Peace & Forgiveness

I believe "first within, then without", and how this fits with World Peace is that you must have Peace in your heart first and foremost. Without Peace in your heart, you will never see Peace in your life, never mind the world.

We each are co-creators of our lives and our experiences. What we feel, think, believe is what we are "putting out to the Universe", so that is what we are creating in our life's experiences.

So, for example... if I feel hurt, anger, jealousy, hatred in my heart, even if I don't let it show to the world, it is what I will get more of happening in my life. It's what I will get more reasons to feel showing up in my life.

I have had a lot of reasons in the past to feel deep hurt from experiences with my siblings, especially one sister. I have 2 choices. I can hold anger and hate towards her for the hurt that she caused me... or I can choose to forgive (her and myself, because it always is ultimately the self that allows us to be hurt by what others do), and to let go of the old pain, the old negative emotions connected with the events. Why hang on to that? She doesn't know if I am still hurting over those times, and in fact has most likely forgotten them, maybe never even knew how deeply she hurt me. Now, it becomes ME that is hurting ME with the old 'stuff' if I choose to hold on to it... if I choose to be unforgiving. So... I choose to forgive her for what she did and I choose to forgive me for 1)letting her say/do things that hurt me and not sticking up for myself more/better 2)letting the things she said hurt me (she would only say things like that if she was terribly unhappy and reacting to her own pain in a very poor and inappropriate way) 3)holding on to any of it for all these years. Forgiveness is step one to letting go of pain and hurt from the past, it's for healing ourselves of the old wounds within us.

Once we do all we need to do to heal the pains of the past, then we can feel Love for self and others, and we can feel Peace in our hearts and minds. When we can actually feel self love, then love for our fellow man, and Peace within our self, then and only then will we start to see Peace in the World.

So I urge you to look within your self, within your heart of hearts, and to start the forgiveness process in your life. Forgiveness is not about condoning what the other person did to you, it's not saying that what was done was okay or anything even near like that. It is simply choosing to let go of the negative emotions involved and to heal yourself. Forgiveness is not for "them" it is for YOU! It is for ME! Forgiveness is for the Forgiver. Forgiveness heals!! I choose to forgive, here and now. I choose to release the negative, to embrace the positive... I choose to heal my heart!

Be the change you want to see!!!