We have all probably heard that forgiving someone will eventually free us up, and that holding a grudge keeps us entrapped. Well there is a direct correlation between how much we forgive and the quality of our life, what and who we attract into lives, and the type of results we produce. See, when we don’t forgive, we are essentially holding on to an adamant need to be right that someone is wrong. In this position, we will actually do anything to keep proving the person/people/institute/organization/government, etc is/are wrong. By doing this we will prevent the source that we are not forgiving from ever proving us wrong, meaning from ever being right in it’s actions, and we block ourselves from ever receiving any goodness that may come from that source, as well as from who/what else resembles that source in our lives. Ok, I now this is a mouth full… keep reading I will break it down for you:
Non-forgiving means that we are holding onto an energy that we don’t like/approve, yet we keep getting more of it, since we are holding on to being right that the energy is wrong. So we are resisting it, and what we resist persists… we have the choice to let go and move on in our life with a cleaner inner –self, at any time of the day. Yet many of us find it challenging to forgive and let go, why? To explain this we must understand a bit about our subconscious mind:
Our Subconscious mind:
• is a network throughout our entire body
• contains memories of thousands of years (hence the term “genetics”)
• contains all of our behavioral traits: habits, thought patterns, and childhood conditioning
• is designed to preserve the organism- keep us alive, avoid pain and seek pleasure.
• is like our “hard-drive”- it contains all the information that is needed to keep us alive.
• It is the storage bin of all of our past experiences, good and bad, our past stored feelings- good and bad, and our past decisions we made upon experiencing an event that we liked or disliked.
Example how a limiting belief/decision is formed: we are 5 years old, and we come back home excited to tell our mother something great that happened while we were out playing. At that moment we had caught her in a bad mood and she snaps at us and says in an annoyed tone: “why are you bothering me now, can’t you see I am busy?!…”
At that moment, an innocent child, with only good intentions, and in need of mother’s (parent’s) approval and love, feels like their mother doesn’t care about them, and since she is not approving of them at that moment, it is filed in their SC mind, as not getting their parent’s love. The child’s subconscious immediately creates a belief around one or few of: “I am not important”, “my mother doesn’t care about me”, “what I do is not important to my mother”, “when I am excited I don’t get love and approval, therefore I should not be excited, be more composed, and be a “good child”, then I will get (her) love.” This decision/s is/are filed in the child’s mind as a necessary “known” to keep them alive- a “program” of how to behave in order to get our basic need: Love.
Our SC mind is designed to preserve us, to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The “pleasure” in the case above is the numbing of true, organic excitement, for the sake of not getting hurt again AND for staying ‘alive’, hence our SC has fulfilled it’s purpose. These decisions have an impact on the child’s sense of freedom, self-expression, level of confidence, self-worth, and happiness. If this incident repeats itself in a similar fashion, then it will reinforce the child’s decision/s he/she has made about their selves, and… (and pay attention here)- about the world… yes! The child will reflect the incident that happened to them (over and over) with their mother (or father), onto other people/relationships/work colleagues/institutions/society, etc, in which their interaction- with resembles what had happened to them when they were very young. So if the child, now grown up, feels suppressed by anyone/source, feels not loved/cared about, and/or any lack of freedom and full self-expression, immediately they revert back to their “true” decision they made when they were kids, and justify it, and be right that again they “cannot” express themselves/live freely without being shut down. So the adult, ignorant to the fact that they are still holding onto an old grudge (that turned into a limiting decision about life, and people), is creating negative results in their life, just for the sake of being right that their mother/father were wrong…
This is one of many examples of how we limit ourselves, and create unwanted results in our life (in all areas, since how we show up in one area of our life, we show up in all areas). This chain of repetitive negativity can be broken once we forgive. We can truly forgive when we are conscious to the impact non-forgiving (holding-on) has on our life’s. This happens when we allow ourselves to ‘BE’ with the pain of our own limited thinking, and ‘see’ it running our lives, health, relationships, and wealth. Awareness is key, it’s like turning on the light in a dark hallway so we can see were we are heading. We can’t be surprised why every time we attempt to do carpentry in the dark, we cut a piece of skin off (or a finger…). When we don’t forgive, we hurt ourselves in order to “get-back” at others from the past that hurt us. So we “revenge” “them” by hurting ourselves, and by ruining our own lives. This can be demonstrated with a battered woman, that keeps going into abusive relationships, because maybe her father or mother were abusive to her when she was a child, and she has not forgiven them, so in order to ‘be right that they were wrong’ for what they did to her, she keeps finding men that will hurt her, so then she can say (in her mind): “see it’s your (mother’s/father’s) fault that I got hit, since ‘you’ made me used to being abused…” or something in this fashion. Well if this woman stays unaware of what she is doing to herself, she will probably end up sick, beaten up, in jail, or dead …but wait! …she can go to a ‘battered –women’s group’ or battered women’s “shelter”, and get the “support” of other battered women, and complain in front of them how much she is suffering and how the world is unjust, and how her life is not working, etc- keeping her old conversation about her parents, alive. Good luck…this is only promoting more victims, not forgiveness and powerful women.
Another thing about not-forgiving is: we “get” to complain how hard and unfair our life is, and how we cannot make it, and how we cannot have what we want, and how the world is cruel, and how the government sucks, and how our neighbor is harassing us, and how our doctor cannot find a solution to our health problems, and how the economy is bad, and and and and and… bla bla bla … poor me…
Can you or someone you know, relate to this? Can you see something in your life that you are CHOOSING to hold onto and not forgive? How is it impacting your life? What does it provide you? What is the payoff for holding onto it? What will your life be like if you kept holding onto that old negativity? And finally: what is the worst thing that can happen if you forgive and let go? Watch out…your life may start working…you may feel better, have better health, better relationships, more money, happiness….hmmm…sounds too good to be true? Well, try it our at least for one day. Say to yourself, “ (I am the creator of my life) and just for today, I will be conscious and aware of my thoughts, feelings, and behavior and the results I produce in my life, and just for today I will choose to let go of that which does not benefit me, and embrace the good, the positive, true self expression, freedom, and LOVE.
There are many ways to “cleanse” ourselves from old angers, fears, anxieties, guilt, and other forms of non-forgiveness (which all breakdown to fear of letting go, and a lack of love).

Written by: Nissim

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