Once
you have begun to set goals that go beyond your present concept of yourself,
you may have to work hard at letting go of your past. A big part of the
readiness phase of Self Discovery is the elimination of the old to make room
for the new. This may require much forgiveness on your part, because
forgiveness is the way you release the past. You cannot change a situation if
you keep holding onto it with negative emotion. You must forgive, release, and
sacrifice feelings of condemnation in order to change any bad situation in your
life.
Forgiving yourself is as important as
forgiving others. You never need to condemn yourself or anyone else for
mistakes. You simply learn whatever you need to learn, let it go, and then move
on to create a new reality.
Unfortunately, forgiveness can seem to demand
the ultimate unwilling sacrifice. So much tempts us to hate and resent and be
angry when we feel wronged. We don't easily sacrifice those feelings, and
forgiveness almost seems to hurt when we're called upon to do it. But if you
can do it, you find release, not loss. With forgiveness, you find freedom to
create the new unhindered by past impressions.
And
perhaps what may be harder than forgiving others is forgiving yourself. The
main obstacle in forgiving yourself is guilt. If you think back to your
childhood, you'll remember that condemnation was probably the most common way
of dealing with wrongdoing. Most of us have been taught that when we did
something wrong, we should be condemned before being forgiven, and maybe not
even forgiven! Most of us were not taught that doing something wrong should be
an opportunity for education, or an opportunity for creating a better solution.
