Forgiveness

I started reading Spirit Junkie by Gabrielle Bernstein recently for a book club. I didn't really know what to expect out of the book, but it's description was very intriguing. Little did I know that it would open up a whole spiritual world to me, and provide so many moments of clarity when reflecting back on my own life. The book is very easy to read. It tells us her story, and how spirit came into her life in different ways and at different times. It is her journey into becoming a "spirit junkie" and miracle worker, all the while pulling teachings from A Course In Miracles  by Dr. Helen Schucman ("a complete self-study spiritual thought system" as described by their website).

In the past, like Gabrielle, I would also shy away from spiritual readings, simply because I thought they would focus on a God, or a religion. In the very beginning of this book, Gabrielle talks about how when she first started reading A Course In Miracles, and would see the words "God" or "Holy Spirit" she would get freaked out. I felt the same way! When I began reading the book, and she would instruct readers to pray, or talk about God or the Holy Spirit, I would get a squirmy feeling inside. I have never once in my life prayed, so this was a very foreign concept to me. I didn't grow up with religion in my life, my parents had always wanted me to make the choice myself when I got old enough to understand what religion was. They didn't want to choose a religion for me, they wanted me to be able to learn about them if I wanted to, and choose the one that I felt was right for me.
As a child, I often when to church on Sundays with my best friend at the time and her family, it was a part of our Saturday sleepover. In my teens, I went to church and youth group with friends I was close with at the time. When I met Mike, I would go to church with him and his family for weddings, baptisms, and other rights of passage. I never felt a spiritual connection in any of these settings. I was always polite, and followed others when they stood, and sat back down, but it just wasn't something that I felt was for me.
This book introduced me to the idea that praying doesn't have to be to "God", but that I can speak to my inner guide, the spirit within me. Once I had a grasp on that, I was able to fully embrace the book, and everything it had to offer me.

When I reached the chapter on forgiveness, I thought maybe it was going to touch on the old saying "forgive and forget", but it was about much more than that. It gave me a different way of looking at forgiveness, and since then I have looked at past and present situations differently. I was holding onto a lot of things, not willing to forgive, and wanting it to be their fault and not mine. The book taught me to forgive not only the people I was having a hard time with for things they may have done, but also to forgive myself for allowing the reality of what happened be skewed by the thoughts my ego was planting in my head. This is where I think of the term "stories". My ego was creating all these stories around the situation or around the person that I felt they were thinking about me, when in reality those were just perceptions I created in my mind that carried no truth. These perceptions were causing me to have a lot of anxiety about the situation, or the feeling that I had to defend myself constantly in order to prove I was not in the wrong. In the end I let that stuff go. It is to a point where it a)it doesn't matter anymore b)the damage to the relationships have already been done and c)it was time for me to stop living in the past and move on without that weight of negativity. What a HUGE relief. I haven't felt this free and happy in a few years.

This book really changed my life, but this chapter in particular really hit home. I am no longer consumed with the anxieties and thoughts my ego was creating to keep me in a state of fear. Fear that they won't like me, fear that they are saying bad things about me, fear that they are telling other people I'm a bad person, fear that they think I'm a bad person, the list just goes on. I don't want to live like that anymore. So I forgave myself, and those I needed to, and made the decision to move forward, away from fear. 

I choose LOVE