Forgiveness – The Key to Spiritual Healing

The most basic principle that’s operating all the time, in every aspect of life, is that whatever we “blend with energetically” (mentally, emotionally, or physically) we “take on” and integrate as a form of “shared” consciousness. We usually take on other people’s energy due to the fact that it impacts us in some way. The nature of the impact it has on us determines what type of story we start telling ourselves about it as a way of making it mean something. As we give meaning to our experiences we begin building our identity around and by way of them. We’re always in the process of shaping ourselves by way of what we think about, dwell in obsessively, and give life to inside of us by replaying it over and over in our mind as a memory. As we co-create an experience with someone or an event of some kind, we form an interpretation of it through our very “perception” of it. As we think about something creating an inner reality out of it, we’re simultaneously creating our “self” through that reality by identifying with our own self-created experiences.

How we interpret something gives it the meaning and significance it has for us, and forms the basis for what type of reality we create in our mind that replaces the “actual†objective reality with a “subjective” one, making it personal. Reality itself, as events, behaviors, dramas, situations, conditions, and so on, have no meaning in and of themselves, but merely become the basis for forming meaning by how it’s interpreted by the individual perceiving it as a means of “experiencing itâ€. While we can reasonably conclude that we don’t create or manifest other people or outward situations, we absolutely create “how we perceive and thereby experience themâ€. Our experience of reality is a personal creation formed exclusively in our mind as the natural creative power of our soul.While we can have a tendency to think that other people “make us” feel and think the way we do, if we turn inward and observe our own mental processes, we’ll discover that we’re the only one that’s actually “producing” our own inward experiences.

All of our experiences that have a significant emotional impact of some sort, become our primary memories as interpretations of the events of our life. As we create our own memories, we simultaneously create ourselves by way of our own creations. The memories we accumulate over a period of time become “themes” out of which we create all of our present experiences to be of the same nature and meaning as our past experiences. This “theme” as a certain “type of meaning” forms the basis for our perceptual lens that we consistently look through in order to see the same thing in everyone and everything by how we interpret it. As we consistently form the same type of  experiences over and over, we continue telling the same type of story about things, and create a consistent and congruent version of reality as a result. As we perceive and experience the outer world by processing it internally through the commentary we form around it as imaginary thoughts,  we create a “sense of ourselves” through our own story, and shape ourselves by way of it.

Vibration as a Life Theme and Attraction Factor

Whatever we continue to give life to by replaying memories over and over, we continue to use to define ourselves, and we “tune” and magnetize ourselves to that theme as a life-drama, where we’re constantly attracting to us more of the same type of experiences while also being attracted to them. This “attraction factor†isn’t a product of the conscious mind, per say, but rather of the subconscious mind, which means it’s energetic and instinctual in nature, based on vibratory frequency and operates in our life without our direct awareness. Whenever we meet someone of the same vibratory frequency who will naturally act to co-create more of the same type of experiences, they stand out, we notice them, and have a pronounced reaction to them. Due to the attraction we feel towards each other, we naturally begin gravitating towards each other, and eventually end up in an actual interaction of some sort where a relationship forms – as a friend, colleague, companion, lover, etc. – and we act together to form a joint experience of the same thematic nature that we share in common.

The meaning we give things, like the mind itself, is 3-fold in nature, and creates on three levels and scales simultaneously. Whatever meaning we give something forms the story we tell ourselves about it, which means the same thing about others, the way the world is in general, and about us in relationship with it. As we perceive and form an interpretation of other people’s attitude, actions, and behavior, we’re perceiving ourselves through or by way of that same interpretation. As we perceive others to be a certain way, we simultaneously perceive the world to be the same way as a larger version or as the stage necessary for it to all take place. All of reality is created out of “thematic patterns” that we use to form the drama of our life as the means of acting out certain ideas in order to gain new realizations by way of them. We only “learn” from experience, and so we act to create our own curriculum that provides us with the type of experiences we need in order to either resolve karma or bring a new sense of awareness to our own hidden tendencies.

As we form “generalizations†about the meaning of life it serves to form our expectations and what we naturally look for in all future situations. We form mental and emotional filters that skew our ability to accurately see in an objective manner. We only “see” and respond to what matches our model of the world and what we go into a situation expecting, and fail to recognize what doesn’t. All the while, because these are our own creations as our thoughts and emotions, we’re forming ourselves to be of the same nature and likeness, as a response or defense, and as an interaction where our themes are always playing out at the unconscious level. In every situation that we’re a part of, we play a vital role in co-creating that experience. Our perceptions form our “criteria for judgmentâ€, and are used equally to judge ourselves through our perception of ourselves within our own story about things. As we judge another to be “bad” in some way, we create an image of ourselves in contrast to them as being “good”. As we feel deceived or betrayed by someone, we simultaneously create an experience of being a victim, usually by perceiving ourselves as being honest and trustworthy.

