During my hero’s journey this year (see my previous blog for more details), I experienced the healing power of forgiveness. As I explored the experience of forgiveness, a powerful moment unfolded during our group process. The cued event was an old letter I had long forgotten, now vividly brought to my mind. Burning the letter was more than just a symbolic gesture; it was a profound step towards releasing the emotional baggage attached to a forgotten (buried) story. After getting in touch with my emotions, processing them, I could re-read the letter and burn it from a place of love ♥️ and let go of the story.
Forgiveness is not necessarily about the other person or party, it is much more about ourselves. It is about letting go of charged energies to stories that we are still emotionally attached to. Often we buried these stories and emotions. They are stuck somewhere in our body, around our hearts ❤️🩹. The mind can be tricky here. It can make us believe that all is good and that we do not carry emotional baggage around some expierences or events anymore. If so, that’s great. However, it can be an indication that we have cut ourselves off, detached from feeling. Detaching ourselves from feeling is a form of protection – once useful – it is leading us away from our heart and soul 💖 and disconnects us from our source.
How do we get back to feeling?
We can first detect our strategies to avoid feeling and avoid integrating our blocked emotional energies. These strategies try to keep us safe and at the same time they keep us from growing. Let me share some examples and assumptions I have on avoidance tactics:
- Keeping ourselves constantly busy is probably a very common one.
I was familiar with that one for a long time. - Searching for relief and distraction outside of us in the material world. It offers so many opportunities for distraction.
- Noticing irritation and discomfort and not addressing it, going over ones needs and boundaries, smiling it all away. I am very familiar with that one, too.
- Avoiding time alone, avoiding stillness. Even the thought of stillness makes some people upset or angry. A wonderful sign that something wants to be seen and acknowledged.
- Being a lot alone on the other hand, hiding and avoiding contact can be a way of detaching as well.
- Talking about other people’s issues. Being in the stories of others keeps us away from our own.
- A charged judgmental mind and complaining. Through charged judgments about the world, oneself or everyone else or just the weather we can spread our negativity and pain without really dealing with it.
We need to feel to heal.
Forgiveness is about feeling our emotions and pain.
Forgiveness is about making them ok without judgments.
Forgiveness is about accepting and letting go of old stories.
Forgiveness is about connecting to our heart.
Forgiveness is about the healing power of love.
Forgiveness takes time and we might want to repeat our process until the smallest percentage of an attached charged story is gone. Only then we have forgiven. Stuck energy leaves our body and we reconnect 2 our self.
As we move through the complexities of forgiveness as a way of healing and reconnecting, we should remember that it is not a quick fix, but a constant process of connecting to our heart and inner self. The strategies we use to avoid and deal with our feelings, such as constant busyness or judgment, only serve as temporary shields that distract us from our own story and personal growth. Real healing begins when we confront these avoidance tactics and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, recognizing that feeling and learning to surrender are an essential part of our human experience in order to grow and reconnect. The power of forgiveness lies not only in its ability to clean up past emotional wounds, but also in its ongoing ability to shape our present and future. I am grateful for my own ongoing process of learning and integrating, further shaping my ability to guide you to reconnect.
THE POWER OF FORGIVENESS: WE NEED TO FEEL TO HEAL!
Cologne, Nov 14th, 2023