We’ve talked for a bit about affirmations, but as we get into that, I also want to talk about self-forgiveness.
Some of us tend to beat ourselves up entirely too much, and then wonder why we struggle with our self-worth. Sometimes, we do not let ourselves win because we do not believe we can. Guilt and shame are really the two culprits in the inability to forgive ourselves. In other words, if we are feeling guilty or ashamed, we need to go within and find out why so we can return to our inner nature – where we can be innocent and accepted.
There are many things that happen in our lives that can bring us into and add to the layer of guilt and shame that we learned during our formative years. You may enter into relationship and feel you are letting the other person down. Or maybe you feel you aren’t doing your best at your job, or you are afraid to move forward for fear of failing. Many of these feelings stem from the programming we received as children.
Guilt and shame can be extremely debilitating and much of it is unconscious. It’s your Bubble Talk. It’s like the thought bubbles that appear over the cartoon characters’ heads. These unconscious thoughts are what keep you from getting what you want in life. You may be doing amazing affirmations or consciously thinking about your heart’s desires, and then confused by why it isn’t appearing or appearing fast enough. It’s that little bubble you are unaware of; those unconscious thoughts saying “I’m not good enough” or “I always fail” that do not align with our conscious thoughts and keep us spinning our wheels which in turn keeps us from moving forward.
I like to use the analogy of the gas and the brake pedals on your car. The gas is your desire; what you want; what you dream about. If you are driving your car and it wants to go somewhere and you put your foot on the gas, off you go. You move forward towards that goal or desire. The brake is your resistance. Your belief that you can’t have what you want. The fear that you will fail. Often, people drive around with their foot on both the gas and the brake at the same time. Obviously, you won’t get very far. You’ll be stuck spinning your wheels wondering why you aren’t getting anywhere.
What many of us do when we realize we are stuck is let go of the gas because we all know how to let go of what we want. We all know how to settle and just say, “never mind, that wasn’t for us; it wasn’t meant to be”. So we let go of the gas, even though there is a way to recognize and let go of the brake, that resistance; and that is to let go of our guilt, fear and shame about ourselves. All of these things can keep our brake on and unconsciously keep us stuck even with our foot on the gas. With the tools I’m going to share, you’ll be able to release the brake, let go of resistance and find yourself going 100 mph towards your goals and desires in no time.
The mystic teacher Babaji says “We are all actors in our own scripts. We are the writer, director, producer and the lead character for your script. Everyone else plays in your creation exactly as you direct them to”. We are all actors for each other, but this can apply to ourselves as well. We have a little actor in our heads saying, “this is how I’m supposed to perform. This is what I’m supposed to do in my life. I should have XYZ by this age” We should do this and we’re supposed to do that. Now, all of these “supposed to’s” and “should’ves”, come from outside influences beginning when we were very young. Our parents, grandparents, teachers, culture, TV and religion all bombarded us from birth saying, “Here’s how you’re supposed to act. Here’s what you’re supposed to want. Here’s how you’re supposed to be.” So if you think that you’ll be poor and robbed and cheated, an actor will show up and oblige you because you’re the director and the producer. If you think you’re ill and you’re not good enough, then you will attract disease because your body has to act out your script. Or, an actor will come along and beat you up or use you because your script says you’re not good enough. These scripts are coming from an unconscious belief that you may have about yourself and you don’t even know you have it.
If you recognize that these people that you hold grudges against, including yourself, are actors in your own creation, then it’s really easy to forgive them and yourself. In the past when you’ve forgiven someone, you may have said “Hey you’ve done wrong to me.” Or maybe you point the finger at yourself and beat yourself up so much that you self-sabotage. In reality what you might be saying to yourself is, “I want you to know that I don’t want to hold a grudge, so I’m going to try and forget that horrible thing you did.” Such a thought affirms an illusion. It gives power to a mistake that anybody could do harm to you or you could do harm to yourself without some form of unconscious consent.
Now is the time to find each of these characters and forgive them in your life. Just as importantly, it may be time to fire some of them from your movie & attract new actors with a new script.
I really want you to work on identifying these good actors in a bad script this week, and when we meet again next week, I’ll tell you more about rewriting the script that those bad actors were reading!
