Even the kindest, evolved, and most conscious people among us waver from healthy, kind, compassionate, and forgiving attitudes and behaviors from time to time. And even though we are all more stressed than usual these days with all that is going on and the restrictions we need follow to keep ourselves and others safe, I am thrilled to see mainly kindness and compassion.
Most people seem to be doing fine! Still, what we project on the outside and when we are out and about is not always reflective with what goes on in our homes, or with those we are close to. Stressors do have a way of seeping into our attitudes and behaviors.
Whatever the reason, whenever we fall into any kind of negative attitudes or behavior it is always important to forgive our self – but vital to do so these days.
(I wrote this article a few years ago entitled “Self-forgiveness and Becoming Our Best Self.” It felt appropriate to re-post it now – with a few tweaks to reflect the times we are living. And so, as well as general themes on self-forgiveness, you will find references to our current situation). Rosemary?
No matter what bad or unkind things we have thought, believed, said, supported, done, or not done, time we have wasted, money we have squandered, or any addictions we have succumbed to, we can turn our life around and rise above what has held us in negative attitudes or patterns hurting our self, or others.
Our purpose here is to connect more fully to our True Self – TO LOVE, which allows us to feel good, be joyful, stay balanced, become our Best Self, and to bring love and light to the world.
We ALL have the capacity for all this – no matter what is going on. However, most of us have simply not been taught this. And the world has forgotten the importance of feeling good and joyful.
Forgiving our self is vital to us staying balanced, feeling good,
able to access joy, turning our life around, and becoming our Best Self
However, to allow self-forgiveness to anchor into our being we must embrace the concept of unconditional love for our self!
We ARE LOVE. we emerged from LOVE – from God (Source, Spirit, Holy Spirit – or whatever we call the universal creative force), and it reflects back to us only unconditional love. And unconditional love holds the premise of complete forgiveness.
When we (or anyone) cannot feel love, or express it out into the world, it is only because we are not connected to our origins. We are disconnected from our True Self – from the love we are at our core.
(I will be posting a Worksheet on “Forgiving Our Self” shortly. See links below to follow me. Rosemary 
Disconnected from this love, we default to egoic ways of thinking, being, managing our life, and navigating the world. These ways of being have all been inherited from Humanity’s past, and have been passed on through the generations.
It is this egoic thinking and it’s way of approaching life that cause us act and react badly, greedily, and defensively, to blame others, and to be unforgiving – of our self, and others. These habitual ways of being are most often unconscious and come through us without our conscious consent. I call them our Unconscious Influences.
It is with the understanding that we all only ever hurt our self,
others, or act badly in any way, because of being disconnected from
our True Self and Universal Love that allows us to forgive.
Most of us are at least somewhat aligned to our True Self and Universal Love – at least sometimes. Most of us can weather storms somewhat – at least to some degree.
Unexpected changes, bad or hurtful experiences, and stresses are part of everyday life. Some of us deal these easily and effectively, while others of us have to work hard to overcome their effects.
However, valid fears, uncertainty, and continual onslaughts of disappointments and unexpected changes, like what we are now experiencing because of the fallout from the corona virus, are all huge stressors and can cause us to become unbalanced, cranky, impatient, or even unhinged.
We may not be as calm and understanding as usual, and so good listening and communication may have fallen to the wayside. Misunderstandings or misinterpretations may occur. We may become reactive. Defensiveness may set it.
This blog article is based on concepts in my books,
Your Journey to Peace … , and Why We Are the Way We Are
About Books found here
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Reacting aggressively, rather than responding calmly, causes further turmoil with others, as does being defensive.
Reacting aggressively and being defensive cause our being to contract, Our heart closes, thus we become further distanced from our True Self and the love it holds.
When misaligned from love, we are not attuned to the nuances of compassion, understanding, and forgiveness within it – for our self and towards others.
We are all hurting these days, and our hurts can cause us
to be negative, hurt others, or act in unloving, insensitive, or judgmental ways.
We may hurt our self by succumbing to negative patterns of behavior that do not serve our best interests, Often disempowering, these cause us to get stuck in life, or fall into apathy, depression, bad or unhealthy habits, or even addictions.
Our relationships may become less harmonious, as calmness, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and inclusiveness may allude us. We may react aggressively, or be overly passive, instead of responding appropriately to situations.
Whether we hurt our self through bad choices, or lash out at others and become impatient, judgmental, defensive, critical, or blame those around us, these egoic ways of approaching life further add stress to our life.
