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Forgiveness Is A Process

3/21/2018

Have you ever struggled with forgiveness? I certainly have. Holding onto grudges, resentments, anger and bitterness, ruminating over our stories of past hurts and injustice can quickly rob us of our peace and happiness.

Forgiveness is not as easy as just deciding to forgive is it? It's not as easy as one day just deciding...today I am going to extend forgiveness. Funny thing is, I've tried to do that and the sneaky resentment and anger eventually reared it's ugly head again. Blah!!!

I read an article on Oprah.com written by Maria Shriver where she discusses her book, I've Been Thinking..., and how she learned to let go of the anger and pain that others caused her. I really enjoyed the article and her perspective on the process of forgiveness, so I wanted to share it with you.

I've found that a lot of the spiritual practices that I am working on follow a process similar to what she recommends. I hope her thoughts serve you.

Maria Shriver: Forgiving the People Who Have Hurt You

Take it from me: If you're struggling with forgiveness, be gentle with yourself, because I've learned that forgiveness is a process, and it takes time.

What is forgiveness? It's letting go of a resentment, giving up feeling harmed or damaged. That doesn't mean the harm or damage didn't happen. It means that you're not going to keep revisiting it over and over again, staying stuck in your resentment of the person who caused the harm. Even if it's you.

I've prayed for help with forgiveness. I've tried to talk myself into it. And often, I've pushed myself to the forgiveness finish line before I was really ready to take the action of actually forgiving, only to find myself right back where I started: resentful and feeling bad.

So, to truly get to the place I wanted to be—which was to be a steady, solid, peaceful, forgiving person—I started with myself.

When I found myself berating myself for choices I made, opportunities I missed, people I misjudged, behaviors I condoned, the whole thing—I stopped. "No more." I started being kind to myself. Over and over again.

Once I started easing up on myself in this way, I found myself being able to ease up on others. I realized that what I needed, so did they. If I had made mistakes and deserved to be forgiven, so, too, did they. If I had hurt another and could be forgiven and move on, so, too, could they. If I had been critical and judgmental of someone and could be forgiven, so, too, could they.

In other words, if I could let go of my resentments and judgments of myself, I could and should let go of my resentments and judgments of others and just plain move on, instead of staying stuck. I had to give what I was seeking for myself.

Forgiveness is letting go of the need to feel like a victim. Work on it. You'll lighten your load—the load of negativity you carry around.

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International Day Of Happiness

3/20/2018

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Today is International Day of Happiness and it's also the first day of spring and the spring equinox...what a cool day it is!!!

This morning I was listening to a podcast on how to lead a more resilient, healthy and joyful life. The key suggestions from the doctors and scientists go back to many of the practices that I believe in, practice and teach. These practices serve to retrain our brain, a re-wiring of our brain from a negativity bias to a more positive, hopeful and ultimately happier state of being.

Research shows that only 10% of our long-term happiness is based on external factors, the remaining 90% of our long-term happiness is based on how our brain processes things. Neurons that fire together wire together. What we think about actually changes the neuro structure. We can be in charge of changing our own brain.

Dr. Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist, is well known for his work on happiness. He says that we are programmed for negativity bias. He calls this the "caveman brain". It's part of what helped our ancestors survive in more primitive times. He states that positive thoughts need to remain in our short-term memory for several seconds, several times, in order to move into our long-term memory, whereas negative thoughts go straight to long-term memory. He gives this analogy, "The brain is like velcro for negative experiences and like teflon for positive ones". He suggests that we savor the good facts and experiences for 10 seconds or more and to make it as intense as possible. Let a good fact become a good experience. This exercise will cause our brains to take that positive thought and store it in our long-term memory.

Today can serve as a reminder for us of how important these practices are to living a life of resiliency and well-being. Without these daily practices, it's easy for us to direct our focus to all of the things that are going wrong and all of the areas where we feel lack. It takes intentionality to offset this by practices that help our brain focus on the good.

So what are some key habits that we can build into our daily life to bring about more positive thoughts in our brain?

Gratitude
Each day find three new things your are grateful for and describe in detail why. I like to start and end my day with gratitude. A gratitude journal is a useful tool to accomplish this, but it can be done without a journal. Gratitude changes the lens through which we see the world. It's a game-changer and a miracle creator. When feeling grateful you feel more open, generous, connected, aware and alive.

Savor
Identify one meaningful experience you’ve had in the past 24 hours and write it down in as great of detail as you can. Savoring the positive experience will help to shift it into long-term memory and condition the brain to look for the positive. Let the sun shine bright for the good stuff as long as you possibly can.

Mindfulness
Mindfulness is happiness. Spend a few minutes at the beginning of your day being still. Set your intention for the day toward loving kindness, toward being happy, toward positivity. Then throughout the day set reminders for yourself to be present, to be aware and to pay attention. When we aren't attentive to what we are currently doing, we are often times drudging up negative things from the past.

Connection
A sense of community and true, deep social connections are triggers for happiness. Joy comes from connection to others. Find opportunities to authentically connect with others, to be of service to others, to spread loving kindness.

