The power of the F word

Forgiveness has a very powerful impact in your life and it is the gift that you give yourself, not a gift that you give someone else. There are so many people today who yearn for happiness, love and joy sadly, to no avail.

We live in a world that is full of so many different choices, and resources and freedoms and so much technology, yet there are so many of us that seem to live lives that are filled with more stress and LESS enjoyment than ever in the history of mankind.Why is this the case? Are we missing something?

There are of course, many different ways to try to answer this question, but having worked with thousands of people and travelled 20 countries around the world, I can tell you people have patterns of perception. This can be seen in the fact that in the many different ways that you could employ to looking at and labeling our different experiences of others and occurrences in our lives, many choose the labels that make them feel frustrated and constricted with life.

Furthermore, I have had the privilege of meeting a small subset of people over the years, who have been able to consistently experience a life filled with abundance and purpose. They are those who lead meaningful lives, and they are truly, genuinely happy ( and it is in fact very rare that they are that way because their lives are much more easier than yours or mine.)

The most astonishing thing is, that no matter how blessed a life may be with wealth, health, family and friends, opportunities to learn and grow and a chance to give back, the number one pattern that denigrates, and in some cases, completely destroys people’s lives, is expectations. That is it. That’s the catch. Our expectations.

EXPECTATIONS, STRESS AND PAIN

The perfect formula you can have for generating stress in your life, is expectation. Expecting things to go as planned. To expect other people to behave the way you expect them to behave. That is the number one formula for a life full pain and stress. Human beings are unique and equally peculiar creatures who all have their individual idiosyncrasies with regard to our values, fears, habits and needs. This Is the prime reason why even if you are friends with the most loving and kind person, the person can end up disappointing you by behaving in a manner that is mean spirited or at least unconscionable to your earlier preconception of him/her. What happens when your only conception of happiness is irrevocably tied with people acting or communicating in accordance with your conceptions of idealness? This Is a recipe for social isolation and inconceivable pain and sadness.

What is the solution you ask? Trust. Trusting other people. When we understand and trust that other people do the best that they can at the moment with what they have. When you are in a situation where you observe another person doing something immoral or unconscionable, the right step to take is to first and foremost realize that the action has rarely anything to do with you. More often than not, the offending party is just feeling so much pressure and stress that they have just locked themselves into survival mode. Persons in survival mode can end up going blind in a moment. It happens even to the best of us. It is part and parcel of our humanity. We can’t expect anyone to be perfect all the time.

THE BEST FORMULA FOR A GREAT LIFE

Trade your expectations for appreciation. The moment you do so, your whole world transforms.

That’s the secret guys. I’m pretty sure, you can remember how it feels to expect someone to give you something. How did it feel? Did you feel thankful when you received it. I’m pretty sure, you felt as if it was owed to you and the giving was simply a formality right? What about when you received a surprise spontaneous gift from a friend or colleague. You appreciate it more don’t you? It fills you with much more joy doesn’t it? This is the same thing with life. You ought to appreciate whatever life or people bring to you. Have gratitude. Be grateful. This is the same joy and gratitude that young children have before we spoil them with giant birthday parties and unrealistic expectations that life and people are supposed to be good, caring and loving and are here merely as instruments of meeting their wants and needs. This ends up creating an entire generation of entitled children who are filled with hate, and resentment for the world for not meeting their obscene expectations implanted into their heads by their parents.

I have found that a lot of people who have noble characteristics, don’t get me wrong and this is especially true, if the person indeed feels secure in their life, or if you are lucky enough to have been in contact with people with habitually bright and cheerful personalities. But the vast swaths of the population do not exhibit such noble characteristics and the more people you interact with the greater the chance that you will run into such individuals. So if your entire well-being is hinged on such acquaintances acting towards you in a certain way, then you are bound to be dissapointed.

THE POWER OF THE TWIN F-WORDS: FORGIVENESS AND FAITH.

Other than gratitude (which greatly underpins both these emotions) there aren’t any other such emotions that have such an impact on the quality of our lives as human beings as forgiveness and faith. WE will always have anger and hurt in our lives, if we consistently, have expectations of other people and life conditions that are out of our control. Forgiveness is essentially the ability to understand that the only person that you hurt when you are upset no matter how justified the anger is, is yourself. Even if every cell in your body, has the overwhelming urge to blame another person for the current state of affairs, decide to look inwards and bless yourself with the gift of forgiving your expectations.

The iconic Nelson Mandela understood the profound power of forgiveness when he said

“  “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

He understood fundamentally that forgiveness is not a gift we give others, to the contrary nothing could be further from the truth. Forgiveness is a gift we give OURSELVES. It is a gift we give our souls, and provides us with the freedom we need to free us from the rage, pain and anger that gnaws at our mind, body and spirit.

