Chapter 7: Forgiveness, the Miracle Key Step 4: The Umbrella of Love

Actually It’s About Love! inspires people to find their way back to love. This book is for women who have lost their passion, or do not know what that is. It is for people who, on the surface, appear

 

 

 

ACTUALLY,

 IT’S ABOUT LOVE

 

BY CELINE HEALY

 

 

Chapter 7: Forgiveness, the Miracle Key

Step 4: The Umbrella of Love

 

"Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you more accident prone."

         �"Zen saying

 

Congratulations! At this stage, you have built a wonderful house. Working from your solid spiritual foundation, you have identified the framework of your Life Path and life purposes and clarified your natural talents base. You have found your identity, who you are. Around it all, you have put up the strong fence of your goals. Now, to protect and nurture all that you have built, you need to hold up a big umbrella of love! This principle springs from Step 1�"your spiritual foundation.  In fact, the umbrella of love is the key tool of forgiveness, and it is, really, the umbrella for all of the other steps.

 

In Chapter 3, I talked about A Course in Miracles as my own spiritual foundation. One of the keys to spiritual advancement I discussed was the notion of separation�"separation from God and therefore from our own spirits. This separation creates a perpetual underlying guilt that we tend to project onto others, creating lives troubled by anger, resentment, self-doubt and isolation. But it is only the misperception of this separation from God that leads us to be separated from our own inner selves, and therefore from one another, as we live in separate bodies, with separate families, separate countries and so on. The underlying truth is that we are all one.

 

Because we have become so separated from each other we often fail to see the beauty within others. Instead, we tend to attack others as though they have sinned against us. We play the blame game and hold grudges, ensnaring them and ourselves in an endless negativity trap. The only way to be free of this trap�"the only way to free ourselves and those around us�"is through the principle of forgiveness. If we understand that we are all one and that God loves us all equally, and we practice forgiveness at every opportunity, then we will come to see others and ourselves as equals. Only through forgiveness can we come to understand love: of ourselves and of others. So you see, it really is�"actually, about love!

 

In this chapter we will explore exactly what forgiveness is and how it can lead you back to love. Fundamentally, forgiveness allows us to let go of negative emotions we may be holding against our self or another person. We see the recipient of our anger for who they really are and accept them totally. In essence, forgiveness allows us to see the other person as ourselves. It enables us to see that we are all one. Forgiveness is ultimately a change in perception. Just as a miracle is a change in perception. This is the key: forgiveness invites more miracles into your life. Only through the practice of forgiveness can you open your life up to receive the miracles that await you!

 

How can you achieve forgiveness? First, you must learn to come from a place of acceptance�"of yourself and others. Then, you must practice releasing the negative bond that exists between you and another�"or between you and your inner self. Now, as I mentioned earlier, forgiveness does not mean that you must welcome the other person into your life as a friend. Forgiveness, ultimately, is for you. It is a move towards true freedom. When you release the hold that the ego thought system has over you, then you release your mind at the same time. You free your mind up for more productive tasks. If you continue to hold onto the negative thought or emotion, you are trapping energy in two ways. First, your own energy is trapped�"which prevents you from living your life to the fullest. Not only that, the other person’s energy is caught up in this negative loop as well. Neither of you can be truly free to access your energetic resources and contribute meaningfully to the world. By freeing yourself of anger and resentment, you do a huge service to all of mankind. Stopping the pattern of negativity allows both you and the object of your resentment to become engaged in more productive pursuits.

 

I spent much of my life trying to understand my deep-rooted feelings of isolation, of separation from others and myself. It wasn’t simply aloofness. I am far from being an aloof person! I just felt on a deep level that I did not belong here. I have been through dozens of seminars, presentations, webinars and e-courses in my attempts to find that elusive key�"the key that would unlock the door to these feelings of isolation. The motivational speakers I used to see would espouse things like: “let go and let God!” Or: “everything you need you already have!” And so on. These catchy phrases didn’t explain my profound sense of separation and I used to look at them in wait for the explanation. I personally don't believe they really understood what they were saying. If they did, they certainly did not know how to explain it.

 

Finally, through reading A Course in Miracles I found the answers! The key to happiness was right here inside me all the time, but I didn't know how to get to it. Now I finally understand what forgiveness is and what it can mean for one’s spiritual life as well as one's physical life.

 

As we discussed in Chapter 3, A Course in Miracles reveals that Christ, mankind’s representative, began thinking of separating from God, his father. These thoughts of separation are the original source of the ego mind. This ego mind of ours is now separated from its source�"God, our original essence, truth and love. Hence, the ego mind keeps us in a place of non-love, which we call fear or guilt. This underlying guilt about the separation from divinity causes the ego mind to project guilt onto others. That is why, when we are operating just from the ego mind, we tend to see other people as wrong, as having sinned against us.  Often, we also experience feelings of anger with ourselves because of this deep-seated guilt.

