Daily Download From The Matrix: Forgiveness

Daily Download From The Matrix

Forgiveness

I have been carrying a lot of anger, resentment, frustration, shame, and guilt for several years.  And this has shown up in my life in multiple ways.

Whether it was becoming so obese that the doctor told me he was shocked I was still alive.

Or

The multiple car repossessions.  The utilities being cut off. The trips to the food bank.  The bankruptcy.

Or

Burning my business to the ground.  

Or

It could be how my anger manifested itself into my son, who now has to deal with the anger issues, the weight issues, and his shame and guilt.  

Maybe it was the FEAR of connecting.  The FEAR of letting someone in. The fighting against my purpose and what I KNEW about myself.  I have known my path, but have been afraid to walk it. I have known my purpose, but have been afraid to choose it.  I have known what to do, but…

I have talked about the 42 pillars to WEALTH creation.  2 of those pillars happen to be PERSISTENCE and RESILIENCE.  No one can say I am short on either of those two pillars and principles.  

However, I wore it like a badge of honor.  To exercise resilience shit has to go sideways. And so unconsciously I would burn things to the ground to show how resilient I was.  That I could come back from anything. It was where I got a sense of identity, a sense of pride.  

Because I did not like myself.  I was not proud of who I was. And I certainly did not love myself.  And so the only way I could feel good about who I was, was to have things go south.  And because of this, I would unconsciously sabotage myself. So I could show myself and everyone else how resilient I was.  

I don’t know if you have ever experienced this.  Everything is going great, and then all of a sudden you do something extremely stupid to kill it all.  You may even utter the phrase “Why did I do that?” or “How could I have been so stupid?” Not great questions to ask yourself by the way.  You certainly aren’t going to get very empowering answers by asking those questions. How do I know? Because I used to ask them all the time.  And I would get answers like “Because you are a piece of shit.” or “Because back in kindergarten you hit little Ricky and are now reaping what you sow.”

What does any of this have to do with forgiveness?  

I would allow people to treat me poorly.  I wouldn’t enforce my boundaries. And I wouldn’t hold it against them at all...because “I was getting what I deserved.”  I would even excuse their behavior as to something I had done to cause them to act that way.

The only way you will ever need to forgive someone is if you first condemn them.  Think about that for a moment. I’ll say it again. If you don’t condemn someone for their behavior or actions there is nothing to forgive.  

Now, there are people in my life that I have condemned.  And for me to be able to move forward, I have to forgive them.  And I do.

BUT…

And here is the big but.  In all of this. The anger, sadness, fear, hurt, guilt, shame...the one person I have not been able to forgive is myself.  I condemned myself over and over. And by doing this I stopped ESTEEMING myself. I lost sight of the value I had. I lost sight of who I was.  And by doing that, I accepted things into my life that I never would have accepted when I truly valued myself.

So my first step was to forgive myself.  And how that started was by truly unconditionally ACCEPTING myself.  And once I could accept who I was, and take RESPONSE-ABILITY for where I was...the forgiveness came easy.  

And by forgiving myself, I was able to come back into alignment with my true and authentic self.

So here is my question for you.  Do you fully accept who you are? Who do you need to forgive?