How To Live a Soulful Life: To Forgive Or Not To Forgive

Mirva Inkeri
3rd Aug 2017

This is the decision, the situation that many of us face so often in life, and so often, there is a lot of pain that is attached to this decision. And up until now, we have very often chosen not to forgive. When we choose not to forgive, we choose to carry pain inside our hearts, minds, our bodies, our entire being. Do we realise this? Not always.

'The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.' Mahatma Gandhi

I didn’t realise this for years. For years I carried a lot of hurt in my heart and soul. This is how I learn to be. I watched my mother do exactly the same. So as I was growing up, I didn’t know any different. It was only when I started to see the world from my own eyes that I started to see that there is a different way.

In today’s day and age, there are so many teachings – wisdom, books, workshops, seminars. Everything is available to us that is teaching us about forgiveness. Some of these teachings go back thousands of years. Some of them are modern teachings. It doesn’t really matter what strikes a chord with your heart and soul. You can pick or choose.

‘Forgiveness brings inner peace and inner joy.’ Master Sha

I did not understand this for quite some time until I experienced it myself. What he taught and teaches is that we can do forgiveness practice on the level of the soul. This means we don’t need to even talk to the other person physically as this is one of the most daunting factors for so many people. They feel so much fear about talking to the other person. Obviously the fear is indicating a big charge of something that needs to be released Sometimes it is actually safer not to talk to the other person right away. There could be so many different circumstances.

Forgiveness on the level of the soul can be actually the gentle way, the easy way out of the challenge. To live a soulful life is to connect with the heart and soul of everything and anything. Remember last time, I shared with you that everything and anything has a soul. When we connect with that soul, we can communicate with that soul. We can speak to it. We can ask for forgiveness. We can offer forgiveness on the level of the soul first.

'When you transform the soul of a relationship first, the transformation of the physical relationship will follow.' Master Zhi Gang Sha

To do forgiveness with another soul on the level of the soul can be a magnificent new beginning. It can be such a different way to start to do forgiveness practice. In fact it is a revolutionary way to bring forgiveness practice – the practice of offering and asking for forgiveness - into our daily lives without major confrontation. And then who knows later, may be the forgiveness in physical form of making or receiving a phone call or talking in person might follow. Sometimes this may never happen. What if the other soul, the other person is no longer in this physical life? What if there is forgiveness that we could do with transitioned family members? Maybe we need to offer them forgiveness or maybe they need to receive our forgiveness?

Some people find it so much easier to ask for forgiveness. They are always saying, ‘sorry, I am so sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry’ and this can even be irritating to other people because they are always saying sorry. For some people to actually offer forgiveness can be very, very challenging, because this means, as I said in the beginning, to let go of the hurt, to let go of the pain. This means, literally letting somebody off the hook. This means fully letting go, releasing the other person, the situation. Some people say, ‘oh I can forgive, but I will never forget’. Is this complete forgiveness? I think not. It doesn’t mean that you will never ever remember what happened. It does mean that you do not carry it with you. When we say, ‘but I will never forget’ – there is a part that is still holding on, isn’t there? You can ask yourself. You don’t need anybody else to tell you what the truth is. You know it in your heart and soul.

Reflect upon your life, your journey with your family members, with your loved ones, maybe girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, and maybe reflect where there is some pain, where there is some hurt.

I would like to share a brief Forgiveness Practice with you. In fact I will share two practices in this article, so that you can start to try this out on the level of the soul. Don’t even worry about talking to the person directly. Just pick one soul, one person with whom you carry some pain – either you feel hurt by them or you know that you did something not right by another person. Simply speak to them now, say:

“Dear the soul of …………. [Name the person,] I love you, honour you and appreciate you.”

We offer love despite the amount of pain we feel, because love has the power to melt all blockages. Love melts all blockages. This is the power that is needed!

“Could you please come and do forgiveness practice with me. “

You call their soul.

“Please let us offer love peace and harmony to one another to release the past, to release the pain, hurt, harm or suffering (you can add whatever, your own relevant words for your situation). Please sing Love Peace and Harmony now with me.“

Then you can sing or you just repeat like a mantra.

“I love my heart and soul
I love all humanity
Join hearts and souls together
Bring love peace and harmony
Bring love peace and harmony.”

Repeat this for 3-5 minutes at a time.

Do it as much as possible you can, with an open heart. Completely let go of the outcome. Do not worry what might or might not happen. Do it with no expectation. Just do the work, 3-5 minutes at a time.