The experts on happiness all speak to similar common core elements to achieving happiness. These elements are not external to our environment, they are internal and something that we very much have the ability to influence.

Studies show that happy people experience a 23% reduction in stress, a 39% increase in health, a 31% increase in productivity and have 34% more positive social interaction. It pays huge dividends to be happy!

Being happy and practicing happiness hygiene will cause a ripple effect to those around you. People desire to be around others who exude happiness. The vibration, the energy of a happy person is contagious, and it raises up the vibration and energy of everyone around. Let's all practice happiness hygiene and savor the positive experiences in our lives. Our world needs more happiness, more light to shine around. Take charge of your own happiness and see and feel the changes in your life. With happiness the more you have the more everyone has.

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Spring Into Action

3/13/2018

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Here in Wisconsin we are experiencing the return of the robins. Have you seen them? Have you heard them singing? In a state that experiences a long winter, the return of the robin signifies the beginning of spring. It’s typically a time where we have a spring in our step, coming out from the dark cold winter months feeling hopeful and reenergized to see the reemergence of green, of light and of life.

Feeling the renewing energy of spring, yesterday I cleaned out two drawers. I’m not just talking about your ordinary size drawer. I am talking double-wide, double-long, double-high drawers full of old art projects, coloring books, crayons, markers, colored pencils and craft supplies all jumbled together in a big hot mess.

Have I mentioned that all of my kids are now over the age of 15? Yes, it was time, besides I need the space to store my own projects now. I was excited to get started and yet the thought of getting started was painful. That first step of diving in, not knowing where to start and with the knowledge that it’s going to get worse before gets better.

I've found that it helps to break it down into small more manageable chunks and then to just get started. The amazing thing that happens is that it’s not quite as painful as I anticipated. Once I get started, a feeling of empowerment spurs me on to doing more and more until the project is not only complete, but I've even taken it a step further than what I had initially planned.

Have you noticed when that same thing has happened for you? It’s the beautiful thing about just taking the first small step and the rest usually unfolds with more ease and you begin to feel energized and renewed.

What is it you want to spring into action right now? Maybe you want to...

Spring into a mindfulness practice
Spring into cleaning
Spring into decluttering
Spring into a new hobby
Spring into exercising
Spring into a new book
Spring into social change

Whatever it might me for you, let the site and sound of the robins serve as an invitation to spring into action. Shake off the winter blues and get into the action. During the winter I would typically hibernate starting at 5 pm, now that we are moving into spring it's lighter out later, the days feel longer and full of energy. It's time to spring into action!

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The "If Only" Habit

3/6/2018

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Have you ever played the "If only" game? You know the one, I would be/I will be happy if only this happens, or if only that happens.

If only my spouse would such and such
If only I had the right partner
If only I had a different job
If only I could sleep a little bit more
If only I had more time
If only I was really healthy
If only I could get home before the traffic starts
If only, if only, if only...

Keeping happiness at bay because of the "If only" syndrome. Pushing off your happiness until the status of things in your life or your world change. Sound at all familiar?

Clinical psychologist, mindfulness and spiritual teacher Tara Brach recently did a podcast on joy. Tara said, "We are in a trance of wanting life different. It shouldn't be like it is, it should be different to be okay. It takes two forms, either something is missing right now, we need something more to be full, or it needs to be different because something is wrong."

Something is missing...the "If only" mind. If only I had such and such I'd be okay. If only's don't work. A lot of times they come up because we are comparing ourselves to others. Playing the comparison game.

When we are playing the "If only" game we are doing what Tara Brach calls, leaning forward. As Tara says, "When it's a habit we are always on our way somewhere else. We always think we should be doing something else. And when it's a habit, we will get to the end of our life and have 'If onlyed' ourselves to death." This is when people are on their death bed and having regrets. Regretting that they didn't allow themselves to be happy. Always seeking and searching for something instead of making the choice to be happy now.

The other side of the trance is when we are in the something's wrong mode. We are in this mode when we are blaming other people for what they are doing wrong, holding a resentment. Our inability to forgive correlates with our inability to experience joy and happiness. The trance of there's something wrong with you or with the world.

Then there's the something's wrong with me. The trance of unworthiness, or of I'm not enough. We can't love life when we are in this mode. It can be a life habit of turning on ourselves and blocking our joy.

If we are honest with ourselves, until we are aware and consciously start to work on shifting the focus of our thoughts, they tend to focus on worrying, planning, judging, on lack, on what's missing and what's wrong.

Bringing our awareness to these habits, these modes of operation, helps us to remove the hook. Just being aware that we are doing it and what its impact is would be half the battle. Once you are aware, you can make the choice to choose again, to create a different habit, to shift your mindset.

Practicing gratitude and mindfulness also help us to shift our mindset out from this trance. Mindfulness keeps us in the present moment bringing awareness to our thoughts and keeping them from worrying about the past and the present. Gratitude gives us perspective and reminds us of all of the goodness we already have in our lives.

I invite you to move from the "If only", something's missing, and something's wrong mode of operation and into a place of mindfulness, gratitude, joy and happiness.

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Forgiveness Is A Process

International Day Of Happiness

Spring Into Action

The "If Only" Habit

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