Feel the Bliss of Forgiveness
Blame. There’s a lot of it going around. To blame someone or something is to transfer the energy of pain from one back to another. The blamer thinks they are relieving their own pain, but the “relief” is actually shallow and fleeting. Passing the blame only truly serves as a transfer of the energy of fear. When we are hurt, the pain can be uncomfortable and overwhelming.
To find comfort, we look for someone to associate the pain with. This is a naturally occurring human response. As a reaction to hurt and pain, the mind will respond in an attempt to get back to where it was before the hurt took place. The problem with this is not in the reaction itself, but in our attachment to it.
We become hooked on being “right” and bringing retaliation or revenge on the one we deem responsible for this feeling of pain we’re experiencing. When we sink our teeth into the hurt over and over again, the anger (and sometimes even rage) becomes palpable. We feel power over the feeling of pain and we become entrenched in the energy of fear.
If we stay in that energy, which many of us often do, we effectively make our own mental prison that we continually reinforce by creating more anger and more fear. We feel a sense of “protection” from harm by staying in this energy, but we become disconnected from our true selves and others as a result.
So, what can you do to alleviate this type of fear in blame and desire for retaliation/revenge? FACE it with an act of Love.
As you may recall from the “FACE Your Fears” introduction blog, there are Four Acts of Love to counteract different aspects of fear:
Forgiveness, Acceptance, Compassion, Empathy (FACE)
Forgiveness is the antidote to the negative feedback loop of blaming and a desire to retaliate.
Forgiveness is always for the one who forgives, not the ones who are forgiven. To forgive is to release ourselves with Love from the chains of fear within us. It’s like a spiritual surgical procedure that removes the pain at its source, where it reverberates with anger and hurt. To truly be in the act of forgiveness is to set yourself free. Free to be yourself without the bondage of suffering from the hurt caused by another. Once this is complete, the first part of the pain is undone.
Now for the second part. After you forgive someone for what they have done, you must forgive yourself for blaming them. This type of forgiveness brings grace and, ultimately, a feeling of well-being known as bliss. You may say that you were right to blame (and you might still feel that way), but to continue to blame is to stay in suffering and to maintain an energy of victimhood. When you forgive yourself for blaming another for what they did, the victim bond is broken and you are truly set free.
You can try this with any past experience of blame. Start with something small that someone did like cutting you off in traffic, not saying hello to you, or trying to make you feel wrong. Feel the pain, the energy of hurt that moves into anger. Set the boundary where needed and then forgive them for the hurt. Now, forgive yourself for blaming them.
If you’ve completed these steps, congratulations! You have now set yourself free from the pain. Repeat this process for other instances of blaming, and keep it with you as a tool for when you find yourself looking to blame others in the future
As we practice the process of forgiveness, we become more mindful of when we are blaming others, and we also become better at forgiving. Let forgiveness set you free!
WANT TO LEARN MORE? Sign up for the FACE Your Fears™ course today!