So when we enter into a relationship or become a part of a situation, where natural events and behaviors take place, and we filter them through our mental paradigm and interpret them to mean something so we can experience them through a story-line, we act “on ourselves†through another or greater reality, and continue shaping ourselves through a primary form of self-expression produced by our mental paradigm as a filtering system. Through mental and emotional filters, we sort through and select only some of the elements involved in any situation, while completely excluding and ignoring others. We embellish and accentuate some aspects, while downplaying and explaining away others. We decide what to emphasize based on the means we’re shaping it to, and by completely reorganizing and reformulating it to tell the story we want to tell about it as a means of creating a certain type of experience of ourselves. We create a personal version of what happened and why, that we live out of as a means of using it to define and determine us as a certain “type of personâ€. This doesn’t mean that the other person isn’t in fact doing whatever it is that they’re doing, it simply means that we are playing a central role in creating “how” we choose to experience it and how we participate and respond as a result.

Because this is a natural function of our mind, and we do it automatically without intentional awareness, we form an idea that others are doing it “to usâ€, instead of “cooperating and naturally participating†in helping us do it to ourselves. Relationships we form with others provide the basis for acting out certain types of drama that are self-perpetuating at the subconscious level, and act as a mirror for allowing us to see what’s operating in us that we’re unaware of. Not as singule events within larger ones, that we grab onto and begin obsessing over as what we imagine we need to forgive in the other, but as dramatic life themes that we’re always in the process of playing out in all areas of our life without actual awareness of what we’re doing and why. So to think that someone “did something to us†that we’re having trouble moving past because we can’t seem to let it go and continue dwelling in it as a form of suffering and mental anguish, and fashioning ourselves by way of it, is a self-created illusion that becomes delusional.

We are the sole creator of all of our experiences. We attract to us the fulfillment of our own thematic dramas in others and the conditions and circumstances that are ideal for playing them out. As we play them out, both unconscious and conscious aspects are at work, and we’re constantly sensing the underlying motives at play, and making constant decisions as adjustments based on what we’re sensing is necessary to keep it playing out. As we sense the underlying motives of others, we realize those same motives in ourselves as the complementary component which is what keeps us drawn in and actively participating in it. We justify things in whatever way allows us to “glaze overâ€, ignore, or build it into an “agreed upon lieâ€, and we keep on going with it. We have constant fleeting moments where we instantly sense the truth of what’s happening, and in those moments of intuitive realization we choose to let them slide or justify them somehow and keep on going as if we don’t know any better. We agree to maintain the relationship knowing that in order to do so we have to ignore our intuition, compromise our integrity, agree to ignore or accept things that we shouldn’t, and continue allowing behaviors that are warning signs. The whole time we keep telling ourselves whatever it is we need to in order to negotiate what results in the grand finale. We begin ignoring all the red flags by lying to ourselves and cooperating to build an illusion as a lie in place of what we know inside to be the truth. It ultimately results in betrayal because in order to play a part in co-creating it we had to betray ourselves first.

Then an event of some sort with a strong emotional realization takes place, and shatters the illusion to the point where we can no longer maintain it, and we have to face it. We can’t pretend any more. We can’t call it what we wish or want it to be, but rather have to accept it as it actually is. This moment of shattering a lie, comes as betrayal, disappointment, dishonesty, violence, grief, shame, disgust, and so on, that not only reveals the truth we sensed and negotiated all along, but also as what breaks the bond and creates a disconnect that can no longer be remedied by pretending. In these moments we have to face the truth, but the truth is not what we think it is, the truth is coming face to face with the truth about ourselves. The realization that we we’re sensing what was going on all along and chose to negotiate away our integrity and lie to ourselves in order to maintain it and willingly continue playing it out. We come to the false realization that “this type of stuff always happens to meâ€, because this is the way people are, and the way the world is. Usually, without ever realizing that it came about because it’s the way we are. We were willing to participate by compromising ourselves, not through clear rational thinking and objective observation, but through emotional attachments, inner compulsions, and a strong sense of need that we blindly mistook for love and trust.

