It’s Not Hard To Forgive, It’s Hard To Keep Lying To Yourself About It
Forgiveness is one of those things we hear about all the time that sounds good in theory, but when it happens to us … “I ain’t gone forgive them! They need to pay!”
Why do we give up on our principles so quickly?
Perhaps we never truly believed in forgiveness, to begin with. Or maybe we never understood it but acted as if we did so that we can seem good and noble.
Whatever the case, I’m going to break it down for you here.
By the end of this, you’ll know whether you should join the forgiveness bandwagon or shrug it off forever.
You’ll also understand how forgiveness can give you everything you ever wanted.
And best of all, you’ll be able to explain it to others with ease.
If you stop reading right here then you are stupid!
No, you aren’t. I just wanted to see if you would forgive me and continuing reading. 😁
Besides, you are as smart as the smartest person in the world whether you realize it or not.
What Is Forgiveness?
Forgiveness is the act of one of the following:
- no longer feeling angry or resentful toward a person for an offense, flaw, or mistake
- canceling a debt
Canceling of a debt
Let’s start with the canceling of a debt owed since it’s simpler to explain.
To perceive that a debt is owed is to also be in debt. This is similar to that of a jailer.
To put one in jail, one must also be confined to that jail in order to watch over the other that is imprisoned. This notion explains why besides the prisoners, prison guards spend the most time at a jail.
When you hold a debt over another, it is held over your head as well. Any time you think of the one that owes you, you are reminded of this debt.
Until the debt is taken care of, it is perceived as a loss or else it would not matter. This loss could be one of money, pride, principle, or any number of self-imprisonments.
Thus whenever you perceive that you are at a loss, you act accordingly. You act as one that loses.
To put it another way, you behave like a loser.
A loser sees the world as a place that takes advantage of him or her. He or she makes loser decisions and speaks loser phrases to anyone that would listen.
Yet this loser is not a loser at all. This person is simply living out the beliefs he or she has set forth in his or her illusion (ill-lose-shun).
So if holding another in your debt puts you in a debt that you weren’t in before, does the canceling of this debt really do anything at all?
No, it simply brings you back to your natural state. This is the state you would have been in had you not declared that someone owes you something.
This is how forgiveness works. It restores what was never broken at all.
Are you with me?
Read this section again if you need to and then proceed.
… for an offense, flaw, or mistake
To fully explain forgiveness in this context, let’s start with what would make you angry.
In the above definition, it says an offense, flaw, or mistake. This can also be called imperfections.
To know what imperfection is, you would have to know what perfection is.
Quick exercise: Close your eyes and for one minute, picture exactly what perfection is.🤔💭
…
Based on what you saw, try to answer the following to yourself about perfection.
What exactly is perfection?
Is it a certain look? Is perfection a way of speaking? Could it be a certain way a person acts?
If what one person calls a flaw, another calls beauty, and vice versa, can anything really be perfect or imperfect?
Since your meaning of perfect can change tomorrow, is what you’ve seen actually perfection or just your idea of perfection today?
If it’s not so easy to identify perfection, why do you believe it’s easy to witness imperfection? Wouldn’t it be, at best, a guess?
…
Yes, these are a lot of questions. Hopefully, you are answering them and seeing just how flawed your idea of perfection can be.
And if perfection is flawed, should it still be called perfection?
Don’t worry, I’m getting to my point in this.
Without truly knowing the outcome of certain actions, it is impossible to know whether something is an offense, flaw, or mistake at all.
It could all be imagined.
Even the word mistake implies a false view. You mistook what happened.
No longer feeling angry or resentful toward a person …
Now that we’ve addressed what can make you angry, which in a way is nothing at all, let’s talk about you feeling angry or resentful toward another.
When you feel angry or resentful toward another, you are the one that is feeling it.
This is obvious.
But if you have full authority and control over your feelings, why ever feel angry at all. The only logical explanation is that you enjoy it.
Furthermore, if you don’t know that what is happening is actually “bad”, then what’s the real purpose of your anger or resentment?
This again brings us to forgiveness. Forgiveness is only about you, not the one you have yet to forgive.
What Forgiveness Is and Isn’t
Forgiveness does not say that you are a bigger person than the one you are forgiving? It does not say that you have authority over another to absolve them of their actions.
Forgiveness simply brings you back into the awareness of reality instead of what never was.
It is giving up these feelings of anger and/or resentment so that you can be restored to your natural state of peace.
So what forgiveness is saying through you is, “I give up these unwanted feelings caused by what I have no idea about.”
If you are giving up unwanted feelings, you are giving up nothing. Nothing wanted is sacrificed.
