The Forgiveness Factor

How do you react when someone wrongs you? Some people will yell, scream and rage, I will usually disappear off in a huffy cloud of self-righteousness and refuse to speak to them (I'm quite passive-aggressive sometimes). Everyone has their preferred form of sweet revenge!

But who are we really punishing? Harboring anger and resentment is actually damaging our own spirits and even physical health, not theirs! Darn it!

Of course there are some things that we can never forgive and we certainly don't have to. But most of the day-to-day grudges we have with people are really best let go of - because they are only hurting us and holding us back from being our true, open-hearted and loving selves.

This exercise really helps me to forgive others and myself, by recognizing that we all hurt each other at times, no matter how hard we want to avoid it... its just one of the less-cool side effects of being a human. None of us can escape being hurt or hurting others sometimes. But to forgive is to stop the hurt right now in this moment, a beautiful thing to experience...


How its Done:

Firstly identify someone who you are having trouble forgiving and what exactly they have done to upset you. Say in your heart, "I'm ready to forgive you."

Then remember a situation in which you hurt someone you loved in the past and you still feel bad about it. Say in your heart, "I'm ready to forgive myself too."

Cycling back and forth between forgiving your enemy for their mistakes and then forgiving yourself for your own past mistakes is the secret to this formula so keep repeating it until you feel a real shift in your heart. It can bring up some painful emotion at first but I always find myself eventually smiling and feeling a tonne of sympathy for the whole human race and our human condition!

It really works for me, I hope it works for you too... please let me know!

See-the-Bigger-Picture Exercise

Our screen-oriented culture is training our eyes to work largely in foveal vision; focused directly ahead, in tunnel-vision. This becomes a problem because we literally lose track of the bigger-picture, becoming disproportionately anxious and concerned over the small details that have preoccupied our minds.

Peripheral vision is about watching what’s happening at the edges – the periphery – of your field of vision, and has been proven to have powerful calming and mind-enhancing effects.

Emotional Coach Andy Smith explains,
 "While the value of peripheral vision seems to have been largely forgotten in modern society, it has a long track record in older cultures. Shamanic cultural traditions such as Hawaiian Huna used peripheral vision as a way into altered states. Martial arts encourage peripheral vision as a means to relaxed alertness. Carlos Castaneda’s books on Mexican shamanism refer to peripheral vision as a way of ‘stopping the world’: shutting down the internal dialogue or ‘inventory’ with which, Castaneda maintains, we create our everyday consensus reality."

This exercise will refresh tired screen-eyes and uses the power of our peripheral vision to balance perception, calm stress and anxiety, and enhance awareness.

Try it out and feel the interesting effect it has... :)