While I am on a short sabbatical, I will be posting a few of my favorite blogs as well as readers’ favorite blogs.  I am already receiving lots of great inspiration during this time of reflection.  Definitely feel as if it is meant to be.  Excited to report back soon.

This topic was not one I had planned to write a post on, at least not this week. And, like a shot out of the blue, the way it always appears to happen, more than a few clients and friends brought up situations that are troubling them where there has been a lot of inappropriate behavior, or at least the perception of inconsiderate or abusive behavior. And, I could tell, in each case, that this “stuff,” which had all occurred in the past, was seriously interfering with the purity of their vibration right now. Well, if now is where all of our power lies and we can’t create more than one day’s worth of negative momentum (thanks to the blessing of sleep) why do we let this “stuff” stay in our heads and interfere with what is really important to us?

Before I go on, I will admit to doing this myself, on many occasions, but now I more clearly see the futility of it, and understand so well how it interferes with me living the expansive life that I want; so I’m becoming less and less willing to allow thoughts about things that have gone wrong loop around in my head. I’m becoming less willing, and working on becoming unwilling, to entertain unforgiving thoughts. Let’s say I’m expecting to become completely unwilling to let blame and resentment of anyone occupy space in my head. That real estate is too valuable.

In many cases, the people who we think have wronged us are people who were, or are, close to us who have done things which have taken advantage of that closeness and vulnerability to hurt us. And, only someone who is really close to us can inflict that kind of damage. In other cases, it is we who are being blamed by someone else for doing something or not doing something we should have been doing, and they are finding it hard to forgive us. Even more importantly, we may be finding it impossible to forgive ourselves for this supposed inappropriate behavior or not upholding some end of the bargain in the relationship.

Knowing what I know now and what most of you savvy readers know: (1) vibration is everything; and (2) therefore, our thoughts, our mood, our feelings are everything, as they constitute our vibration, I think we need to do a bit more thinking about forgiveness and a little less beating up on ourselves if we want any improvement in our circumstances.

In “How to Allow,” I put forward at the outset, before offering any techniques for raising our vibration, that we must absolutely commit to choosing the best thoughts we are capable of and to making peace with where we are at this moment. These are our most important foundations for learning to be deliberate creators. I think it’s pretty clear that failing to forgive ourselves or others, seriously weakens either of those critical foundations for Allowing our Well-Being.

I will also throw this out there for consideration, because I’ve heard it expressed during seminars, that the very notion of forgiveness, in general, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s been said that the fact that we are touting having forgiven someone, means we still, deep down, are thinking about how their behavior needs to be forgiven and still haven’t completely cleaned up our vibration on that issue. It was suggested that forgetting about it would be a better choice (vibrationally) than forgiving the guilty party. That does make sense, if it is possible, but I know that in many cases, completely forgetting something which really hurt us in some way is almost impossible. But, if you can forget it, by all means, that would be my top choice. That leaves you without that issue clouding your vibration in any way, giving you more freedom to be a deliberate creator of your experiences.

When I can’t completely forget it and still feel anger or blame or resentment, or maybe all of the above, I try really, really hard to remember words I read by Wayne Dyer, which had a profound effect on me at the time. His concept of forgiveness has been indelibly etched in my head. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, that whatever anyone has done to us, whatever their behavior was that was totally inappropriate and perhaps seems unforgivable, was the best that they could do at the time.  I know, I know, when someone has done something, which is really despicable, my immediate response used to be, “Oh yeah, they could’ve done lots better.” But Dyer went on to say, by definition, if they could have done better they would have. That’s all they had in them at the time. That is as evolved as they were and all they could come up with in that set of circumstances. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have done something differently. It was just ALL THEY HAD AVAILABLE. When you think of the bad behavior in this way, it seems almost nonsensical to keep blaming them for not doing more than they were capable of doing.

I’m not saying this is a completely easy task to master. It often feels easier to blame than to forgive. It usually seems like the person in no way deserves forgiveness. But, this is when we must realize that this exercise in forgiveness is for us, not for them. They have probably moved on and don’t care about the havoc they wreaked or may even be completely unaware of just how inappropriate their actions were. When you think of it that way, we’re continuing to punish ourselves by thinking about their bad behavior rather than letting it go. So, they’re still getting away with abusing us. These are strong arguments for letting these things go, for choosing our own happiness over maddening thoughts that serve no useful purpose.

Perhaps even more than learning to forgive or forget about people who have wronged us, what has really come to my attention most recently with clients and friends is the importance of self-forgiveness. You would be surprised, or maybe you wouldn’t, how many really good, kind, generous people are beating themselves up constantly for not meeting some self-imposed standard or requirement someone else believes they have failed to meet. There are people who feel they didn’t do enough to comfort a loved one before they made their transition. And, often they didn’t have the information or skill to change anything about the way the loved one was treated by the medical profession. Yet it haunts them. And, now we know that the loved one is in a beautiful place and would never want any of us to beat ourselves up for anything, especially that difficult situation.

There are wonderful mothers and fathers who have gone through a difficult time with their spouses and blame themselves for either failing as a spouse or not being their for their children. Yet with what was going on in their circumstances at the time, they could not have done better than they did. They did all they could do from where they were at the time.

The examples of self-blame could go on for pages, yet it is a rare person who doesn’t find some fault with themselves, despite the fact that they were doing the very best that they could from where they were then. We know more now, especially those of us who have become more aware of our role in creating our life circumstances. We very likely would do better now in most circumstances, yet we continue to beat ourselves up for decisions we made when we had an old, less-evolved vibration.

And, particularly crazy, yet we do it, is that thing we do when we know so much about the Law of Attraction and Allowing, and yet we fault ourselves for not doing enough or doing it right, or doing as much in the way of a spiritual practice as other people are doing. This is almost funny in the sense that we are undermining our own vibration by faulting ourselves for not working harder to have a high vibration.

So, I am encouraging a huge dose of forgiveness, forgetting, and releasing old stories. Whoever they were, those jerks, did the best they could do with what they had in them. And, we, our imperfect selves, are doing the best we can with where we are at this moment. If we were perfect it would all be over. There would be no more expansion, no growth; we would stop drawing through us the life force that causes us to live this life as a physical being. There has to be some contrast in our lives for our lives to be interesting and expansive. I’m definitely in favor of a little less contrast but not less interesting expansion.

If you could find your worst thought about yourself, something you blame yourself for, and you could completely let it go, never think of it again, how would you feel? Really, please, stop and imagine this scenario. Really let it sink in.  You could never, ever think this thought again.  Would you feel like a ton of bricks had been lifted off of your back, much lighter, freer, more happy? Wow, and that could only lead to more thoughts that are lighter, happier, uplifting . . . and you could share that vibration with others who would in turn feel lighter, happier, uplifted.

I can’t think of a single good reason to keep beating ourselves up or allowing the misdeeds of others to take up valuable space in our heads. That is all old news. Our vibration and what we are creating is based on this powerful now moment. Let’s just keep doing the best that we can and giving ourselves and others a little bit more of a break. I just don’t see any downside to this gentle easing up on ourselves and others. I only see more happiness, compassion and appreciation. And, we’ve learned that self-love, self-appreciation, is the foundation of all happiness.

There isn’t a good enough reason not to love our imperfect selves for all we try to do from where we are right now, always doing the best that we can.