Written by: Melissa McClain, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What does forgiveness mean to you? Do you really know how and why you should always strive to forgive yourself and others?
We all have terrible things that happen to us in our lives. Grief, sorrow, broken hearts. We are all human and have made numerous mistakes along our journey. Things that bring us heart ache because we wish we would have known better so we could have showed up differently. Broken friendships. Lost loves. Irreparable relationships. Childhood abuse. Adulthood abuse.
It is hard to get through life if you don’t know how to forgive yourself or others. For those that you once loved and still love and often the most challenging is how to forgive yourself. Forgiveness is not simply saying “I forgive you”. It’s doing the work of letting go. I like to think of forgiveness as a conscious choice we make and remake over the course of our lives so we can mentally just move the fuck on.
We are all human and we all make mistakes and at some point, in our lives we will all be in a position of either asking for forgiveness or granting it. Forgiveness done right is a gift and done well can work miracles. It is giving priority to your emotional wellness. You can learn to accept your past so you can reclaim your future.
I am a Midlife Reinvention Coach. I empower women over 40 to holistically reinvent themselves, their intimate relationships and age like a goddess. Together we create your next chapter based on your deepest desires and what is true for you with confidence, clarity, and love.
At the heart of forgiveness is compassion. Compassion for the person who harmed you and most importantly compassion for yourself. Allow yourself to feel and process your feelings. We all need to do a better job with this because we are not taught this growing up. The worst thing you can experience is emotion. When you learn how to process your emotions you get to move through them vs. shoving them down and resisting them. Resisting emotions cause pain because it needs to be processed. Learning the art of allowing your emotions, allowing yourself to feel whatever it is you need to feel is medicine for your soul. It will pass. It may show up again, allow it and it will pass again. The emotion will show up as many times as it needs to but it will pass and you will be healing along the way. You get to learn and grow from all of your experiences. When you think of life in that way you are living on a higher vibrational level as a human.
“Nothing is more generous and loving than the willingness to embrace grief in order to forgive” – Brene Brown
Forgiveness involves honesty, courage, self-reflection and the ability to listen closely. Tuning into your intuition and listening to it. It involves a lot of love over and over again. Practicing the art of forgiveness has its own reward. It is a gift you give to yourself first and foremost and then to the world.
Forgiveness always starts with you. I think people get confused and think if they forgive someone who perpetrated or hurt them that they are condoning bad behavior. This is so far from what forgiveness is. You can forgive someone and never tell them. It is a release on your heavy heart. Hurt people hurt people. We cannot change what has happened to us in the past. We can change how we look at that story and understand if it is serving us in the present day. If it hurts, brings sadness, or causes you to be self-critical, wishing what could have would have should have, you will benefit from taking a new fresh perspective of that story. You get to choose. You always have the opportunity to being again. You do this work when you choose to love yourself first and foremost. Loving yourself with all the battle scars that you collect along this journey in life. We are all here to learn our lessons and when you don’t you will continue to make the same mistakes until you do. Be a person who is done with reliving those old mistakes and instead wants to enjoy life as a higher-level human.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attitude for the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi
Forgiveness is actually an intentional and deliberate decision we make to fully align our will with the life affirming perspective of using mistakes made – both ours and theirs to grow our wisdom, learn our lessons and pay forward the amends in how we live. It is a personal decision that we make with ourselves to restore vitality, possibility and integrity into our lives once and for all.
To learn more about Forgiveness, I highly recommend the book The Gift of Forgiveness by Katherine Pratt
Self-love is everything. The art of forgiveness for yourself is the ultimate act of self-love. The person who forgives ultimately gets 100% of the benefit. Here’s the thing, holding onto anger is like keeping a fresh wound open and just picking at it and never letting it heal. Doing this for years and years on end. Unfortunately, this is so common. We pick up things at an early age when we don’t know better and make that story true. Do your stories serve you?
5 Forgiveness Tips and Taking Back Your Personal Power
Think of one person you need to forgive. Is this a parent, friend, lover, child, etc.?
Write about this experience. Do a thought download. No one has to see it but it is healing to get the story out of your head and on to paper. Be really honest here. Cry your way through this if you need to.
When you read this story how does it make you feel? What are you telling yourself about this story? What are you making this story mean today?
Does this story serve you? Does it hold you back? Does it affect all areas of your life? Explain.
Imagine that your best friend, your favorite human came to you with this story. What would you say to her? Write how you would love on her, mentor her and guide her.
This guidance you provided to your favorite human; this is for you. This can be your new story. Does it feel better?
To deepen your knowledge even further, here is a special blog on the companion to forgiveness, The Art of Allowing What is.
I am a Midlife Reinvention Coach. I empower women over 40 to holistically reinvent themselves, their intimate relationships and age like a goddess. Together we create your next chapter based on your deepest desires and what is true for you with confidence, clarity, and love.
If you are ready to work with a Midlife Reinvention Coach and drastically improve your life, I invite you to sign up for a free consult and learn more about 1:1 coaching. It is risk free. Please visit me here.
You have one life right now. Live it big and full. You get to decide. And guess what, you get to change your mind and begin again and again until you get it right however many times it takes. You know when it is right because you can feel it deep within your soul. It’s a wonderful flutter. A feeling of love. I help you get there. It is the greatest investment you can make for yourself.
You are beautiful. You are seen. You are enough. You are loveable. You are worth it.
I will always believe in you.
Melissa McClain, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Melissa McClain is a Certified Midlife Reinvention Coach based in Atlanta, GA. She empowers single women 40+ to holistically reinvent themselves, their intimate relationships and age like a goddess. She is passionate about helping women rock all phases of midlife transitions. This can look like divorce, separation, grief/loss, singlehood, conscious dating, and perimenopause/menopause to name a few. She has created a proven 4 step coaching process blending Tantra, Embodiment and Mindset coaching techniques to help her clients create a more empowered chapter as they navigate and fully embrace the wisdom of midlife. She is the Founder of Melissa McClain Coaching, a global 1:1 coaching platform.
