Forgiving others sets you free (Part 1) E58

September 6, 2022

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I want to shine a light on the act of forgiving. I don’t think many people understand what they are doing to themselves by not forgiving someone. In this episode, we will focus on forgiving others – and in the next episode, we will focus on forgiving yourself. Stay with me, as these are important topics for your life and your wellbeing.

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Let’s start this episode with the definition of forgiveness. It means to give something for, to give something inside of you away, to let something go. The opposite of forgiving is receiving. So instead of you receiving something, you are letting go of something and giving it away. And we will cover in this episode what you are giving away during the process of forgiveness.

Old learnings about forgiveness

If I look at what I learned when I was younger about forgiveness, then it was more through the lens of religion or from religious books. I learned that if I forgive someone, I set them free. If someone is asking for forgiveness, they ask for freedom from being guilty. That I have the power over someone else to set them free through me forgiving them. And that the other person who has done me wrong, awaits my forgiveness and is unfree and suffering until I give it.

And I kid you not, it is not at all like that. It just makes me laugh that this definition of forgiveness describes the exact opposite of what actually happens when we don’t forgive.

It’s not like we always thought

So what happens when we forgive someone is that we give away the perception of the mistake of the other person. We have an interpretation, an opinion of what has happened in that situation when you got hurt. We have our definition of what the other person has done wrong and how their actions are responsible for how we are feeling. And we blame others for how we are feeling.

That’s when we have not yet forgiven. In that situation, you are not in your power. And that other person is not suffering while waiting for your forgiveness either – if they are even waiting in the first place.

If you don’t forgive, you give your power away

What happens is that you are giving your power away to that past situation, to that memory and to that person. Those feelings that you have inside of you about the situation are just inside of you – they are your own emotions. The other person does not have these emotions inside of them. These feelings of pain, suffering, frustration, shame, hopelessness, and anger you have locked inside of you [Episode 20]. But these are your emotions, you have created them and then decided to keep them linked to the memory of the past. The other person or other people do not have these feelings.

So the only person you are hurting is yourself

When you realize that you are the only person hurting by not forgiving, you can decide to take your power back and take responsibility for those feelings [Episode 41]. If you don’t, you keep believing that you have no control over those feelings that you created and memorized by yourself. You might think it is heroic to keep feeling these emotions due to the bad thing the other person did to you or someone else.

But just ask yourself: Does the other person have those same feelings? Do they hurt themselves every single day? No, they don’t. Sure they might have other feelings with which they are hurting themselves or they might have none. They might not even be thinking about the situation anymore.

By forgiving you are letting go of these emotions, you stop hurting yourself.

Forgiving others sets you free

Under the previously mentioned model of forgiveness, we look for setting the other person free. What really happens is that we are setting ourselves free. Through forgiveness, we are giving away those energies that are stuck inside of us as emotions and we become free of them. If you want to move forward with your life, you want to forgive these energies and get yourself unstuck.

I love the description of energy that is stuck in Michael Singer’s book Untethered. You have these energy centres inside of you. They have constant energy flow and exchange going on inside of you. You have literal energy highways running through your body and actually around your body, in your aura which is your energy field. They manage your energy levels, and the energy you have available. We can measure all of this energy for quite a while.

Let go of the energy blockages by forgiving

You can compare this energy system to your cardiovascular system, so all your arteries and your veins together with your heart pump and let the blood flow inside of you. We know that we can have blockages in our arteries or even in our heart and that this impacts our health and can lead to illnesses like heart attack.

The same can happen with our energy system. By holding onto a past memory with strong negative emotions, maybe when someone has done something to you, you are creating an energy blockage inside of your energy system. Exactly like blocking your arteries and your blood flow, this blockage will stop your energy from flowing in the best way and your energy goes down or stops working in one area of your body or your life. This is when we get out of balance, we don’t feel well anymore, and over time this leads to illnesses as well.

It’s your decision to set yourself free – or not

Just imagine what you are doing to yourself by not forgiving somebody. Not only are all of these negative emotions inside of you, and you keep bringing them up, sometimes on a daily basis – so you flood your body every day with chemicals that create stress and imbalance. And by holding on to this memory and not letting go, you keep hurting yourself and your complete energy system.

A grudge towards someone could potentially make you sick. So what can make you well is letting go of that grudge.

If you can let go of these emotions you are giving them away – you are forgiving.

I will not even allow the need for forgiveness

Because I know this to be the case and I have had that understanding for a while now, I don’t even allow myself anymore to be in a situation where I would need to forgive somebody. I know that I am just hurting myself and that the other person has no suffering or remorse by me bringing up these feelings inside of me – none, whatsoever.

So when I do catch myself having these kinds of feelings towards someone, I will immediately let them go. I will not let those kinds of emotions create new blockages inside of me. I don’t want to give my body those chemicals and hormones of stress over and over again. Thankfully I have realized that it’s just not worth it. My happiness and well-being are so much more important than holding a grudge [Episode 16].

It might look a bit different when it comes to forgiving myself more. But that is going to be our topic in next week’s episode. So make sure to subscribe to not miss next week’s episode where we discuss how we can forgive ourselves.

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