Tag Archives: postaweek2011

Milestones and Celebrations 10

Celebrations, Gratitude • Tags: ,

Technically, my blogaversary is September fifth, but who wants to celebrate an anniversary on a Monday or to share it with Labor Day? Not me! So I took the time to play with a new program to bake a cake create a picture for my blogaversary. FYI My daughter did not get her artistic traits from me! Still I did have fun and that is the real point isn’t it?

Mahalo for celebrating my special day with me!  I hope all of you have a nice weekend, a long one for the USA and hopefully an uneventful one weather-wise.  Please visit again on Monday when I will be back to more serious topics like how some teachers contribute to bullying and how the good ones discourage it and help those who are victims.  

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.