Forgiveness: The only real job you and I have

Forgiveness is art and a science.  Art because it takes creativity.  Science because if stimulates physiological and neurological healing and change. That aside, I believe in my deepest core that forgiveness is the most important and meaningful task you and I have in our lives.  Why?

Forgive is for-giving love

I’m not a religious guy.  Spiritual, yes, but not religious.  When I’m sharing with you about forgiveness, it is meant to be a tool that anyone can use, religious or not.  It is most effective when used over and over and over every day, to ensure you and I create a life experience filled with love, happiness, contentment, and fulfillment.  To flip that, it means that forgiveness results in a life with minimal guilt, anger, fear, and attack.

Want that?

Example:

Years ago, Jamie and Brad (my sons) and I enrolled in a real estate course.  It helped us learn about real estate and how to capitalize on the market swings to provide safe comfortable homes for families (cash flow through rentals), and to buy, fix, and re-sell homes (for quick profit).  One of the key tenets was to utilize other peoples’ money to leverage our own.  Even better was to structure deals with zero downpayment, so returns were infinite.

We became good friends with our instructors, who were actively practicing what they preached – and doing exceptionally well.  We trusted them and lent them money for several projects which quickly provided extremely healthy returns for us.

They embarked on a couple very large residential construction projects, rather than their tried-and-true smaller renovation model.  Because of past performance and the promise of very healthy returns, we lent them a stupidly large sum of our hard-earned cash.

Guess where this is going? 

The economy took a tumble, the real estate markets tumbled, their other lenders foreclosed, and eventually our mentors went bankrupt.

We were angry, felt helpless, and fell deeply into the blame-game.  Our money was gone and it was their fault.  I stewed and fretted and created massive horror stories about these scoundrels.  My thoughts and behaviour put extreme tension on our marriage, it affected our family, and it filtered into my work relationships.

Forgive is for-giving love

Finally, I fessed up to the fact that I made my decisions and it was up to me to own my results.  At that point, I was able to implement forgiveness.

At first, I thought I was forgiving them and should call them and tell them I had forgiven them.  Yet I realized the most important task was to forgive myself for my ego attachment to the money, for beating myself up for my decisions, for the nasty stories I had created about them, and for wasting precious minutes and days of my life in despair.  As I practiced forgiveness, I remembered to see them as totally capable, resourceful and beautiful human beings – my friends.  And I began to remember who I am and love myself again.

Immediately, joy and lightness filled me.  I was able to smile and laugh and rebuild trust in my strained relationships.  I haven’t forgotten, but I have forgiven.

Forgive is for-giving love

That was one of many examples.  Since this is science, I’ve been experimenting ever since.  Every time I experience a situation where I feel “off” (pissed-off, ticked-off, angry, frustrated, guilty, overwhelmed, beat-up, etc.), I take a deep breath and forgive myself for the stories I’ve built and offer love instead of attack – love to myself and love to others (that’s art). Forgiveness is transformational, when I apply it.

I’m married, have sons, parents, siblings, live in community, and work with others.  S….. happens.  Everyday I have many situations where I can experiment with this, and I do.  Everyday, and a large percentage of everyday, I experience happiness, contentment, fulfillment and love.

What about you?  What do you experience?

Forgive is for-giving love

I invite you to consider your job, profession, or roles in life.  Why not give yourself the title of CFO, Chief Forgiveness Official, and make this your number one priority for just TODAY?  There is no need to tell anyone what you are doing, just do it for yourself and notice what you experience as a result.

Forgive is for-giving love

From personal experience, I know this can be tough, yet the rewards are worth the effort.  So, if you’re finding this a challenge, I invite you to comment below, or email me (Dan@DanAndCarol.com) to introduce yourself and we can have a conversation.  You’ll be glad you did.

Forgive is for-giving love