 

When we are coming from this place, we are not seeing the world as it truly is. Instead, our minds are filled with all kinds of misperceptions based on the underlying guilt from the separation. These misperceptions are made even worse by our learned behaviours and beliefs from our upbringing and environment. We project our perceptions onto those around us, seeing the negativity that the ego mind wants to see. This way of perceiving only leads to lack�"lack of truth, lack of love. Instead of “perceiving” all the time, then, what if we came from a place of knowing? If we came from a place of knowingness, we would see the love and truth in others. If we set aside the ego mind, with its painful guilt over the separation, we would only see what is really there�"the reality that we are all connected and that the Universe contains all the abundance we need.

 

The ego mind was created to cover up our enormous sense of guilt about being different �" and therefore separate�"from God. The ego mind fears that if you really look inside yourself you will see that there is nothing to be afraid of. So, the ego mind keeps you from doing this by maintaining a perpetual negative loop. Under the control of the ego mind, you are cut off from the right mind, also called the Holy Spirit. You are cut off from your Higher Self, out of communication. Trapped in the wrong mind, life seems negative, confusing and futile. In reality, the Universe is quite the opposite; it is, fundamentally, a place of love and abundance. A shift in your perception is all that is required to experience this.

 

How does the ego mind keep you from getting back to your Source mind? By telling you that everything that is happening to you comes from all of those bad people outside of you. Rather than looking inside ourselves, we project our guilt and the corresponding negative thoughts onto others. The ego mind’s job is to recognise sin in others. In this way we project our guilt externally. The main tool of the ego mind to keep you externally focused is anger. When you get angry you attack or you defend. As soon as you do this, someone becomes a victim. The victim’s job is to blame external forces, people and situations for their lot in life. So instead of releasing these negative thoughts and feelings, the victim remains trapped in rage and blame, missing out on the real state of healing and abundance that is just beyond the veil of his illusion. The external projections of the ego mind’s fear manifest as: anger, bitterness, resentment, depression and repression, self-punishment, doubt, judgment, any sense of lack, shame and guilt.

 

By maintaining anger, you become easily hooked into a web of stories to support that anger. Sometimes others support you in your stories; they agree with you that you have a right to be angry. The truth is: No one has a right to be angry with one of God's creations. When you are angry with another human, you are angry with God. You are angry with yourself. Think of all the ramifications. As you practice more anger and feel more justified in maintaining the rage, just notice how and what your life becomes. You may constantly carry around resentment; you may feel sad or depressed, helpless and hopeless. Carrying these dark feelings all the time, you may well have stopped attracting abundance and started attracting lack. When we attract lack, it seems like we are always poor, just barely managing to hold it together.

 

If you find that you are unable to manifest all the good that you desire in your life, it means that you are holding negativity in your being. This negativity may be in the form of old resentments, misperceptions about another, old belief systems, emotional traumas or perhaps a combination of all these things. Only when you release this negativity will the cloud of doom lift off of you. Through forgiveness, you will begin to attract the love and abundance of the Universe!

 

 

Unfortunately, the concept of true forgiveness often goes against the grain of what humans have been taught. Based on our own internal perceptions and the general rules of society, we automatically feel attacked if someone does wrong by us. As soon as we feel attacked, we are in defence mode and we start slinging back the negativity. Our opponent responds in kind. Thus we begin a vicious circle of lack of love! We can never win by doing this.

 

Ultimately, forgiveness means that we are not justified in being angry with others or ourselves for any reason whatsoever. We must learn to love and let live. To let go and let God! That’s right. We need to let our inner selves shine through and turn the other cheek. We must learn to see the goodness that is essentially in all of us�"the fundamental divine essence that connects us to God and to one another.

 

I call forgiveness the umbrella of love because it is way new way of living�"one that encompasses everything. With forgiveness, I live every day under the protection of the umbrella of love. This means that my first thoughts about others and myself are thoughts of love. No longer will I perpetuate my thoughts of sin and guilt against others. I will release these things in order to live life in a new way�"in touch with the reality of love and abundance that is the true state of the Universe.

 

So how can we put into practice this thing called forgiveness?

 

 

Celine Healy, born in Queensland, Australia, found her true life path and purpose by using the techniques described in Actually, It’s About Love!. With professional qualifications in accounting, mass communications, education and counseling, Healy has done everything from running an accounting practice, to helping people overcome stress, to mentoring girls and women in business, to opera singing and film making. Learn more at www.actuallyitsaboutlove.com

 

Reviews

[Celine Healy]

Michael
Your definition of 'truest trust' could well be the ultimate position to come from. Initially forgiveness is about accepting self, then extending it to others...
I agree with yoru concept. We start with baby steps

[michael.c.m]

True forgiveness requires true trust. I've heard that "the truest trust is placing your trust in someone whom you know you cannot trust". I wonder, would this calculation hold true for forgiveness. Good essay. I have found that when I forgive, my rucksack seems to lighten.