It’s evening time and I’m winding down and taking an overview of how I’m doing in the areas of forgiveness.
I feel the need to drop my strategy of unforgiveness, but I also know that I won’t without having a compelling reason for doing so.
Otherwise I find one reason or another for not letting it go. Michael calls this condition “addiction to pain,” addiction to behavior that has painful results.
This is a vasana or core issue that I’m dealing with and I’m having a devil of a time with it. I’m of two minds.
One wants to forgive, but not that strongly. The other doesn’t want to and sees no reason why. No one inside is making a very strong case for forgiveness or for considering the lack of it as much of an issue.
It isn’t a titanic struggle; it’s just a simple and basic unwillingness to forgive, pitted against the thought that I should. It’s simple, ordinary cognitive dissonance, inner conflict, being of a divided mind.
One state of mind will win out, representing my choice. In this case, my choice is not to forgive. As long as that’s my choice, then I act out this edginess and suspicion, distance, etc. I have an act that goes along with the decision not to forgive.
Until the penny drops, I need to stay where I’m at, open and aware. If this is where I’m stuck, let me remain here and observe.
What I see, when I look at myself, is that I like what unforgiveness brings me. Certain people stay out of my life and that’s the way I want it.
The situation reflects my choices. It isn’t an unconscious creation.
I’m swallowing poison and hoping the other person dies. But even knowing that is not powerful enough to convince me to stop being unforgiving. It’s not a compelling enough reason.
Where’s the hold-up?
Not forgiving is a vital part of my strategy of self-protection. If I forgive someone, I worry that I’m inviting them back into my life. I haven;t been able to get past this barrier, even after discussing the matter with Michael.
I may have forgiven the past but I’m not anxious to have some people back. I’m letting down my guard and I feel vulnerable.
However, this refusal to forgive becomes a nexus in the flow of energy. This is an example of where resistance begins. From this knot in consciousness, a web of conclusions, decisions, and feelings flows that result in actions and more actions, until that nexus becomes an established and solid obstacle to our flow.
Love flows around such a knot in consciousness, without the knot experiencing the love.
The hollow bamboo experiences the love – as it passes through it. (1)
For the time the nexus is operative in me, I remove myself from the flow of this sacred, true, or higher-dimensional love. That’s the price I pay.
Oooohhhhh….. That price is high. Point of decision.
No forgiveness, no flow.
OK, I don’t want to give up access to transformative love to hold onto unforgiveness. (2) That price is too high.
It took me looking into the subject to see it. That was a missing piece, a compelling reason for letting go of unforgiveness.
Once I saw a compelling reason for making the change, it didn’t take more than a second to make. It happened in a flash. One minute I have no reason. The next I have a compelling reason. One minute I’m lethargic. The next moment I’ve acted to dispel the lethargy.
And now I feel completely different. I now no longer even want to not forgive people.
Sitting in a different place, I have an altogether different outlook. Now I’m a zealot, an eager advocate of forgiveness to eliminate this nexus, this knot in consciousness, which impedes the flow of sacred, true, or higher-dimensional love.
Once lethargic and unresponsive, I’m now an eager convert.
Footnotes
(1) Love cannot be stored. Nothing is capable of storing it. It knows where it wants to go and avoids resistance, ignorance, and similar states. Or perhaps it flows right through them. I don’t know for sure. I only know that nothing impedes its flow but the denser vibrations can keep us unaware of it.
(2) Just as I used to throw all my cares and concerns into the fire in the heart back in the 1980s, I now need to throw this old strategy into the fire as well.
And not replace it with anything. The natural Self is innocent and pure and needs no intermediary, no false front, no mask to hide behind to present itself.