I’ve built up a lot of things to hold a grudge about in my life: My father leaving when I was three... My psychotic, verbally and physically abusive mother... All the kids that taunted me and refused to play with me... I’ve built up a lot of things to hold a grudge about in my life:
My father leaving when I was three... My psychotic, verbally and physically abusive mother... All the kids that taunted me and refused to play with me... Then, my step father and my mother both leaving this world within a month of each other when I was 18. If I'd dealt with those emotions properly at the time, it would have saved me a lot of torment. A lot! But, alas... it was not meant to be. I wasn’t ready for it. In my youth, the concept of 'forgiveness' wasn’t really something I’d even thought about or considered. Revenge was a lot closer to my heart! Oh yes - if you fvcked me over… You were going to get what you had coming! In fact… I think revenge was really one of my favorite thought trains, you know? "I’ll show you, just you wait!!" (Ha, thought train… just came up with that!) When you are PISSED OFF and hurt….. anger is your best friend. It’s a way of directing some of that energy… and letting go of it! (This is why angry people get into fights… it’s a release of all that anger!) The amount of times I stopped myself from kicking the sh!t out of someone in my teens… Wow. If things had gone slightly different a couple of times, honestly I may have ended up in jail for life! I was THAT angry. Sigh. And I can tell you – it doesn’t feel good! AT ALL! Also: This core wound I had with my mother was the reason I was so distrusting (and angry) at women. Anyways... Over the last few years I have started to forgive…. And it is dramatically changing the quality of my life. What I’ve been discovering is that when we hold on to those negative thoughts and feelings, we are keeping a lot more than just a memory in our mind... We are holding on to the ENERGY that fuels the thought.So, in my case: anger, sadness, vengefulness, and the like. And these thoughts have an effect on our bodies. These thoughts and energies manifest as pain, disease, and often serious conditions such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, and endless other diseases. Science is catching up to this (slowly but surely.) However… what I have started to understand is that these feelings of anger, regret, etc block us at the heart. They prevent us from being able to feel. They stop us from being able to love fully. And not just others – from loving ourselves, too! The more I forgive everyone else, the more space there is to love EVERYONE! (Me included!) Why am I writing this email NOW? Because I had a profound experience a few days ago in a healing ceremony with Paul & Kathy (my close friends and very powerful healers/spiritual teachers here in Vancouver) And I FINALLY forgave my mother for the torture she put me through as a kid. I know, right? I’m a big boy. What took so long? Well, I’m realizing that releasing deep trauma takes longer that I’d like. Even though I’ve had some BIG releases before, there’s always the next level. Martine, (another one of my teachers) always says “It’s an infinity game!” And I’m finding that applies to everything. Our awakening. Our fearlessness. The expansion of our heart…. and the releasing of our trauma! Seems like life is just one big process of letting go… letting go… letting go... Ok, I’m going to get a wee personal here… During our ceremony I set my intention to truly forgiving my mother… and then her spirit showed up in the room! I just came into the recognition that she did her best. That nothing is personal. And that on some level, the upbringing I had was exactly the one I needed to SURVIVE – to become the man I am today. So – I just decided to stop holding on to any negative feelings about it. I forgave. Taking things further, I decided to honor my mother for the HUGE task she did…. She brought me into this world. Isn’t that amazing? (I mean, I’ve never given birth but it seems like quite the feat to me!) So, I thanked her for this awesome gift. I thanked her for allowing me to come and experience this thing called life. And, I believe she felt it. All of it. The forgiveness, the gratitude… and my joy at being alive. It took me a while… but it’s done. I feel like, I just have so much more space now, to love. I was always scared to really let go and love women. I was always coming from a needy place – a place of incompleteness. A place of insecurity. And they felt that… and they always ran away. Now… I really feel that I don’t need anyone to compete me. This core wound I’d been carrying around feels healed. It is 100% healed? Probably not. But it’s a big step in the right direction. It feels like such a relief….. and I feel it not just on a soul level – my body feels better, too! And so… I would invite you to go take 5 minutes to sit and ask yourself…..
I hope the answer is… TODAY! :) This theme of forgiveness, self love and letting go is a central one for my life... I’ll be talking about it this Tuesday in Vancouver (both in my Talk, and Stand up comedy show) and it will be working on it with my students on this weekend's FIRST EVER Vancouver Social Freedom & Dating bootcamp! I hope you got something out of this email, it took a while to write haha….. and I hope you get your ass out to see me soon… in the flesh! ;) There’s ONE spot left for this weekend’s bootcamp, apply here if you’re interested in joining ;)
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