Explore the Stages of Conscious Forgiveness
Forgiveness is an act of creation. Conscious Forgiveness is where all refraining, control, and forgetfulness will conclude.
Understanding Conscious Forgiveness
Forgiveness does not mean that we suppress anger; forgiveness means that we have asked for a miracle: the ability to see through mistakes that someone has made to the truth that lies in all of our hearts. Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness. Attack thoughts towards others are attack thoughts towards ourselves. The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive.
~ Marianne Williamson
There are four stages of Conscious Forgiveness:
Let it go: Leave it alone
Control yourself: Relinquish punishment
Forget: Neutralize the memory, refuse to remember
Forgive: Accept the apology you will never get.
Here how each stage works:
Conscious Forgiveness – Let it go
For beginners, when exercising the act of Conscious Forgiveness is useful to allow some time to pass. That is, it is good to stop temporarily thinking about the person or the event. This is not about leaving something unfinished but consider this as taking a vacation from the subject. This will help to keep us from being exhausted, and it allows us to grow stronger by other means, in other words, we may let good things to happen into our lives and to even experience some joy.
This is the first stage of training for the ultimate release that will later come through the act of forgiveness. Leave the situation behind, the memory of it; let go of the subject as many times as necessary. The idea is not to close your eyes, but to acquire agility and strength to disconnect from the issue. Letting go involves weaving, writing, going out to sea, learning and loving something that strengthens yourself, and making the event go out of the foreground for a while. This is good, and it is medicinal.
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
~ Lewis B. Smedes
Conscious Forgiveness – Control yourself
The second phase is one that evokes control; specifically, in the sense of refraining from revenge and punishment; of not thinking about or reacting to it either in large or small terms. The practice of this kind of restraint is beneficial, as it brings the issue together in one place, rather than allowing it to spread everywhere.
The self-control attitude focuses attention on the time the person moves on to the next steps. It does not mean that the person should be blind, numb, or lose their protective vigilance.
Controlling ourselves means having patience, resisting, channeling the emotion. These are powerful medicines. Do as much as you can. This is a purification regime. You do not have to do everything; You can choose an aspect, such as patience, and practice it. You can refrain from words, from punitive upset, from acting hostile, and resentful. By avoiding unnecessary chastisements, you are reinforcing the integrity of your soul and dignity of action.
To control oneself is to practice generosity, thus allowing the great compassionate nature of all the Universe to participate in the healing of a situation that previously generated emotions ranging from the slightest irritation to fury.
When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves, or when we intentionally create pain for others, we poison our own physical and spiritual systems. By far, the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. It disables a person’s emotional resources. The challenge…is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves and to develop the power of forgiveness.
~ Caroline Myss
Conscious Forgiveness – To Forget
Forgetting means turning away from memory, refusing to replay an event or a subject in your mind. In other words, it is also to let go and to release, especially from memory. Conscious forgetting does not mean numbing the brain. Intentional forgetfulness consists in letting go of the event, not insisting that it remain in the foreground, but allowing it to be downgraded to the background or even to altogether leave the stage of your field of consciousness.
We practice conscious forgetting when we refuse to invoke flammable material when we refuse to plunge into bad memories. Forgetting is an active deed, not a passive attitude. It means not bringing particular recollections to the surface, continually spinning them over, or being irritated by repetitive thoughts, images, or emotions evoked by the event.
Conscious forgetfulness means the conscious determination to abandon the obsessive practice of remembering the past and to overcome the situation losing sight of it, without looking back, or any way reliving it. It is to create a new landscape, creating new life and experiences in which to think in place of the old ones. Conscious forgetting does not erase memory; he simply neutralizes and releases the emotions surrounding the mind.
When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future.
~ Bernard Meltzer
Conscious Forgiveness – To Forgive
There are many ways to forgive an individual, an ethnic group, a community, and even a country for a wrongdoing and offenses. Nonetheless, it is imperative to remember that a “final” Pardon is not an act of submission or capitulation. It is a conscious decision to stop concealing resentment, including pardoning the offense and giving up the determination to retaliate. It is up to the individual to decide when to forgive and which ritual to use to mark this event. It’s up to you to decide what debt you now claim no longer needs to be paid.
Some people opt for total forgiveness: releasing the person from any kind of amends or reparation forever. Others prefer to stop the atonement in the middle, abandoning the debt, claiming that what is done is done and that compensation is enough. Another type of forgiveness is to exempt the person without making any emotional or other reparations.
One of the deepest forms of forgiveness is in giving compassionate help to the offender. This does not mean that you should stick your head in the snake’s nest, but rather be sensitive and flexible on your posture of compassion, security, and preparedness.
Conscious Forgiveness is where all refraining, control, and forgetfulness will conclude. A profound form of forgiveness consists in failing to exclude others, which means failing to keep them at bay, ignoring them, acting coldly, condescendingly and falsely. The soul psyche should restrict exposure to people who are difficult for you as much as possible then to act like an insensitive robot.
Forgiveness is an act of creation. You can choose from many ways to in how to proceed. You can forgive, for now, not to forgive, forgive until next time, forgive but give no chance, or chose to start all over again if another incident happens. You can decide to provide just one more chance, give a few more opportunities, give many chances, give chances only if … You can forgive an offense in part, in half or in full. You can imagine a comprehensive forgiveness agenda. You have the personal power to decide. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to like the person again.
There are no snare traps on your ankle that extend from far to here. You are free to come and go. It may not all have ended in “happily ever after,” but without a doubt, there is now a new “Once upon a time” waiting for you.
It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place because it frees you.
~ Tyler Perry
Freely Inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés from her book Women Who Run with the Wolves. Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.
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