This post is from a friend, Carla Sciaky

"We so easily fall into thinking that forgiving goes like this:

1. It's about the other person or circumstance
2. It's about how that thing – whatever happened – affected me
3. And now I’m supposed to forgive this person or circumstance?

But like all forms of healing, it is actually about an energy shift.

How would that look? How might it feel? And perhaps most importantly, who might I become?

It’s not just about trying to force myself to be a good person and forgive the other person. It’s about becoming the person who, with an open heart, walks the path of forgiveness in my life.

The deeper learning comes from seeing what the thing that occurred – whether just once or over a long period of time – brought to the surface in me.

Wayne Dyer once posed the question, “When you squeeze an orange, what do you get?”

Orange juice.

Why? Because that’s what’s in there.

What comes out of me when someone or something squeezes me? Anger? Bitterness? The resonance of victimhood?

That is what I actually want to heal. Because ultimately I want my heart to be open, not closed. I do not want to live with a closed heart just because someone’s poor skillset, or some act of circumstance bruised me sometime in the past.

The Serenity prayer:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

The Serenity Prayer is one of many vehicles to shift me from the place of blame and a closed heart to the higher ground where I am no longer triggered by that shadow of the past."

Carla Sciaky

I'm not going to say that I'm great at this 'forgiving thing' but in many cases I have moved from deep resentment to 'Ok, I know what happened and I no longer have to let it run me'. I don't want to be filled with anger or bitterness or resentment.

I also want to heal and live the rest of my life being open-hearted.

The choice is ours, ultimately. It always is.