The Benefits of Forgiveness

So even if you have experienced a critical, abusive or neglected environment, you still have the freedom now as an adult to choose to expect only positive events in your life. You have the right and the ability to change your conditioning regardless of your original heredity or environment. The past will continue to repeat itself until you decide to change — not simply express or act out — the feelings resulting from your beliefs about your bad experiences.

This change in expectations to make you (the victim) well and whole starts by accepting that forgiveness is NOT about hatred or punishment of, nor anger with, the offender; nor is forgiveness even dependent upon the offender's acknowledgement of or remorse for your pain.

You can only heal from being a victim by refusing, rejecting, and replacing your feelings about being a victim. You actually must want to change your feelings and then consciously select your beliefs in order to have any permanent improvements in your life. It's that simple — and that difficult!

So your freedom to choose to live a happy, peaceful, and contented life requires healing on a physical, cellular level by YOU consciously changing your core beliefs and feelings about your negative experiences. You cannot be at peace about anyone else that's touched your life until you are at peace with yourself. Continually defending your boundaries will manifest as the chemistry of envy, pain, sorrow, fear or lonliness in cell memory.

Let go of your anger, fear and pain from past, negative experiences, stop trying to bury or ignor your feelings, refuse to see yourself as a victim, never treat anyone else like you were treated, and accept that you can't change the past — only the present.

Focus on letting go of your feelings associated with past, negative situations by quietly unraveling the threads of emotion acquired from your experiences. Find which beliefs are filtering your view of your reality. Without the belief, the feeling causing a specific behavior will not occur, so consciously choose to reject or replace those beliefs which is no longer needed or good for you. Don't give up and return to allowing your negative beliefs to run your life — be patient, persistent, and continue to examine the beliefs behind your feelings and behaviors until you repattern your cell memory to fit your adjusted belief system. Be gentle with yourself as you continue to reject your old beliefs and feelings.

Once you experience the joyous release attained from forgiveness, you'll become able to quickly replicate the process in the future. You'll also get much better at recognizing opportunities for choices because your body now craves the effect from positive feelings.

There is both an art and a science to life, learning when to go with your gut and when to over-ride your erroneous instinct. Frequently examine and adjust your beliefs and their associated feelings in order to evaluate and refine your behavior. You always have the freedom to choose to reject or replace any belief and to ultimately change how you feel and behave. You will know you have truly forgiven when you can remember an unpleasant incident with indifference.