If you’ve ever had chronic, low-level pain, you’ve probably held your body in a certain posture to avoid the discomfort of bending, or favored one leg or arm, because putting weight on the other one is just a little more uncomfortable.
Emotionally, we do this every day when we carry around the unexpressed and unresolved pains of past heartaches and experiences that cause us resentment and anger. Unexpressed and bottled-up feelings of anger and resentment take up psychic space, just like the dozens of incomplete projects on your desk, but unlike the projects, feelings of anger and resentment can poison and pollute your soul-your outlook on the word is smaller, more suspicious, less trusting, less open and giving.
It’s hard to be energized when you are holding on to toxic emotions.
So you want more energy? Practice the art of forgiveness.
ONE OF THE MSOT IMPORTANT LISTS YOU’LL EVER MAKE
Start by making a forgiveness list. When you start thinking about all the people and situations you resent, you may find that you have a really long list. It may go back to grade school to the kid who bullied you in the schoolyard or the girl who rejected you at the dance. Maybe your list includes someone who never returns your calls, or a backstabbing coworker, or the woman who pushed ahead of you in line at Starbucks, or the guy who cut you off on the freeway. And of course your list probably includes family members, because some of those hurts and disappointments and wounds go very deep indeed.
It’s important to start with what you feel you can handle. For example, it might be difficult to start practicing forgiveness for the first time with the partner who swindled you out of your business and left you bankrupt, or with the person who divorced you and broke your heart. But maybe you could handle forgiving that supermarket clerk who was smarmy to you on the checkout line when you brought thirteen items into the twelve-item express lane. Forgiveness is, after all, an emotional muscle, and you have to work up to the heavy lifting.
Pick three people on your list and then, one person at a time, allow yourself to feel whatever anger and resentment that comes up related to that person. In fact, I want you to try to increase that feeling of anger and resentment. (it shouldn’t be hard). Think of the injustice of what he did to you, of how small it made you feel, of the unfairness of the way he treated you.
Let that sit and simmer for a minute.
Now take a deep breath, close your eyes, and release that anger, annoyance, or irritation, or in some cases, your rage and your hurt. Just let it go.
Do it again – take a deep breath and release it. Try to imagine what it’s like to be that person whom you resent. What might she have been feeling at the time she hurt you? What might his point of view been (remember, you don’t have to agree with it or even like it – just understand what it might have been). What is his day like? What is it like to be her? Just put yourself inside the other person’s skin for a minute.
And then wish the person peace.
Some healers suggest imagining the person or the situation that caused you pain in a pink bubble, surrounded by white light. Then imagine the whole scene floating away in a cloud of serenity and forgiveness.
IT’S ABOUT YOU
Now if you’re new at this, you might be skeptical. I know I was, the first (and second, and third) time I tried it. The first impulse for many of us is to think, “I don’t want to forgive them. What they did was wrong!” Which may (or may not) be true, but it is irrelevant to this practice. The practice is about you letting go of an energy-draining emotion; it’s not about letting other people off the hook.
Remember, if you carry around a little hot ball of anger, the only person it sears is you. This technique is not for the object of your anger – it’s for you. And don’t get discouraged if you have to try it several times. In fact, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.
If you keep practicing this technique, you’ll be amazed at what you’re able to accomplish. By letting go of some of the toxic feelings that have been holding you back and weighing you down, you are letting go of negative energy.
And guess what’s left underneath when you release the toxic fumes?
Energy. Fabulous, light, “I can do anything”, weight-off-my-shoulders energy.
Give it a try. You have nothing to lose but some of the biggest energy drainers on the planet.
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