that feels stressful, or like a dictation or order, or command, or “should” or “have to”….including how “loving” or “forgiving” you’re supposed to be….can free you beyond anything you ever imagined.

“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.”~Byron Katie

Much love, Grace