The True Reality of Forgiveness – Waking up in the Midst of Your Own Dream

Posted On May 31, 2016 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

A Problem can’t be Solved from the Same Mind that Created it . . .

In order to truly understand the reality of forgiveness, we have to look squarely at the nature of what we call reality. Reality, in the general sense that it’s commonly used, is whatever we perceive as being real in terms of what we naturally “see” in any situation, what we have a shared belief around, and what we automatically engage in with others who willingly participate in co-creating the same type of reality with us. What’s real to us is a product of our own quality of consciousness as our “state-of-mind” which acts naturally to generate different versions of reality as the outer expression of our inner dialogue that forms pictures in our imagination. Our reality, as the creation and expression of our consciousness, is formed out of the “perceptual lens” that we “look through” as the means of “seeing” the outer world and interpreting it in a way that gives it the same meaning as our internal world. We’re always in the process of telling ourselves a story about what things mean that forms and expresses our relationship with everything in the world around us. What we see in any situation is of the same level and quality of consciousness as we are, and we act naturally to tell the same type of story by living it out through dramas and the behaviors that ensue from those dramas through the activities that are naturally inherent in our “story”. We literally shape ourselves through the type of story we’re always in the process of telling by how we live our life.

We create a specific type of reality as an expression of our consciousness that’s a form of illusion  constructed out of our belief system as an interrelated series of harmonious patterns that form an overall theme as our Soul’s vibratory frequency. A frequency is formed out of interwoven correlated vibrations (range of vibration) and contains a “thematic pattern” along with a self-organizing mechanism that works through a series of filters  to select only the parts of a greater whole that can be harmoniously used to create a specialized pattern. All qualities and levels of consciousness vibrate at specific frequencies that systematically order, organize, and project reality as the theme inherent in that frequency. These patterns which are a fundamental aspect of consciousness as our soul’s memory are creative in nature and generate thematic realities as our perception. This means that our vibratory frequency is a quality and level of consciousness as primarily a belief system or series of interrelated and congruent patterns that all create a cohesive and consistent version of reality as a life theme or consistent drama that we perceive naturally, attract and are attracted to, and are always in the process of acting out as a certain “type of experience” with those of the same consciousness and thematic patterning as we are.

We naturally engage in these correlated dramas with others because they’re our “own creation” and therefore seem real to us and have a direct affect us as a result. We have strong feelings and memories associated with them that keep us in a constant state of reacting to them. Whether we perceive them in a pleasurable and profound way, or a painful and destructive way doesn’t really matter, because we’ve shaped our identity around them by playing them out as life dramas to create specific types of experiences. Because we’re immediately effected by them and always in a reactive state in relation with them, they always have a significant impact on us in terms of our identity and development. Because our perception of reality is actually our own creation, we think tit’s real in the objective sense, and don’t initially realize that we are in fact the one creating it by what we choose to focus on, think about, and imagine as a living scenario.

Due to the fact that the inner and outer reality is actually a continuation of the same idea as a life theme (smaller pattern playing out within a larger pattern of the same kind and type), we respond to the outer stimulus in an intimate manner and create the experience of everything “happening to us” from an outside source that’s beyond our ability to control it. Our experiences arise from a predominantly unconscious state that’s based on the illusion of separation, because separation is necessary as the means of experiencing “our self through another”, and as a means of shaping ourselves through an ongoing drama that’s produced by our own creative imagination. While we tend to think that our memories of the past are based on an accurate account of actual events, they’re not, they’re based on our “interpretation” of actual events that created how we “experienced” those events based on the “meaning” we gave them. Out of meaning comes the moral of the story we begin fashioning of ourselves as a means of shaping our identity by how we get a “sense of ourselves” within our own self-made experiences of a greater reality that’s a projection and reflection of our inner reality.

As long as we maintain the illusion of separation and don’t realize that others are reflecting back to us the complementary aspects of our own hidden nature that we’re fundamentally unaware of, we continue to create the same type of experiences with others where we perceive them as being able of hurt or attack us, or ultimately act to shape and determine us through their behaviors and how they treat us. It’s easy to find this idea confusing because the traits someone else displays in “hurting us” aren’t traits we possess our self in the direct sense, but are complementary traits necessary to activate the traits in us that cause us to self-inflict our own pain. If I have a life-theme as a story about myself as “not being good enough”, I naturally attract and enter into relationship with people who will somehow treat me in a way that causes me feel as if I’m not good enough. They will play the complementary role in keeping my pain active and alive. In the higher sense of the idea, they are acting as a “mirror” that’s allowing me to “see” what’s inside of me that I have come to interpret as not being good enough, but due to the fact that this has become a core belief for me, meaning it was formed as a part of my formative conditioning, I simply replay the pattern in my mind as a memory and continue to inflict myself with the pain it causes. I’ll continue to create the same type of reality over and over again until I’m able to wake-up in my own delusion and realize that I’m the one doing it to myself. Once I’m able to become aware of the pattern I’m conditioned with due to the fact that it’s intimately familiar and I can relate it back to numerous other memories of the same kind, I can gain self-realization around my own repressed memories, and they begin dissolving as a consequence. 