You can start your day like this. You can do this before you go to sleep. You can do this any time of the day. The more painful the relationship or the situation is, the more often I would recommend you do this.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.' Desmond Tutu

Sometimes we feel hurt in situations by others, by something that they have said or done because it reflects actually how we feel about ourselves. Somebody may trigger feelings that we are not good enough. We maybe in a situation where we feel judged or criticized, even if it’s a legitimate situation at work that our boss said that what we have delivered wasn’t quite up to the standard. This could be physically true that we may have needed to reach a 90% accuracy on something, but our accuracy was 80% or 85%.

So they could be literally physical true. Yet we may have a strong emotional response to this. ‘But I tried so hard. I cannot possibly try any harder’. ‘I gave everything to this project and it’s still not good enough for him or for her’. ‘What more can I possibly offer?’ These could be some of the thoughts and emotional responses we may have. The more intense the emotion, the more it is a clue for us that something inside us is carrying a big charge.

What I am trying to say here, is, that very often there are situations that come up in our lives that play out the thoughts, the beliefs, the mindsets we actually hold about ourselves. They are like a mirror. You may have heard this being talked about so many times that something is a mirror in our lives to reflect so we can look back and go, ‘ahh what is it in me? - We do not have the power to change other people, places or situations, yet we have full power to change ourselves.

So how about we forgive ourselves? How about if we love ourselves more? How about that? What if we accepted ourselves more completely, exactly as we are? What if I was okay just as I am? Could you ask these questions? Could you ask yourself these questions?

Forgiveness Practice

I would now like to offer a Self-Forgiveness Practice. How we can learn, even if it’s little by little to forgive ourselves? And this is combined with two qualities: love and forgiveness.

'When love looks in the mirror, it sees forgiveness. When forgiveness looks in the mirror, it sees love.' Master Marilyn Smith

Love and Forgiveness go together. They are a pair, like a yin and yang pair of qualities of forces that complement one another. When we love somebody, it is easier to forgive, at times. When we forgive ourselves for a seeming mistake, we can feel more self-acceptance and more love for ourselves.

I would like you to now join me in doing a practice that increases our self-love, self-acceptance and enable us to offer more forgiveness for ourselves, to let ourselves off the hook.

Body Power:
Please sit up straight. Place your left palm on your navel. Place your right hand on your heart, on your heart chakra which is your spiritual heart. The physical heart is a little bit to the left. The spiritual heart, the heart chakra is in the middle of your chest inside the chest cavity.

Mind Power:
Visualise golden light in your heart, in that chest cavity. Visualise, then imagine this golden light is shining, brilliant, shimmering, radiating, fills your whole chest cavity. It reaches up and out to actually fill your entire body.

Soul Power:
We are going to talk to our own soul. Say this to yourself.

“Dear my beloved soul, I love you, I honour you, I appreciate you, and I respect you.
Please help me to forgive myself. Please help me to love myself more. Please help me to clear any negative messages, negative beliefs, negative mindsets, negative attitudes I have about myself, so I could more fully accept myself exactly as I am, forgive myself more easily and more quickly, and increase my self love.“

Sound Power:
Simply repeat, ‘I love myself, I forgive myself’.

“I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself
I love myself, I forgive myself”

Please repeat this again for 3-5 minutes. Continue to visualise golden light.

To close the practice you simply say,

“Hao Hao Hao.
Thank you Thank you Thank you.”

Hao means perfect, get well. It’s like an affirmation at the end.

If you would like to listen to this practice as an audio, you can do so here >> https://soundcloud.com/master-mirva/i-love-myself-i-forgive-myself-practice

You can start your day with this practice or you can end your day with this practice. You can do this any time of the day. This develops your own connection with your own heart and soul. This will align your soul heart mind and body together more fully and better. It is to create that connection with your own soul that you can live a more Soulful Life.

'Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.' Martin Luther King

Self-love doesn’t mean that you feel proud of yourself or schmuck as you look at yourself in the mirror. Self-love can simply start by having less criticism of how you look when you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, that your heart is peaceful, when you look at yourself in the pictures, in the photos, when you listen to your own voice or read your own writing.

Remember your soul carries wisdom, knowledge, experience and more, way beyond your rational, logical mind. So in this time, to live a more Soulful Life is to simply say hello to your soul more often and longer.

I wish these two practices will not only help you to connect with your soul more, that they will give you ways to connect with your soul more and that you can start to open your heart to yourself more, be less critical and judgmental of yourself as this will eventually flow out and influence your relationship with others. It needs to start with ourselves. It starts with me. So I wish for you to start with me today.

Love yourself.
Forgive yourself.

May you live a Soulful Life.

With love, light and blessings,
Master Mirva

Photo by Jason Blackeye from Unsplash