441 I Forgive You & I Forgive Myself March 2018 Saturday Week 3

Synergistic Saturdays-#441 March The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast

I Forgive You & I Forgive Myself

"To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves."
~Alexander Pope

One great lesson I learned is to keep my mouth closed in anger, to keep my tongue still when hurt, and to keep my mind from traveling thorny dangerous trails. Now while I said I learned this lesson, it doesn't mean that I always practice it. Hurt and anger can be explosive emotions. They can be emotions that are like a riptide wanting to sweep you deeper within their wake. It feels good to give up control to something; it feels freeing to not care about the destruction we can do…thinking about how others didn't seem to care when they offended us. But being swept within anger or hurt creates the pathway of thinking revenge is ok.

And it's so strange how so many things come together when we awaken. While I was thinking about this topic, I was listening to the song Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins. I had just downloaded it, and I hadn't heard it in years. And it moved me to look up the lyrics and research it a bit more.

The lyrics go like this:

"Disarm you with a smile
And cut you like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Ooh, the years burn
Ooh, the years burn

I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what I choose is my choice
What's a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
My love
I send this smile over to you"

The lead singer (and writer) Billy Corgan, said the song was about his rocky relationship with abusive parents. How he disarmed their violence with his smile. That he had to grow up too early as a little boy and live in adult shoes. He thought about killing his parents for the pain they caused him, but he chose a different response than returning the anger and violence they taught him—"the killer in me is the killer in you…" so instead he says in the song "my love I send this smile over to you."

Josh Billings said, "there is no revenge so complete as forgiveness." And what a powerful concept that is to understand. And the reason I said understand, is because it's easy to know what it means, but to truly understand means to live it, to embody it, and to live in a higher frequency than one of reaction and payback for those who have hurt us.

I know for me, I want people to feel what I felt, but trying to send back that negative energy, or recreate that feeling in other people, only continues the cycle of violence, self-abuse, and hurt (mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually). Because the only one who is truly getting hurt is ourselves by living within the hurt and revenge; by trying to make others feel and experience what we went through…which will never happen.

Yes, we can tell people how we were hurt, but when we try to make them feel it out of spite or anger from being hurt…it only keeps us locked within our hurt. Most people will say that to heal we need to let go of the past offense, but it's not that simple. And not because you can't let go of the hurt, but it's understanding we never let go of things. Instead of letting go, we are always deciding where to put our energy and focus. So if we focus on letting go, we are still focusing on the hurt. But if we turn and pivot towards a better emotion such as forgiveness, self-growth through difficult times, or maybe seeing that the pain inflicted upon us is more someone else's way of deflecting their internal hurt—then we are doing something more effective in the long run besides trying to let go of something that we'll never fully let go of.

So I don't say let go of your hurt, but know that your hurt doesn't have to be a part of your healing, it can be the background of why you decided to love differently. And the people who have changed the world are the ones who turned the other cheek; they are the ones who spoke out even when they might've been in harms way for doing so. They put their power into something more than anger, violence, or revenge. They decided to live for a higher purpose.

If you think about what revenge is, it's a lower instinct. No animals express it; they either express their dominance or their submission. It is a subbasement level emotion that keeps us below who we are meant to be.

Marcus Aurelius said, "the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury." And it's not that we will become better than the offender, but we will be the example of what people can be. When we stop the cycle of violence or hurt by us acting differently, we change the world. We change the world by changing ourselves first…no matter how much we've been hurt. When we forgive others, it changes the equation…and when we forgive ourselves we cut ties with the cycle of hurt, never to pass on the demons that were given to us. We will no longer take ownership of those demons that were never ours to begin with.

Today's Personal Commitment:

In the song Disarm that I referenced, the 2nd time the chorus happens—a word changes. The first lyric say "what I choose is my choice." And in the later chorus he says, "what I choose is my voice." This song was about a very hard subject, about an abusive family situation, and I found that this song was the act of saying that I will stop the cycle of hurt. I won't pass on what you taught me because I want to express something more consciously about who I am as a person.

We can have the tendency to blame our past for who we are. And while it has brought us to where we are, it doesn't have to be the determinant of being who we are. WE MAKE THAT CHOICE. And so the more we defer to the habits of the past as an excuse, then the more we allow what we don't want to be…to control us. And when we continue the cycle of the negative habits we were taught, we allow the riptide of negative emotions to become who we are. We can say it's not my fault, and I agree the past may not be your fault, but the present moment WILL BE if you decide to continue the cycle.

So get out your journal and write down the negative emotions, actions, and anything from your past that is keeping you from moving on to be the person you want to be.

But don't just stop with writing that list. I want you to ask yourself how you can break the cycle.

To become different is possible, but it starts with the belief that you have a choice, and that you can change your present by deciding to think, speak, and act differently.

Those who are trapped in their past have decided it was out of their power. Being stuck is one thing, but choosing to stay stuck is another. Change at any moment is possible but it all begins with the belief that I CAN be different and I will choose to be different in every moment from here on out. The old broken me, is dead, and no longer a part of the new me. The ALIVE part of myself, the conscious choice of self-love, is where I now choose to live.

I Forgive You & I Forgive Myself

Thanks for listening. I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn

Contact info- email: chris@strongwithin.com phone:865-219-3247

Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide