Category Archives: Forgiveness

Bringing It All Together 9

Autism Spectrum, Bully Free, Family, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Uncategorized, Writing • Tags: ,

This year I am scaling back. I will continue to be on Twitter and I will continue to post my blogs to Facebook. However, I need more time to take care of my health, to spend with my family and to work on my second novel, and I need to focus more on forgiveness and gratitude.

I am not giving up on my dreams for acceptance of differences and bully free schools. I will address the tough issues on this blog by bringing you stories of those who are helping, rather than the sad stories that the news media uses to hype up your emotions for a day or two. I also hope to do some presentations and to exhibit at some local venues this year.

I will be adding a couple of new pages to my blog, one for featured stories and one for my progress on my next novel, a topic I started addressing on my second blog. Maintaining two blogs is not working, so I plan to move my posts from my second blog to this blog.

Mahalo for your continued support as I make these changes.

Final Steps to Learning How to Forgive 4

Forgiveness, Gratitude • Tags: , ,

My Angel Music Box ©Delightfully Different LifeBeginning the Final Steps

The final steps to forgiveness from Dr. Luskin’s book Forgive for Good begin with recognizing what he calls the unenforceable rules of wishes and hopes.  This is what I fail victim to recently when I got upset about something that was out of my control.

Sometimes we have to accept that the goal we set will not be reached in the way we envisioned.  That does not mean our goal is bad, it just means that we do not always have control over every situation.

Chosing Alternate Goals or Routes

We can make a decision to alter our goal or go a different direction when this happens rather than stewing over our disappointment and anger and allowing it to eat us alive.  This may mean severing a relationship or it may mean looking at it from a different view and adapting our plan, but either way the point is to get unstuck so we can move on with our lives.

Instead of demanding others comply with our demands, we have to change our thinking to hoping our wishes come true and working to make this happen while realizing there will always be road blocks in life.  Some we can go around, others we must go over or even under, sometimes we must turn around and regroup or walk or even run away. On a rare occasion maybe it is even okay to plow through the road block. However, first we must carefully weigh the danger and determine if it is safe or at least worth the risk.  We must put aside our anger to make the best decision.

Refocus on Positive Intention

We need to turn the focus back to our positive intention and find another way to make that intention our destiny.  I believe that our true purpose in life is to learn from our mistakes.  Dr. Luskin  states, “The person or event that hurt us is important insofar as we can learn from the situation.  In no way, though, do we allow our grievance to distract us from our goal.”

He goes on to say what so many of us heard growing up. Our greatest revenge on someone who hurt us is to move on and find peace.  He explains how to find your intention if you are unsure of what your intention is.

The Last Step: HEAL

The last step to forgiveness is HEAL.

  1. H is for hope.  Hope for understanding.
  2. E is for educate.  Educate yourself that you will experience disappointments.
  3. A is for affirm.  Affirm your positive intention.
  4. L is for Long-term commitment.  This is your long-term commitment to your well-being by doing whatever it takes to help you move forward.

I choose to educate others to help them avoid the same mistakes as part of my long-term commitment to heal from the mistakes I made when I did not understand my daughter.  Your long-term commitment may involve assertiveness training, counseling, stress management or something else. Near the end of the book Dr. Luskin also discusses ways to forgive yourself. Like me you may have to go back to some of these steps at times when someone unexpectedly pushes your buttons and you find yourself once again needing to forgive yourself and/ or others.

I am grateful for the reminders throughout this book that I can regroup and go back to the stages when I falter in my forgiveness journey. I am grateful for all of the angels on Earth and in heaven who help me with this and I am grateful to those of you who share this journey.

Back to How to Forgive Series 3

Forgiveness • Tags: ,

I have written several posts on forgiveness and I still believe it is important yet, recently I once again found myself stuck and reacting to hurt in ways that I know do not work.

Path to Forgiveness: Part III

Today, I am back on my spiritual path to forgiveness with part three of my review of Dr. Frederic Luskin’s Forgive for Good.  You may remember from my first post that Dr. Luskin makes it clear, “Forgiveness in no way condones cruelty or unkind treatment.” It is about letting go of resentment for your health and emotional well-being.  I thought I was doing this, but recent events prove I have not finished with this yet.

So far, I have changed our story from a negative experience to a positive one as my daughter is doing well since she got away from the negative school environment.  I have spent time focusing on the positives in our lives this year which is the second step. You can do this by looking for and noticing the good even if it is as simple as seeing someone smile or that pet that is happy to see you.

PERT

lt is time to focus on Dr. Luskin’s next step, PERT, the Positive Emotion Refocusing Technique.  This step is about managing our reactions and emotions.  We have to take responsibility for how we feel even if we do not like what happened.

Next is to give a breath of thanks two or three times every day when you are not fully occupied, focus on your breathing, allow air to gently push your belly out and consciously relax your belly as you exhale so it feels soft.  Do this for five to eight times while saying thank you for your life.  Now take two more breaths and then you may resume your regular activity.

Heart Focus

Once you have mastered the technique above, you are ready to move to the heart focus step.  This step is more of a meditation.  Do five minutes of breathing utilizing the soft belly method and then think of a powerful loving memory or a scene in nature that filled you with tranquillity.  Try to re-experience this and hold peaceful feelings for as long as possible.  Do this for ten to fifteen minutes before you slowly open your eyes and resume your activities.  Dr. Luskin suggests doing this three times a week.

You can try a shorter version of this when you are upset for any reason by trying to bring that positive feeling into focus instead so the negativity does not overwhelm you.  This does not mean you are never allowed to feel angry, but rather that you do not let that anger overwhelm you and cause you to make poor choices. Come back tomorrow for the final post on Forgive for Good.

Small Rant Then Second Post in How to Forgive Series 13

Forgiveness, Gratitude • Tags: , , ,

I last wrote a forgiveness post on May 15, 2011.  I started it with the first definition of forgive in the 2004 version of The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is: to give up resentment of. 

Immaculee IlibagizaMy Inspiration

The few who actually read my blog regularly know that I have been working at becoming more like Immaculee Ilibagiza, the Rwandan genocide survivor who inspired me to forgive others.  I have been reading Forgive for Good by Frederic Luskin from the Stanford Forgiveness Project to help me along my journey. 

The Rant

This is where I rant.  A few short months ago I started a blog expecting that everyone related to the autism community would embrace my cause of educating others about girls on the autism spectrum and how being misunderstood causes harm.  I mailed my novel to family members thinking they would read it and understand.  I also gave copies of my novel to people at two local schools including counselors at my daughter’s now former school. 

006I wish I could tell you that everyone has been supportive and they are all helping me to promote my little novel written to teach tolerance and acceptance of differences to help decrease bullying in our schools.  Unfortunately, this would be a lie. 

Maybe I expect too much from people.  My daughter is now at a virtual school because she did not receive adequate support.  Some family members have failed to comment at all after having my novel for months. 

I am really working on forgiving those who let us down.  I believe forgiveness is the best option to avoid being consumed with anger at a world that let down not just me, but also let down my beautiful, talented, smart daughter.  I do not want to become “one of them.”  You know the ones I mean; the seemly, heartless bullies. 

Rant over!

I left off my last forgiveness post promising to tell you more about Forgive for Good and how I am doing with this.  Obviously, I am still working on forgiving.  Part III of Dr. Luskin’s book covers eight chapters.  I am only going to cover the first two steps today.   

Part III: Step I

The first step is to change the grievance story, so we are no longer the victims and to let go of resentment.   

I now realize that my daughter’s former school is an unhealthy environment for her, and I am grateful she is no longer there.  I am also letting go of relationships that are harmful while continuing to work to educate those who are willing to listen.  Others are still welcome to reach out, but I will not be begging for understanding.  I am at peace with my decision. 

I have wonderful supportive friends and some members of our family are supportive while others are trying to be supportive.  My daughter is gaining self-esteem through the support she is receiving from the autism community.  She is happy and her closest friends are supportive too.  She is telling her story and I am very proud of her.  Her story changed course, but it is still full of promise. 

Remote - CopyPart III: Step II

Changing the grievance story is step I.  Step II is to look for beauty, joy, and love in your life.  You can start with baby steps.  My project gratitude posts are my way of doing this.  You might do it another way.  Dr. Luskin calls this changing your channel and he gives an excellent analogy of TV channel surfing to illustrate how to do this so we are not stuck on the anger/ victim channel. 

Today I am grateful for my daughter’s happiness and for those who are supporting her as she tells her story.  I hope some of you also will support her meager college fund by encouraging others to read the story she inspired.