Tag Archives: relationship

Is Forgiveness the Answer to Your Challenge?

attractive young model on chair

by Gregory Toole

As I was searching keywords on my blogs of the past two years, surprisingly I found that I had not written about forgiveness, a topic my first spiritual teacher had at the core of her teaching. Rev. Elouise Oliver would ask students who came to her with any issue, “Who do you need to forgive?” Whether the issue was a health challenge, an off-track relationship, or a financial difficulty, the question was always the same, “Who do you need to forgive?”

Lack of forgiveness manifests itself in a wide variety of ways in our lives. One thing we can be sure of is that it will manifest itself in some unpleasant form, eventually. Essentially, lack of forgiveness is holding onto resentment for a prolonged period of time. It does not mean we never get angry or never feel resentful. These are normal emotions experienced temporarily by healthy people.

There was another minister who told the story of a woman in a wheelchair who showed up to a foundational spiritual class. She told the minister that she wanted to walk again. Upon reflection, he told the woman that they would start their healing work with the practice of forgiveness. Much to the minister’s wonder, the woman said she’d rather stay in a wheelchair than forgive. Apparently there was some deep hurt she was unwilling to let go of. Whether she would have walked again is unknown, but the story points to how much we can become attached to anger and resentment.

Usually when we refuse to forgive it is because we mistakenly believe that forgiveness is for the benefit of the other person. While the other person may derive some benefit from our forgiveness, the primary beneficiary of forgiveness is the one doing the forgiving. It is we who engage in the practice of forgiveness who are freed from the negative effects of holding onto anger and resentment.

Another common misperception about forgiveness is that we are condoning the behaviors that led to the feelings of anger, betrayal, or resentment. This is not true at all. The behavior itself may have been reprehensible. The question is, are we going to hold ourselves in a prison because we believe we are justified in our anger. Holding onto resentment has been compared to drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

We are responsible for keeping our own energy field open and flowing with love. No doubt, people will do things to us, sometimes horrible things, and yet it is up to us in the longer term whether we will allow anything to pollute our energy field. Keeping love flowing in our energy field maintains us in the flow of divine goodness, such as prosperity, health, and loving relationships. Holding onto anger and resentment has the opposite effect, eventually causing blockage in our energy field, and therefore blockage in our connection to source energy.

In short, holding onto anger and resentment for prolonged periods of time will begin to manifest as poor health, shortages in our financial affairs, unfulfilling relationships, or all of these. The master teacher, Jesus, is quoted in Matthew 5:25, “Agree with thine adversary quickly,” which to me is a message of forgiveness. Keeping our energy field clean maintains us in the flow of divine harmony and wholeness.

The choice is clear. Let us begin today to open up the channels of love more fully. Let us forgive easily and enjoy life to its fullest.

Enjoy the journey.

Next week: The Practice of Forgiveness (how to do it)

Lasting Relationships – Part Two: Is It Over or Time to Grow?

by Gregory Toole

In last week’s blog, I wrote, “The requirement of growth comes from the very nature of relationship. Relationship shines the light on all the dark places of fear, insecurity, unworthiness, and those places we’d just rather not go at all…Then, relationship, by its very nature takes us right to the doorstep of those places.”

As I finished writing that blog, I imagined someone asking the question, “How do I know if I need to grow, or if the relationship is really over?” The question became the inspiration for this week’s blog.

The answer to this question is not an easy one, and surely does not break into any rote formula. However, it is a great question that we can take into our heart and into our contemplation.

When is a relationship over? Well, the simple answer is that it’s over when we say it’s over, and not a minute sooner. We ultimately determine for ourselves if the relationship continues to serve us. Ultimately, it is about serving our soul’s path.

One way to see if the relationship serves our soul’s path is to let go of our human will and surrender to our soul’s highest calling. We could use this affirmation: “I am willing to stay, if that is for the highest, and I am willing to go, if that is for the highest.” To surrender it to our soul’s highest calling is to let go of all the worldly reasons for staying or going such as:

  • I’m really comfortable in this relationship.
  • It would be too hard to find someone else.
  • We’ve been together so long.
  • I don’t know how it will affect my financial situation.

The list could go on and on, and the main point is to clear the way for us to hear what the intuition of our heart wants to whisper to us.

Here are examples of how a relationship that serves our soul’s highest calling might feel:

  • I feel the relationship is contributing to my growth.
  • I feel valued by my partner.
  • I feel really seen by my partner in a way that expands me.
  • I feel the relationship calls me to be my best.
  • My main reasons for being in the relationship feel clean, healthy, and affirming of what’s important to me.

When the relationship is not serving our soul’s highest calling, the growth we are called to involves letting go – releasing the current form of the relationship. When the relationship is serving our soul’s highest calling, the challenges that come forth are the opportunities for growth.

May all of your relationships call you into the highest expression of your soul.

Namasté,
Gregory

Lasting Relationships – Part One: The Willingness to Grow

by Gregory Toole

Lasting relationships, particularly those of the romantic type, seem quite elusive for many. Even short-term relationships may be elusive for many. Relationships, if they are to be truly meaningful, require a degree of vulnerability, risk, and growth.

Being hurt in a former relationship can greatly diminish our possibilities for future relationships, depending on what we internalize from the previous experience. For example, in my early thirties I began to wonder why it had been about ten years since I had been in a meaningful relationship. As I peeled back the proverbial layers of the onion, looking deeply into what was the underlying cause, I remembered an experience I had ten years before, while I was in college. I had fallen in love and found myself heartbroken when the relationship ended. The pain seemed too great to bear at the time, and I vowed never to be hurt like that again. What I really had set in motion, unbeknownst to me, was to never get into a meaningful relationship again.

Once I saw this clearly in my early thirties, I realized I was stronger than I had been in my twenties, and the decision I made in my twenties to protect myself no longer served me. As I began to allow myself to be open and vulnerable again, willing to fall in love, accepting there was a risk I could get hurt emotionally, I opened the possibility for meaningful relationship, which occurred for me.

Then I learned there is something more than just being vulnerable and willing to take a risk. Once the fear of being hurt was gone, there was awareness that in order to move forward, to have the relationship last, one must be willing to grow. While one could probably maintain a fairly shallow relationship without being required to grow very much, anything meaningful would require growth every step of the way.

The requirement of growth comes from the very nature of relationship. Relationship shines the light on all the dark places of fear, insecurity, unworthiness, and those places we’d just rather not go at all. The latter are those places within us that we’ve built a wall around, or more like a fortress, for the very purpose of making sure no one or nothing would take us there. Then, relationship, by its very nature takes us right to the doorstep of that place and says, “This is the doorway to that meaningful relationship you want.” At this moment we might be tempted to begin bargaining, saying, “No, I’m willing to go anywhere but there. I’ll do anything else, but not that.”

All of this bargaining is to no avail because love is designed to transform us; to bring those dark places into the light and free us from the fortress we have built that ultimately has limited us. Love is here to tell us we are bigger than our fears, insecurities, and beliefs of unworthiness. Love is here to invite us into that greater experience of life that is beyond even our own imagination.

If we are willing to breathe into our deepest shadows, face them with the love of a partner, and bravely walk through them, we invite the deep healing and freedom that love offers us. Then, not only does our relationship last, it also frees us to experience the fullest possibility for our lives.

See next week’s blog for Part Two:

            Lasting Relationships – Part Two: Is It Over or Time to Grow?

Namasté,
Gregory

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