The only actual betrayal was to ourselves by our self. The only real dishonesty came by first being dishonest with ourselves. The wounds we encountered were ultimately self-inflicted. The only disgust and hatred was because of what this means about us. But all of this is very hard to accept, and even harder to own, and thereby realize that the only “forgiveness” involved, is our ability to stop projecting onto others, and use it instead to gain self-realization of our own unconscious tendencies. As we begin realizing our own tendencies we can begin working on ourselves to rectify and heal them. The only person that truly needs to be forgiven in our own life co-creations is ourselves, because we’re the ones negotiating its terms within ourselves. Once we begin trusting our own intuition around things and acting based on what we come to realize about others or situations, we then have to “act” based on those realizations without letting others explain them away. We have to stand in our truth with confidence and refuse to accept and allow it. We have to become empowered in our own life.

To Forgive is to Forget

When we begin “owning” our part in the co-creation of our own life, and act to reveal lies and end relationships that we know will lead to painful outcomes, we begin acting in a way that “prevents” bad experiences. When we use all situations as a mirror into our own unconscious tendencies and work on ourselves to resolve the issue at its root, we start to become conscious creators in our own life. As we can see the karma involved as acting out unconscious tendencies together, we don’t experience being hurt by them and see it more as a valuable lesson that allowed us to see something about ourselves that we were having difficulty seeing. When we change our perspective on things and see them in a different light, we not only realize there’s no need to “forgive” the other person or people involved, but almost feel a sense of gratitude towards them for allowing us to see what we needed to see in order to heal a deficiency in ourselves.

When we’re no longer “hurt” by the actions of others the memory we form of them changes entirely and we don’t obsess over it. In this sense to forgive is to forget, not only the other person involved in the co-creation of a self-produced drama, but also to quit living out of memories that act to ultimately program us to produce more of the same type of experiences in the present. To realize that relationship of all kinds between our inner self and the outer world simply acts to show us parts of ourselves that we’re normally unaware of. To gain knowledge of ourselves as it’s being reflected back to us by others as an interaction that’s of a “cause and effect†nature. To see in ourselves our own methods for negotiating away our morality in favor of a desired illusion about things. To be able to realize our own motives for “selling our soul†to another, submitting and allowing ourselves to be controlled by agreeing to remain unconscious in order to maintain the relationship. Whatever we dwell in with strong emotions, and replay over and over in our mind with emotional intensity, we shape ourselves to be like and “tune ourselves energetically” to that type of reality, where we subconsciously produce more of the same type of experiences. When we resolve the issue within our own character instead of continuing to focus on the other, we transform it, and no longer think about it. We know when we’ve truly forgiven someone because we get to the point where we hardly ever even think about them anymore, and when we do, it’s in a “matter of fact way”, that has no emotional charge.

Putting it in Perspective

Everything we perceive as happening to us, is actually happening “by usâ€. We are always creating our experiences by how we look at, interpret, and cooperatively participate or contrast and refuse to participate. We’re only attack-able or able to be hurt to the exact extent that we attack and hurt ourselves by not being willing to see the true reality going on beneath the surface, and therefore never learning from our own experiences. All experience is designed to bring self-awareness that allows for deeper realizations around the awareness. To perceive needing to forgive another for what they did to you, is showing you that you’re choosing to remain unconscious of your own creative power and the part you played in creating things. We are always the main creative force in our own lives and others only “do to us” what we act to “create internally” in relationship with them.

When we learn to use all of our experiences as a mirror where we remove our focus from the other person or event, and examine ourselves in relation to them, we become more aware of our own internal processes and what it is that’s motivating those processes. We can come to realize how we negotiate and manipulate situations as a way of both consciously and unconsciously co-creating them. We can come to realize in very definite terms, that the very people we imagine we need to forgive for the pain and suffering they caused us, we should actually thank for the realization they allowed. We can come to realize the truth about ourselves and begin embracing our creative power to effectively bring what we were previously unaware of into the full light of day, where we can begin working to correct it, not by attempting to change the outer situation or the other person, but by transforming the inner situation producing it. In the spiritual sense of the mind and soul, those who cause controversy and serve to challenge us in very distinct ways, are “worthy opponents” that cooperate in creating the joint experiences necessary for us to learn by. As we learn, and we apply what we learn to create, we grow, develop, and strengthen our character as the means for spiritual healing.

Dr. Linda Gadbois 

Integrative Health Consultant and Spiritual Mentor