What you receive in return is the awareness of what you’ve always been…love, abundance, joy, peace, etc.
Technically, forgiveness doesn’t do anything because it undoes what never was. What never was never needed forgiveness.
An Even Deeper Look at Forgiveness
I know right now many are reading this and saying, “Ok JClay. I get it, but these people really hurt me and did unspeakable things that should never be forgiven.”
There are few things at play when you think similar to this.
First, at this moment you would rather re-live this supposed wrongdoing instead of being happy.
Even though there is never a reason needed to be happy, you could still be happy that this situation is not occurring right now.
You are presently in a safe space. At least it’s safe enough where you can read this article.
Secondly, you are acknowledging that others have control over you and your wellbeing.
This can never be true because the mind controls the body and you control your mind.
By not giving away control of your mind to outside forces, your body is under your complete control always.
I’ll use this example to better illustrate it.
That which you chase will often run away.
Every relationship is a partnership whether it’s a romantic one, friendship, or one of an oppressor & oppressed.
In this example, this is an agreement between the chaser and the one being chased.
Right now if you were at a store and saw a couple of people running toward you at full speed, chances are you would run.
You would have fully accepted your role as one being chased.
However, if in that same situation you instead start running toward those people at full speed, there would be hesitation on their part. They would reassess the terms of the relationship and choose instead to be the ones being chased.
Most likely the original chasers would think, “This person is crazy and must know something that we don’t. Let’s get out of here.”
Similarly, in cases where someone has “wronged” you, you have given him or her full permission to do so.
And since the authority of what happens to you rests solely on you, then you can never truly be mad at another. You can only be mad at yourself.
To be mad is to be crazy. To be crazy at another is to still be crazy.
Don’t be crazy. Forgive them for what they did not and cannot do.
The Mind/Body Relationship Revisited
It’s been understood that the mind controls the body, but what isn’t fully understood is how much.
Your height, muscle mass, “illnesses”, facial expressions, weight consumption, etc are all in your control.
By your control, I don’t mean physically. This is totally relating to the mind.
Your body bends to your intentions of how you want to use your body.
For example, basketball players are usually the tallest in their families despite genetics because they have a habit of reaching for a higher height (the basketball goal).
Likewise, gymnasts are usually the shortest in their families despite genetics because the tighter and stronger their core, the better they can whip their body around.
It doesn’t end there. Your body loses about its weight in normal cell reproduction every year[1], which means physically you have a brand new body every year.
But what blueprint does cell regeneration follow? If you didn’t have these same attributes or illnesses as a child, why are they regenerated now?
It’s because you have created a purpose for this and your body embodies this purpose.
So if your body isn’t real in the sense that it can be regenerated to your likeness at any time, why ever be concerned with what happens to the body?
Cause and Effect
The body is an effect where the mind is the cause. Effects always follow their cause.
Bodies can seem to attack, but minds can never attack.
So when you feel you are wronged, it’s in relation to how you view yourself as a body.
To state it another way. It’s like you’re playing a video game.
When your video game character is hurt by another video game character, you think it means the end of you.
It may only mean the end of your character, but never you.
You can create infinite characters with infinite attributes at will by your beliefs and intentions.
The source of your pain is never rooted in reality because pain does not really exist.
Forgiveness is just the acknowledgment of reality. It’s saying that you forgive another for what they could not do.
How easy is that?
How Forgiveness Heals
Pain is just a manifestation of guilt.
I won’t go into the many causes of the guilt illusion, but this song will help you become and stay guilt-free.
People project guilt onto others so that they won’t have to blame themselves. It’s part of that relationship agreement we spoke about earlier between you and the “guilty” party.
It makes sense because would you rather spend all day being mad at yourself or at another?
Right, at another. 😁
The problem is that what you give, you also receive. So instead of being free of this guilt, you multiply it because you witness the guilt every time you see those you projected it onto.
When you forgive others, this guilt is no longer seen on the faces of those you projected it onto.
Since you don’t witness it, you enjoy the guilt-free world you live in. You also think of and treat others, whom you’ve forgiven, with respect.
And if these individuals don’t already treat themselves with respect, your respect is enough for them to start respecting themselves.
They can now begin forgiving themselves and others so that this healing process can continue with all of mankind.
This is all because of your forgiveness.
In Conclusion
I didn’t want this article to be too long, but I wanted to address as much as possible related to forgiveness.
Message me directly on IG @jclay1st with any personal questions related to forgiveness. Also, pre-order IAMNOBODY, IAMSOMEONE. This album will help you forgive and be healed with very little effort.
This article first appeared on the JClay blog at https://jclay.org/understanding-forgiveness/.