Due to the fact that we have a shared belief in creating the same type of reality together, we’re constantly acting on ourselves to validate and reinforce our beliefs by attracting to the same type of people and creating the same type of experiences over and over again. Because they’re treating us the same way we were treated in the past, we believe it must be true about us, and we dwell in the pain it causes as a result of our own ignorance, and we give them power over us in being able to shape and determine us. We then struggle with the idea of what it means to actually forgive them for the perceived pain they’ve caused us instead of realizing that they’re caught up in their own delusions, and like us, don’t really know what they’re doing. They live out of their painful memories and conditioning just like we do without actually realizing it. We unconsciously form an idea of what it means to forgive them from the same perspective and mind-set of the perceived injury, which, of course, is impossible to do. We somehow think that in order to forgive someone we have to condone their behavior by saying “it’s alright” and it doesn’t matter, instead of realizing that they have actually served to show us our own tendencies that prevent us from seeing the truth in situations, or have allowed us to touch on a part of us that normally remains obscure and shadowy while still active within us. 

As we become aware of our own tendencies in any situation and can honestly begin realizing that the story we’re telling ourselves about another, about what happened, what they did to us, how they hurt us, and so on, is actually an illusion as a story that we made up about it in order to shape how we experience it. While we can have a tendency to believe that “experience” is objective in nature and something that happens outside of our control, nothing could be further from the truth.  All we have to do in order to see this idea clearly is to realize that no one focuses our attention for us, feels our feelings, or thinks our thoughts, or tells us how to behave, “we” are the only one who’s doing it. As you think about an experience with someone that greatly upset you, just take a moment and distance yourself from the memory itself, and remove all of your attention from the other person, and focus instead on what it brought alive inside of you. Not the emotions that were immediately triggered, the feelings that swelled up in your chest, what memories you immediately associated to it, and what you started telling yourself about it that made it mean whatever it meant to you. What did it “show you” about others, the world in general, and about you in relation with it.

After allowing it to rise up full blown and play out in your mind as you actually experienced it, subdue the emotions playing out, and using only your rational mind, analyze it. Dissect it based solely on your own internal experience and allow realizations to form around it in terms of other experiences you’ve had of a similar nature or outcome. Don’t try to control it in any way, just watch it play out while witnessing it from a detached and unemotional perspective. Once we can begin realizing that we are actually the one creating our own experiences based on whatever dynamics we’ve been programmed with, we begin comprehending what’s going on from an intuitive perspective as a larger, ongoing pattern. Anytime we find ourselves “blaming” other people for our own feelings and actions, it’s a sign that we’re in the process of creating an illusion that exonerates us from our own responsibility in being able to manage our own mind, emotions, and imagination. A red flag is raised drawing our attention to the fact that we’re in the process of fooling ourselves and avoiding responsibility for our own part in things.

When we perceive being hurt by someone, we have to simultaneously realize what our part was in co-creating the situation by participating in the dynamic that was played out. Anytime we feel betrayed by someone we have to self-reflect and bring into conscious awareness all the times we had notions and funny feelings that seemed to contradict what we were being told, and all the times when little red flags went up, and even though we noticed them and thought about them briefly, we chose to explain them away or justify them somehow, pushing them to the background, and continued forward in creating an illusion in place of the truth. The pain from our experiences comes exclusively by how we’re using our own mind to produce an imaginary reality as a story we tell ourselves about what happened, why, and what it means about us as a result. The pain we feel doesn’t come from the act itself, which is ultimately neutral in nature and lacks meaning, it comes from how we represent the idea to ourselves internally based on the meaning we give it. In this sense, all of our pain and suffering are self-administered and self-sustained. No one is ever “doing anything to us”, outside of actual physical violence, it’s always us who’s doing it to ourselves by how we operate our mind to form an internal representation that we use as the means of telling ourselves a story about it.

