Experiencing Personal Evolution Through Practicing Forgiveness
Written by Heather M. Burt, YIELD Coach
Heather Burt is the founder of Your Individual EvoLution Directive (YIELD) and author of Personal Evolution: Four Essential Elements For Navigating Your Life. Her passion and vision include helping others embrace an Evolutionary Mindset to align more fully with their authenticity, enabling them to share their gifts with the world.
This article does not discuss Forgiveness in the context of trauma and is not intended to be a substitute for professional help. If you have experienced trauma, I encourage you to seek support from a professional who integrates somatic modalities in conjunction with counseling.
Is it possible to consciously create a new reality through practicing forgiveness?
When practiced consciously, Forgiveness allows us to navigate life like a leaf floating downstream – effortlessly bobbing over and around obstacles. Unfortunately, Forgiveness can feel more like the boulder Sisyphus was eternally tasked to roll uphill, only to have it roll back down every time he got close to the top. You may have had the experience of believing you moved past a moment of hurt, anger, shame, or embarrassment, only to find it revisiting you disguised in the context of your current situation. You thought you forgave the other person or yourself, letting go and getting on with life. Why do past hurts seem to have the ability to take up permanent residence in the recesses of our minds, and how can we practice Forgiveness in a way that allows us to evolve beyond them?
From the Universal perspective, Forgiveness is freely given. It is only the human mind that keeps our present reality tethered to the past through emotional feedback that has become our identity. Like the mosquito preserved in amber, we can extract the ancient DNA of our past wounds and resurrect them into our current reality at a moment’s notice. Feeling the memory of hurt or personal shame cannot be removed from the mind's vault may invoke a sense of helplessness, believing that Forgiveness requires a level of will that only a few lucky souls possess.
If we do not have the will to force Forgiveness, we may consider ourselves a failure and add it to the list of characteristics we believe to be our identity and for which we judge ourselves. The way Forgiveness is traditionally spoken about requires a degree of enlightenment that most humans can scarcely imagine. After all, "to Forgive is Divine."
It's not unreasonable to think we can tap into our divinity and bridge the gap between our human frailties and genuine Forgiveness.
Feelings are feedback, not facts
First and foremost, when working with Forgiveness, it's essential to recognize that feelings are feedback, not facts. When something bad, unpleasant, embarrassing, or shameful happens, regardless of whether it's something we've done or something someone else has done to us, we look to Forgiveness to free ourselves from the fallout of painful emotions. If we can forgive ourselves or others, the hurt, shame, guilt, or embarrassment may disappear.
Before we can heal through Forgiveness, we must understand that it's not the emotion that's the problem. The feelings we experience as a result of life experiences are valuable messengers. The problem is how we relate to and interpret the emotion. When we do something that makes us feel guilt, shame, or embarrassment, we often assume the emotion points to an aspect of our identity. We begin to believe we are inadequate, mean, stupid – or any other adjective that we believe validates the emotion we experienced. The fact of the matter is quite the opposite. If we do something and feel "bad" that's great!! Don't believe me? Look up the definition of "psychopath." Go ahead, I'll wait.
One of the characteristics of a psychopath is they lack the ability to experience feelings of remorse or empathy. If you experience an emotion that feels "bad," you are getting important information about who you are because it tells you who you are not! When we do or experience things out of alignment with our true selves, we feel the burn of "negative" emotions. Like touching a hot stove, the feedback is immediate and intense enough to remind us not to touch it again. But just like touching a hot stove, we need to take the time to understand the feedback in the context of what happened to avoid misinterpreting and misapplying the message. It doesn't mean we should never cook again or are stupid for touching the stove; it's simply information for understanding our world.
Integrate, don’t ignore
As we work toward understanding the intuitive messaging that comes through our emotions, rather than thinking we need to let go, it's helpful to think in terms of integration. Letting go sounds ideal, and it may be entirely possible for some people. However, when our goal is to let go rather than integrate, we risk putting ourselves in the situation described at the beginning of the article, where our hurt or shame hibernates until it is awakened when the ideal climate arrives. Sometimes, what we think is letting go is ignoring what we would rather not acknowledge.
When we choose to integrate, we acknowledge our new reality and deliberately respond instead of reacting to what happened. Following the emotional fallout of a painful experience, we may need to grieve and be with our emotions until they settle enough for us to examine them more objectively. Once they do, we are empowered to consciously choose the person we want to be moving forward through our understanding that they are messengers. We are no longer victims of a reality forced upon us; instead, we can become conscious creators.
As you practice listening to the messages communicated through your emotions, Forgiveness begins to occur organically as your emotions are no longer a source of pain. Instead, they become your closest ally for conscious creation. You rely on them to inform you when you are around people or places that don't serve you. More importantly, you rely on them to tell you when you are out of alignment with your true self. You begin to offer Forgiveness more freely to others because you know when they do or say hurtful things, they are out of alignment with their true selves. You know their actions define who they are, not who you are. You define who you are, and by practicing Forgiveness, you can create a whole new reality.
In the same way we use Forgiveness to inform deliberate creation, we can begin living from a Vision that inspires us along our journey. My next article will explore how crafting a Vision for our life acts like a compass as we navigate our Personal Evolution.
If you want more information on Personal Evolution, visit my website or pick up a copy of my book, Personal Evolution: Four Essential Elements For Navigating Your Life.
Read more from Heather M. Burt
Heather M. Burt, YIELD Coach
Heather Burt skillfully integrates distinct perspectives and methods in order to distill fundamental concepts so they can be applied universally. As a result of her own diverse background and journey to wholeness, Heather has found her passion in understanding and synergistically melding personal growth concepts to facilitate a broader, more individualized application. Her mission involves helping others experience freedom through Evolutionary thinking.
