It seems that all of us have “issues.” We can be critical of others, self, institutions, religions, corporations, governments, adnauseam. Whenever we are critical of others and self and have “issues,” we disable ourselves and diminish or own prosperity. What are your “issues”? Your issues tell you where you need to practice forgiveness, and this practice diminishes and can even eliminate your “issues.”
Perhaps you think that you need to hang on to your “issues,” after all, if we didn’t have our issues, what would we have? How about bliss? How about gratitude? How about loving yourself and others? How about being able to exchange and work with others to create or obtain more than you ever thought in relationships and material riches?
The Four Types of Abuse
A clear conscience and thinking well of others goes a long way in creating prosperity in our social relationships. This can emanate in wealth, knowledge, many friends or whatever we decide that our desire is to be. Thinking well of yourself and others and the resultant prosperity can be thwarted by Abuse. Abuse is when you cause someone else to have an experience that they do not want or deprive them of one they do want. And there are only four types of abuse that can louse up a Spirit’s life:
- Abuse others have done to you.
- Abuse you have done to others.
- Abuse others have done to others.
- Abuse you do to your self.
Can you think of any other types? When you think about this for some time, you may certainly agree that the four types of abuse can disable you, and they can do so conjointly. The way to handle all four types of abuse is with forgiveness. Forgiveness of others and self will enable you to eliminate “your issues.” And that’s good. Imagine how much better it is to live without critical thought of anything or anyone!
Forgiveness opens you to prosperity
All of the masters, from the Buddha to the Christ, have all taught about forgiveness. Many religions teach forgiveness and the key to divine love. But how? What are the actual steps that we take to do this? If we were to master this process, would we attain more (as exemplified by the Christ pleading for forgiveness for the executioners in his last breathing moments) Godliness?
Imagine if you could recall everyone who ever hurt you without any anger, fear or grief? Imagine being able to recall these moments of abuse by others to you and feeling bored about it or even cheerful and full of gratitude for the lessons? If you were no longer the effect of these acts of abuse to you in your life, imagine the prosperity that will open up for you in relationships, business or whatever!
Because this is about you, you must begin the process. The Christ proclaimed, “Forgive us our trespasses AS AS AS (get it?) we forgive those that trespass against us.” That means you receive by giving. You open up your power by stepping up to the plate and (perhaps meekly) ante up! Are you ready? The word “forgive” is derived from the root “to give”… so all indicators tell that forgiveness is an action that is originated by you. At first you may not even receive as much as you give. In time, this will change. Returns in the tenfold are possible.
Forgiving what others have done to you
Okay, so let’s start with the abuse that others have done to you. This is the abuse we are most aware of. After all, this is where you are the victim… and that carries a lot of emotional charge that disables you. How? When you are the victim, you shut down your ability to communicate, because you now have “issues” with the person or persons who “victimized” you. Further, you will also likely have ill feelings with people who remind you of the pain of the perpetrator and you vent it on the new person.
Even worse, you may “act out” or dramatize that behavior on to others who become victims. Maybe you abuse yourself as a dramatization of the abuse that another did to you. All of this disables your ability to communicate, to exchange, to dialogue, which cuts you off from all the goodies in life.
Forgiveness process
Many tell us to forgive, but what is missing is the “how.” What steps do we take to do it? How do we do it? I am learning that it is an ongoing process that gets progressively easier and more powerful. I vent and then send good intention.
The first step in forgiving what others have done to us is to contact our emotions about each incident directly. “Working through” each incident of abuse to us and “running out” the emotions connected to the abuse are necessary. After the emotions revolving around that abuse incident are vented, it makes it easier to forgive. The following are suggested steps that you can take with a trusted other. Work with a friend, clergy person, or therapist (but no psychiatrists) with the following process below. Have them ask you the following questions, or ask them to yourself, and write down your responses to the questions:
1. Can you recall a moment of abuse towards you by another?
2. Tell me about what happened?
3. Where in your body are there any sensations?
Touch the place on your body. With your listening partner, try to determine where you are holding the pain of the abuse; try to feel where it is, and with hands-on healing techniques, run the pain out.
4. Is there earlier abuse like this? Tell me what happened?
Variations on these first four steps should be taken. There is no way that a “standard” method will work for everyone. If you are perceptive, intuitive and open to higher intelligence, you will know.
5. Write down the incident on paper.
Write who you are forgiving and what for. Burn the paper as a self-ceremonial gesture, symbolic of your intention and decision to “let it go.” Watch in gratitude as the smoke from your paper wafts upward. As the paper you burned seemingly loses its mass, so does the hurt that you feel from the harmful act done to you.