All activities are meant to show us our own hidden (unconscious) nature, and to provide us with valuable lessons on how to create our life in a more beneficial and constructive manner.  If we remove ourselves from the emotions being activated and all of our past conditioning that we associate with it and use as the means of interpreting the events, and we detach from the need to defend our own shortcomings and weaknesses born out of a victim mentality, and we look at the situation from a completely rational and intuitive perspective, we can begin recognizing our own faults and how it was that we participated in creating the situation. Everything is formed as a co-creation and there’s really no such thing as an innocent participant in the most basic sense. Once we’re able to see what our part was in helping to create it, we “learn the lesson” it served to teach us, and we no longer need to repeat it by continuing to dwell in it. As we become adults we can begin recognizing themes as patterns that we consistently play out from a predominately unconscious state, and by self-reflecting, we can come to realize tendencies that stem from our past conditioning. Once we’re able to see them clearly and we bring them into conscious awareness, they lose their grip on us and we can see them clearly in any situation before they even begin.

All of what we call “painful experiences” are serving as a mirror into the hidden aspects of our own psychological make-up that remain unresolved and provide us with the means necessary for healing. They give us great insight into where we are making errors in our perception and our own natural tendencies affording us the opportunity to “correct” ourselves. As long as we stay focused on the wrong-doing of the other person and blame them for our pain, we remain unconscious to our own creative abilities and fail to utilize our higher capacities of intuition in being able to perceive the greater dynamic being played out. By waking up in the midst of our own unconscious illusions and seeing clearly the part we’re playing in maintaining the dramas that are playing out in our own life, we begin employing our will to resolve them. Our life is fated until we begin using our will to dissolve karmic patterns. If we chose to remain unconscious as to our own creative abilities and instead choose to focus on others and the events taking place around us with the perception that we’re somehow helpless in light of them, then we continue to act out karmic patterns born out of our past conditioning. By realizing that others play out karmic patterns with us through the same unconscious state, and are lost in the illusion of their own pain and suffering, just as we were, we can begin realizing that there’s really nothing to forgive, and we may even feel a strange sense of gratitude in the fact that they helped us to see what we couldn’t see on our own.

Once the illusion is dissolved for us, and we realize that the other person(s) is still caught up in the illusion and believes it’s real, and so honestly doesn’t know any better, they no longer stimulate us with their attitude and behavior towards us, or the type of activities they continue to engage in. We move into a different way of seeing the same reality that makes it seem very different and a part from us. We are no longer invested in that reality for our identity, and as a result no longer participate in co-creating it. Once we honestly experience a shift in consciousness where we no longer perceive  reality in the same way, we no longer attract it or are attracted to it, and virtually lose our ability to readily comprehend it. It no longer holds us hostage by continuously thinking about it in a way that causes us pain, and within a very short period of time, we begin forgetting about it. As you truly forgive people and situations, they begin fading from your thoughts and you go longer and longer periods of time without thinking about them or replaying the experience over and over in your mind. When we do think about them at some future point, it’s in a “matter of fact” way and doesn’t invoke a prominent emotional reaction. Anytime we encounter the same type of person or tendencies in the future we see it the minute it starts, and withdraw from it. We completely lose interest and are no longer attracted to it.

As long as we continue to think about the past in a compulsive manner, we stay locked into the pattern as the level of consciousness we were in when we first created the memory. When we move to a different level of consciousness through increased self-awareness, we shift our vibratory frequency, and we begin engaging in a whole new perception of reality. Vibratory frequencies have patterns inherent in them that express as different types of reality that bring new and different types of experiences. As we become more aware of our own unconscious tendencies and we gain new realizations about ourselves as a result, we have the means for actively transforming our life by consciously exercising our ability to make clear decisions that we then willfully bring into fruition. As we move to a higher perspective and more holistic way of viewing our life as “the creator” of it rather than seeing ourselves as being “created” by others, we experience a shift in consciousness where we  literally become of a different mind and a whole new version of reality emerges as a result. We begin living a whole new story told from a new perspective and we become a new person by way of that story. As we shift between finely interwoven dimensions through an altered “state of mind”, the old reality becomes illusory and vague, and we begin forgetting about it, in much the same way we forget our nightly dreams upon awakening. They are no longer a part of us as an active memory, and we no longer create out of them or identify with them. Eventually, as time passes, they begin feeling foreign to us and we no longer relate to them and can’t recall them with any real vividness or accuracy. Our past slumber vibrates at a frequency we can no longer comprehend within our new state of being, and we take a step closer to liberating our soul from the prison of our own mind.

To forgive, is truly to forget . . . .

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Mind-Body Medicine Consultant, and Spiritual Teacher