To Forgive is To Breathe Life Again

This morning I read during my meditation, "When we cannot forgive, life dies within us. When we can't forgive someone we usually say, 'They are dead to me'. However, if we forgive or experience forgiveness, then life can flow again within us, and relationships can be restored to life. There is a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation".

If we .don't forgive it is like we are chained to that person. We keep bringing them up in our mind, we keep reliving what they did to us and feel the pain. It is a continuing cycle that feels perpetual. In the book, "The Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer, he writes that if we hold onto the pain and not forgive, our hearts close, and energy stops flowing through us. Literally, we feel drained, tired, because life has stopped flowing.

Yesterday, I became really angry after a worker installing granite around my chimney left a gap revealing the red brick underneath. I became angry because this occurred a couple of days before and I had to order new pieces of granite to fix that, and here we are again! Once the feeling of anger came up, so did the thoughts, which revealed an inner story I was holding. "They are sabotaging me!", "They are doing this on purpose!" "They are f*%#! with me!". These thoughts brought up more anger.

I observed myself getting this angry, and knew I had to stop, sit down, and breathe. I placed my hand over my heart and just allowed myself to just feel. I focused on my breathing, and just felt the emotions. I observed the emotions as they surfaced. I then felt little by little relief. I felt a little bit of peace, and then a little more. I did this until I felt calm.

When the workers returned in the afternoon, I learned that the fireplace was crooked and the way they placed the granite was the best they could do. I felt myself releasing them, the judgment I had, the anger, the thoughts, the story. I was able to forgive and let go. The gap was covered so that it was no longer noticeable, and I was happy with the finished work.

The last piece of my morning read is that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Sometimes we can't reconcile with the one that hurt us for various reasons, and that is OK. The important thing is that we can forgive, let go of them and what happened. We can even wish them peace. This is what opens our hearts again to love and therefore to life. Try it.