6. Move to a quiet, darkened place where candles are.
Catholic churches are great for this, because they all have a place to light candles in a dark, cool, contemplative space. For each of the people that you have forgiven, seal it in by lighting a candle for them and ask God to help them be better people. If you can, wish them true happiness now and in the future…call this Future Forgiveness. If you are unable to take this step, then you very likely have more emotional work to do.
7. Take a walk around the block, get some brisk movement.
Stay in present time, and admire.
Forgiving what you have done to others
You will be floored by the way that you cut yourself off when you hurt another. This is because you are inherently good and created in the image and likeness of a God. When you do harmful acts towards another, you may not realize that you will “disable yourself’ and minimize your own power. There is even a TV show that shows how criminals get themselves caught.
Because you are so good, you will need to obtain forgiveness from your victim’s higher self, God and yourself. Some people believe that all of these forgiving entities are really one in the same. What do you think? Whether we are truly separate from one another or not, it is first necessary to communicate the wrongfulness of your harmful acts to another before receiving forgiveness, mostly from yourself.
Below is a process whereby you can confess your wrong doings and obtain lessons about yourself that are therapeutic:
1. What did you do to somebody?
2. When (exactly) was it?
3. Where (exactly) was it?
Questions 1-3 will help you locate the actual events on the timeline, and to the degree that you are able to give an exact date and place to the exact harmful act, you will nullify the “mental charge” that you have on these acts.
4. Who should know/not know about the harmful act?
Every harmful act that you do causes you to nullify your own power to communicate and know. Think about some people that you have harmed in the past…do you communicate with them more or less now? Does this make you more or less powerful? Asking and answering this question will help you know how the harmful act has cut you off from people and help you understand who you need to get into communication with…thereby gaining back your powers.
5. At the time of the harmful act, what feelings were you not able to experience?
It may be obvious that the abuse that we inflict is because we could not face an experience or thought. Keeping this in mind will help you understand abuse to you by others.
6. At the time of the harmful act, what problem were you trying to solve?
On questions 5-6, you will be surprised at what you could not face at the time just prior and at the time of the harmful act. These may be feelings brought on by past harmful acts done to you, and you may have been “acting out” these behaviors. You may discover that you have done a previous act like the one done to you; this harmful act may have come your way to “make yourself right.”
7. How were drugs/alcohol involved (if applicable)?
If you have ever been on alcohol and/or drugs, you already know how substance is a substitute for facing yourself and your life. If you are taking psychotropic drugs, 90 percent of the time your “doctor” is “treating” you with a legal “fix.”
8. How did you make the abuse and yourself right by doing the harmful act?
Many times we repeat the same abuse that we have previously inflicted, just to prove to ourselves that we are right.
9. How did you make less/nothing of the harmful act?
10. What identity were you wearing at the time of the harmful act?
Many of us confuse our identity from our true selves. An identity is something we consciously or unconsciously create. You are bigger and more powerful than your identity. Your identity is “the movie” and your spirit self is the “projector.” Your identity, is the effect and your true self is the cause. Many believe that we “have” a soul, when in fact, a soul is something that we are. This step helps a person unravel their identities from their immortal (soul) self.
11. How did this harmful act separate you from: The person you did it to? Your family? Your co-workers? Your Society? Your Self? God?
You will learn that people are unaware that their sins alienate them from themselves. Sin, by definition means “to separate.” This set of questions will help them see for themselves the ramifications of their sins.
12. Is there an earlier/similar harmful act that this one reminds you of? (go to it and repeat questions 1-11).
This might be the “freak-out question” that the harmful acts that we do can be the effect of previous harmful acts done to us, or acts we have done to others, things we have done to ourselves, and harmful acts others have done to others. It’s all very irrational – harmful acts are irrational…and they all can create insanity in the world.
The final question
The purpose of this step-by-step process is for you to release all psychological charge and obtain forgiveness from God and yourself. This is the question that you must ask yourself or have your counsel ask you to verify that you are indeed free:
13. Are you willing to accept the forgiveness that God has given to you?
If you answer no or hesitate, you may go back and redo the process.
With time, guidance and patience, you will be able to forgive others and yourself for many things. This will enable you to feel better thoughts towards others and to begin the process of manifesting prosperity. Many of us fail at manifestation because we don’t feel deserving or we feel out of accord with the very people with whom we need to be in a good flow.
Forgiveness is the first “purification” step towards manifesting the you that always was and always shall be.
By Soren Kirchner
