Waking up in Phoenix felt good. It was warm and green. When I took Whisper on a walk I was amazed at how beautiful and soft the grass was! I felt like I haven't seen green grass like that in months!
On the agenda for today was a lunch meeting with Topher Williamson, a local Phoenixite (Did I just make up a word?) who I have now met twice -- once at the Awake and Empowered Expo this year and again in Sedona at Ethann and Micheila's workshop. We had a lovely conversation about the spiritual scene in Phoenix, his journey, my journey, and how we'll be getting together after the Thanksgiving holiday. He also is putting me in touch with some amazing-sounding locals that I can hopefully team up with to do a group activation and a talk about Unconditional Love before the Christmas holiday.
After a long afternoon walk, some grocery shopping and other odds and ends, I had a great session with Monelli (who gave me permission to discuss here.) Previously I had given her some homework to create lists of the people she had forgiven, she needed to forgive, and for those that she had forgiven but still had a negative feeling toward them.
We started with the parent that wronged her throughout her childhood. I had her picture her mother apologizing to her for all that she had done. It felt good! She embraced the feeling and I did an activation to help release some of the burden that she was carrying. But she didn't feel a huge release. Just a small one.
Do you know why? Because receiving an apology comes from the outside. As much as we want those who have wronged us to apologize for what they've done, it simply isn't enough. It's hardly anything! It has to come from within.
What is an apology anyway? It's not simply acknowledging the wrongs that had been done. Because if someone came to you after doing something that hurt you and they said, "I acknowledge that I hurt you," that wouldn't feel good enough, would it? Saying I'm sorry is not just an acknowledgement. It's saying, "I feel bad for what I've done to you."
Oh, Interesting! So what does that mean? It means we are requesting -- we are wanting -- our wrong-doer to have a negative experience. To suffer! We are asking that the other person have regret. Remorse. We want them to judge themselves, and judge themselves harshly! And when we say that we want an apology before we consider forgiving someone, we are saying we are dependent on someone else feeling badly before we are willing to start to feel better.
We are saying, "When you feel crappy, I'll finally consider feeling better. Maybe."
That sure doesn't sound like unconditional love to me! For you or for the wrong-doer. It sounds painful all around. Because when our own happiness and well-being is dependent on other people, we are giving our self-healing power to someone else. And someone else who probably isn't very reliable in this area. That's why it wasn't enough. More had to be done!
We now needed to actually do the forgiving! So I had her do an exercise to help envision it. This had a much larger impact, and the activation released even more of the heavy burden! After this, Monelli said she finally felt like she forgave her mother. Time will tell if we need to do more work in this area, but I think some major progress was made today.
Monelli and I covered more in this session, but I'll save that for another day. This was an important first step toward forgiveness. Nice work, Monelli! That's not easy to do, but you did it!
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