Without genuine forgiveness we cannot find equilibrium, the more we can genuinely forgive ourselves and others the more energy we free up for ourselves. With this understanding, forgiveness can be seen in a funny way, as genuinely selfish. Forgiveness is mostly just talked about on an intellectual level, we pass words back and forth, without actually learning how to forgive within ourselves. This is where the ability to re-frame our relationship with our thoughts and emotions becomes really useful. Our thoughts bubble up from our subconscious to remind us of the things we need to evaluate. They are basically like our subconscious saying “Do we need to keep this?”. That’s basically all repression is, it’s us not acknowledging what our subconscious is asking us about.
For instance, we have a bad breakup with another person, over the course of the next year we think about this person and the situation hundreds or even thousands of times. But ultimately, it’s all just useless, it gets us nowhere and we lose our vitality and enjoyment of life. Of course, we all know this intellectually. But what isn’t common knowledge is that just getting into the habit of internally saying something to the effect of “I forgive” or “I release” has a real effect, and over time the thought pattern will diminish. With consistency, we can become very skilled at this. By ignoring the thoughts that are unpleasant, we just give them more power by re-repressing them. Genuine forgiveness involves internal observation and consistent effort at releasing our emotions.
Forgiveness Takes Work
By getting used to the “feeling of forgiving” and not just making an intellectual exercise out of it we can free up more and more energy for ourselves, energy that was formerly locked away in our subconscious. The more we peel back the layers of our subconscious the more “new” thought patterns will appear that we will also need to observe and release. It is through this genuine and consistent effort that over time we can clear the subconscious and eventually find our state of equilibrium.
The ultimate goal here is to forgive ourselves and the world wholly and honestly, which may take a lifetime but is still well worth the effort. This is again, in a sense, genuinely selfish. Because as we forgive the problems of the world we free ourselves to ask what it is we really want out of life in a genuine manner. We free ourselves to have what we really want and not what we’ve been told we “should” want by our culture. And, if we so desire, we free ourselves to be a part of positive change in the world from a seat of clarity.
We Can Learn To Release Emotion
On a final note, if you do begin practicing the habit of saying “I release” or “I forgive”, be sure to pay attention to the feeling of release. It is this feeling that is the actual act of emotional release. If you can become skilled at this, it will work with all emotions. Properly dealing with emotions is like an art form, it is a subtle dance between clinging to and ignoring emotion. The trick is to acknowledge the emotion (and any corresponding thought pattern) without grasping at it, and then allowing it to run its course. The better our observation skills are, the more capable we become at this. Consistency in building these type of skills will inevitably lead to an upgraded experience of life.
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