My social media feed is filled with intolerance. People who can’t forgive. People who speak the language of forgiveness and love and then, somehow, lose their way in its practice.

Hey, I get it. Forgiveness is HARD. When we think we’ve been done wrong our first response is to strike back.And if we’ve been done wrong many times we strike back even harder.

“It’s too late for forgiveness,” I read someone post recently.

Well, no.  It’s NEVER too late for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not something we do for someone else. We do it for OURSELVES.

Why would we drink the toxic brew of resentment and hatred, of revenge and striking back? Why would we let that sludge course through our vein?

Hey, look. I’ve had my own challenges with forgiveness. The churning upset. Feeling that I’d been done wrong.

Because I knew I didn’t want to hold on to grudges, I worked away at forgiveness for years. YEARS.

No joke. I wasn’t sure that I even understand what it meant to actually forgive.

And then one day, I got there. One day the grudge had no power over me. Those who hurt me lost their power to wound.

All I had left? Compassion and love.

Yes, I know: sometimes that isn’t as ego-satisfying as revenge. But it’s soul-satisfying. Have no doubt.

The soul benefit of being able to forgive was confirmed recently in a session with an excellent medium. During the session my mother on the other side brought up perhaps the thorniest issue in my life and then told me this:

“The personal work you have done on forgiveness is paying off, Carol. There is healing going on both here and on the earthly plane as a result of it. Just because you haven’t seen evidence of it yet, don’t think it isn’t happening and it’s a direct result of the work you are doing on yourself.”

I was stunned: the medium knew nothing of this situation so it had to be that my mother was watching and so were my other spirit guides. And while I didn’t need there to be change here for me to feel good about the work I’ve done on forgiveness, it felt great to know that positive effects were being seen here. Even if I can’t see them. Yet.

So when you feel the urge to strike back, it’s your ego speaking. Your soul wants you to take a bigger view. To forgive and send love to those who hurt you.

Because it’s clear to me now that forgiveness pays off. Even here.

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