Because whether we hurt our self, others, or create conflict around us, our psyche internalizes it all, and threads of guilt and shame become embedded into our unconscious. This weakens our resolve, affecting our sense of confidence, and thereby our ability to make good choices. Again, this internalizing of our wrongs is left-over from how Humanity has erroneously perceived life.
Our Creator does not see what we consider wrongs. It sees ONLY love.
We too can see only love, but to do so we must have clear hearts.
Forgiving our self clears our heart
To ensure we have a clear heart and can perceive life through love’s eyes, and remain – or return to feeling good and balanced, WE must forgive our self!
Forgiving our self is easiest to do when remember that we are LOVE at our core, are unconditionally loved, and forgiven, by our Creator, and that we are only ever acting badly because of Unconscious Influences that come through us without our consent.
There is much we can do to reconnect to or create a stronger connection to our True Self and the love within it, so that we can live a happy and balanced life and perceive life from that place of love.
Embracing what brings us joy or what creates passion within us, spending time in nature, and embracing practices like Tai Chi, yoga, meditation, drumming, prayer or prayer circles, etc. all increase our sense of well-being and connection to our True Self – and the love it holds.
We All have Different Strengths. Personalities, and Approaches to Life
Our various personalities, habits, preferences, upbringing, sexual identities, and our racial and cultural backgrounds make us all look, speak, react, and behave differently, as does the strength of our connection to our True Self.
- When we have a strong connection to our True Self and the love within we are peaceful within our self, and can navigate the stresses and the ups and downs of life quite easily. And as we do not see or focus on differences – we come from a loving place and see beyond the differences to the core of the other person – to the love within them. We are neither reactive, aggressive, or defensive, and therefore do not incite conflict.
- When we have a weak connection to our True Self and thereby to the love within us, any peaceful feelings we may hold are tenuous within our self, and the stresses and ups and downs of life can easily derail us. And because we experience life through the clouded lens of the Unconscious Influences that run our lives, our defensive and protective mechanisms are always alert. We internalize everything as self-reflective, causing us to react – rather than respond, and to judge, blame, criticize, ignore, or act in other non-passionate ways towards others.
- Many of us are somewhat aligned to our True Self – at least some of the time, and this shows up in the various ways we approach life, and how we can vacillate from the negative to the positive.
Most of us have somewhat of a connection to our True Self,
and therefore we vacillate between being loving and being negative.
Overriding Humanity’s Influence on Us
For eons Humanity’s history has been based on reaction, blame, judgment, guilt, and shame. And even if we are usually calm and loving, these ways of being are built into our cellular memories, and may rear their ugly heads when we are under immense stress.
When we act in hurtful ways our inner being understands that we are only doing so from a misalignment to our True Self, and it still offers us unconditional love and forgiveness. However, the filter of our Unconscious Influences may not allow these to get through to us – especially in stressful times like these when our emotions are on high alert. Our ego will gladly jump on the chance to instill guilt and shame into our psyche.
This is NOT the time for us to instill any guilt or shame into our being!
We are all doing the best we can in this strange and challenging time.
We may know this, but guilt and shame are so ingrained into our psyches that we unknowingly hold onto them, and so we are unaware of the effects they have on our lives. When we act badly, guilt and/or shame will add to the wrong, so it is like a double whammy to our psyche – unless we properly address and diffuse them.
(I will also shortly post a Worksheet to look at Guilt and Shame. Links to follow me are below)
We are now learning that the concepts of unconditional love and absolute forgiveness are part of our inheritance from Creator. However, their hold on us is tenuous. We are programmed to return to unconditional love when we waiver from it, but this has mostly not been taught to us.
This is why self-forgiveness is paramount to overcoming any negative attitudes, responses, or actions we may fall prey to.
Self-forgiveness allows us to feel good, empowered, able to access joy – all qualities we desperately need to nurture ourselves these days, and that help us eventually become our Best Self.
(In part 2, I will continue with themes on self-forgiveness. Stay tuned by following me. Links below)
© Rosemary McCarthy 2018, updated Sept 4, 2020
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Copyright © Originally 2018, updated Sept 4, 2020. by Rosemary McCarthy. All rights Reserved. To copy, share, or distribute this article (or the worksheet) simply ensure the content is copied in its entirety, is unaltered, and is distributed freely and for no monetary or personal gain, and that this copyright notice and the link for the article and the website www.spiritedfawnpublications.com are included. You can contact me at: rosemary@spiritedfawnpublications.com. Blessings, and thank you kindly. Rosemary❤️