This sentiment has been expressed by various thinkers, and leaders of our day from Gandhi to modern day titans like Oprah Winfrey. Although we may think that such forgiveness can only be done by the very exceptional members of our society the truth of the matter is we are all capable of Forgiveness. We just need to raise our standard and FREE ourselves.

Ask yourself this question: What if everything in life, really did happen for a reason? What if everything really did have a purpose and it always served us in the long run? What if life was always happening FOR us not TO us? What if even the pain and problems had a higher purpose in the growth and evolution of our souls?

If you were to glance back to your life, I would be willing to make a bet that you probably had some painful experience that you would never want to experience again AND yet, some of those horrible past experiences- you may already have realized- that while you would never want to experience them again, thank God you did because it caused you to develop a depth of insight or caring, or a level of inner strength that to this day shapes who you are and the greatness of what you can give to others.

When you look at the world from this perspective then you have tapped into something greater than yourself. A higher level of consciousness. You have found a higher meaning to the pain. You did not just merely forgive the person who wronged you but you transverse beyond the past painful experience itself and come out of the tunnel reborn through the higher purpose that you have found. Your spirit is now freed and strengthened.

One thing for sure that I can tell you today is that there are many people like yourself who have gone through untold misery and hardships, their lives changed when they decided to give up their painful story of what happened to them, and find a higher meaning to their lives. It is these chosen few that end up impacting our life and our world, in such profound ways. Think Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Winston Churchill, the list is endless. Each had their own shares of hardships and tribulations and yet they rose above them and became even better people not in spite of them but because of them. We all have this primal urge to think that it is only us who have problems. We think that our problems are so huge and difficult. “Why always me?” we cry. One thing that is for sure is that for every major setback or challenge you have experienced in life, there is someone who has had it far worse than you have. To truly experience true freedom and happiness in our lives today, it is vital that we recognize that our expectations are at the heart of all of our pain and disappointments. We must learn to give up our expectations. Our biggest obstacle in realizing our true potential may be the belief that we are not supposed to have problems. Our problems are our power! The sooner we realize that as a people the better! This is because our problems unleash a certain level of resourcefulness and agency in us, that cause us to dramatically grow and improve our lives in order to respond consciously and compassionately to them. The answer you ask? Forgiveness and Faith. We as a people need to realize that radical forgiveness and faith in guidance or a higher meaning in our experience is the answer that can drastically change our lives for the better.

How to Really Forgive

Recent research has proven that different parts of the brain light up in different emotional states. This is particularly visible when we look at the biochemical changes in the brain when a person is angry as compared to a person who is in a state of forgiveness. Numerous studies have proven beyond expectations, that hosting anger, and chronic emotional distress, provides a breeding ground for a wide array of different physical and mental health complications from impoverished sleep quality, production of stress related hormones such as cortisol to dangerous cardiovascular homeostasis defects. In contrast, we can see that forgiveness to a great extent promotes the general well being of the subject alongside cardiovascular health and may increase survival rates.

So how can we do it? How do we find forgiveness in our hearts? There are various methods that you can use to channel this unlimited forgiveness in your life today. The first one that you can employ is modelling an ultimate icon of forgiveness like Nelson Mandela or any other person in your personal life that you have identified for having a remarkable ability to forgive unconditionally. Another approach you can take is to recall a past time that you have been able to forgive unconditionally and do it today, do it now! When did you forgive even before someone said they were sorry? When can you choose to forgive without requiring an apology, or any conditions, or even a change of heart? Where can you own a higher meaning and finally set yourself free? How can you just let it go?

This all goes back to the critical importance of that one word: Gratitude. Learning to trade in those useless expectations. One of the key ways which we can use to get through this is by realizing the power of gratitude. I have began making a daily habit of simply finding 10 minutes to be grateful for as many things as I can possibly find every single day. What’s is even more interesting is that we are simply incapable of expressing two contrasting emotions at the same time. So start getting grateful now! Cultivating this emotion on a daily basis is vital for creating a wiring in the brain that allows you to simply let go and forgive what many people usually get stressed over. Start being grateful everyday and you will see the wonders that shall befall you. You will have this divine ability to quickly and readily forgive and accept others for who they are, and radically free yourself from the pain of resistance and holding grudges.

Lastly, if you are not exercising forgiveness it is probably because you attribute your failure and hurt to the external world. Which is normal. Most people are not great at forgiveness but they are far more willing to blame others. That is human nature albeit a negative trait which must be corrected. One way for correcting this state of affairs, is to train ourselves to thank others for our joy and successes the same way we blame others for our frustrations and failures. If you are going to blame God for all the tragedies that befall you, you must blame god for all the triumphs you have experienced in your life. If you are going to hold your parents accountable for being such lousy parents when you were a child, hold them accountable for all the strength you developed because of this upbringing.

Always remember that what’s wrong is always available. Similarly always remember that what’s right is also always available. It is all a matter of focus. Joy, growth, new beginnings, freedom, happiness is nothing but a stone’s throw away!!