"Feeling Stuck? Try Forgiveness."
October 16, 2009 reviewed by Mike StrawbridgeI have been feeling a bit stuck lately. Catharine Ponders in her books on health and prosperity says that the stuck feeling is often caused by unforgiveness.
I have been searching for signs of unforgiveness in my life. I noticed that I have a few small bumps on my skin. Theses according to Louise Hay are also signs of unforgiveness.
Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person I need to forgive. It only concerns me and my reaction to what happened. I have to focus on my own feelings. There is no need for me to go out and find these people and let them know that I have forgiven them, I only need to adjust my attitude about them.
I have done forgiveness work through my studies with Edwine Gaines who says that debt is a sign of unforgiveness. Since for the first time in my life I have some debt that bothers me, I see this as another sign that I need to do some forgiveness work.
I suspect that since I am mostly stuck in my financial life, that the person or thing I need to forgive is related to my career. The rest of my life seems to be going pretty well. I have most every thing I want, I just can’t seem to make money or advance my business.
So I am looking back into my past for hurts or regret to see where I might find someone who needs to be forgiven. The first one that comes to mind is my old boss at Westvaco. He and I had some philosophical differences in management style. I let him get under my skin several times and I guess I still have some anger issues toward him.
I now look back and see that there are many lessons that I can learn from that experience. I can learn to value the differences in people as Steven Covey recommends. I can follow the Ho Opona Pona method and look for what part of me was represented by that person.
His methods were tough but effective so I can see where sometimes I ma tough and inflexible in my approach to a problem. My recent knee pain is an indicator of my inflexibility. So I can be appreciative of the way he showed me the contrast between a flexible manager who respected people and his inflexible style where people were always degraded.
Another thing that I should have learned form him was not to try to please other people. He was impossible to please. I worked for him for many years before I figured this out. However I remember feeling the freedom of release when I realized that I would never please him and that I should just do what I felt was best and stop trying to please him. His words of condemnation no longer had any sting when I did not care about his opinion of me.
Strangely although he never seemed to like me or approve of my work, I always got good salary reviews and adequate compensation. He always claimed that he gave me the maximum raise he was allowed to give.
So I now release any feeling of anger or regret that may still linger in my mind. I know that he was acting just the way he thought was best to motivate me. He apparently thought it worked. However the next manager proved that I was much more productive under a different style. And that experience taught me to value the contrast.
I would never have know how much more productive I could be under a freer management system if I had not experienced the constraints of a strict and forceful manager. I can now be appreciative of both experiences. There is really nothing to forgive but since I still have feeling that the previous manager is wrong in his treatment of me I have to use forgiveness and release these feelings.
One other incident that comes to mind is my failed restaurant experience. I had gone in to business with a partner who wanted to manage a restaurant and needed financing. She had plenty of experience working at a very successful restaurant and wanted to start one of her own.
However in both our naivety she was inexperienced in the ways of business, and I did not keep enough control of the situation. I did not ask enough of the right questions.
Just a few months into the project I was forced to separate her from the business. I was left with a huge investment that I really did not want and no manager. I struggled on and threw more good money after the bad until I finally had to cut my losses and close the business.
I still blame her for the financial loss that I still have not really recovered from. So now I have to look for the good in the situation and work to forgive her.
I am sure she does not feel she did anything wrong. She was just young and impulsive and I am sure she felt she was doing the best she could do. She needed more guidance than I gave her. I needed to have been more like my old boss and controlled her situation better. However, I could have still praised her for the things she did well but stopped her from doing the things she could not handle.
I now release all feelings of anger or resentment toward her. I know that now as I enter into business partnerships and joint ventures to ask questions and be prepared for handling things should the other person not be capable of handling their end of the deal.
I am still looking to see what part of me she represented. I guess it was my impulsive side. I want to be free to spend other people’s money with no consequences. I want to be able to get by on my attractiveness and not be responsible for my actions.
I am appreciative of all the lessons I have learned. I have met a lot of interesting people along the way. I am learning to love all the various parts of myself. I know that part of this life’s journey is to experience a variety of conditions so that I will truly know what it is that I want to create more of.
As I look at forgiveness through the lens of Steve Pavlina’s Truth love and power model, I see a new way of looking at the situation. The real truth is that I was never hurt by these people. It was only my perception of the situation. I chose the consequences through my actions. I did the best I understood that the time and even if I would choose differently today, I did what I did and I have learned from it.
I have the power to release these old thought patterns and create new thoughts based on what I have learned. I have the power to not let these old thoughts hinder my forward progress.
And though love I can look at all these situations differently. I see that we are all connected and that we cannot be separated. If I meet these people on the street today, I hope that I can great them as friends or at least old teachers and thanks them for the lessons I learned. I have no reason to hate or even dislike these people. I must love them for they are part of me. They simply remind me of the parts of me that I am not too happy with.
However, now, I am free to choose how I will thing and consequently I can choose how I feel. The truth is, I have the power to let go of these old hurts and move forward in my life. I can learn the lessons that these events taught me and not have to relive them again. I have the power to love myself and know that I deserve to have a successful business.
I have many valuable skills and much valuable knowledge to share with the world. Holding back due to these past hurts would be irresponsible. I must share my skills with the world for the world will be a better place because of my work.
Mike Strawbridge October 16, 2009