Shifting Slowly

My mantra for today’s yoga practice was, “I am Forgiving”. I was going to change it to, “FORGIVEN” but I already know that and I wanted to be honest with myself. For a long time, I used to put the word ‘too’ after I AM when it came to the word ‘forgiving’. I used to act as a victim of being too forgiving. As if being forgiving at all is a bad thing. As if in being too forgiving I am holding everyone that has “done me wrong” accountable. However, I’m also holding on to something that serves me no purpose. It does not bring me joy or happiness or to a higher place when I am not forgiving. It actually brings me to a place of unrest and anger. It brings me to the parts of me that I am trying to shed.

It’s not to say that we shouldn’t get angry if someone has done something to us. However, I am also learning that everyone has a soul purpose. Gandhi had been beaten several times during his life. Two of those times were near-death experiences. However, Gandhi refused to prosecute his attackers because he saw that they were doing “what they thought was right.”

When we judge someone for having done something to us, we are creating what’s called ‘negative karma.’ We all have a journey here on this earth. In the Spiritual world, which is what we all are, spiritual beings having a human experience, our Souls are on a journey and the journey is to live a life free from judgment, hate, cruelty, dishonesty. So that we can reach our highest selves. The self that can be like Gandhi or Jesus, who too was persecuted but never let his enemies feel less than. Jesus understood what his journey was, what his soul came here on Earth to do. And he never once turned away anyone or from anyone. He was aware that one of his apostles was going to turn against him and yet, he knew that to reach his highest self and to reach heaven, his soul was meant to come here on this earth and teach humankind how to be more loving, forgiving, compassionate so that they too could reach their highest selves.

If you believe in reincarnation, as I do, then you believe that we continue to enter this earth in different lifetimes so that we can continue to learn lessons we may not have learned in a previous life. The lesson is always morally based. It is based on the morals of love being the highest part of yourself. And it is not easy to learn this. First, we must learn what that means-love. The word LOVE comes from the Greek word agape, which is the emotion of unconditional partiality. It is to be all-consuming, empowering, and lives in each of us.

So we learn that love has NO conditions. We do not love based on what we can get from it. It is not a purchase. Love is all-consuming; takes up the whole of us. And most of all, it is all encompassing-includes everyone.

We are hard to learn this lesson as we live in this world because there are so many things and people that have been prejudged for us. That is why hate and prejudice and judging still reside in full force around us. It is hard to come to understand exactly what Jesus and Gandhi and many of the great unconditional love givers of this world meant.

The second step, after defining what love is, is to understand how to use that love towards ourselves. We need to learn self-love. This is a crucial step in your soul journey. Loving oneself has many layers. As I mentioned before, our thoughts as we get older have been molded by those around us. By the programs, we chose to watch. The books we’ve read. The music we’ve listened to and mostly, the people we surrounded ourselves with. When you are learning to self-love, you must put down all that you think you know and all that you’ve been programmed to believe and undo it all and find your way to your heart. To the part of you that is still real and only yours because only you know what’s in there. The mind is very penetrable, the heart is not.

In finding our way to our heart we start by forgiving ourselves. Forgiving our self-judgments. The way we’ve spoken to ourselves. The way we’ve spoken to others. The thoughts we’ve had about people. Forgiving the notion that self-love is egotistical. Forgiving ourselves for taking however long it took us to get here.

Let’s recap:

Self-Forgiveness- Unlearning all the things you’ve learned so far. Making up your own mind about things. Sitting very still and quiet each day to filter your head thoughts from your heart’s truth. This can be done through guided meditation, morning pages journaling, or incomplete quiet, with your eyes, softly gazing at a still object or closed, for 10minutes.

Self-Love- as you begin to unlearn, forgive yourself and learn the truths of yourself by listening to your heart, the self-love will come in waves. You’ll have days where the waves will come one after another and you’ll feel immense emotions. Take this time to lean into each emotion and not run from it. Lean in slowly, face it and invite it in for some coffee or tea, as my therapist once told me, and have an honest chat. Other days it’ll be very easy because as you begin to face the things you thought were scary, you realize how strong you’ve always been. And you realize that it is in the facing of things that we heal and drop the story’s we tell ourselves. Face each day.

It’s in the facing of our fears that we conquer them.

Remember that this is a journey. There is no endpoint, just levels of clearer clarity. As we get clearer on who we are, our lives begin to have more meaning in the smallest things. We begin to slow down and find joy in the calm and quiet.

We begin to live from our soul and go on a journey of many lifetimes.