Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a topic that has come up quite a bit lately not only in my practice, but in my personal life.  Many people have the mistaken idea that if you forgive someone you say what they did that hurt you was okay.  Forgiveness really is about letting go of the negative energy you have around something someone did that hurt you.  It's taking back your power and not allowing that person's act to continue to hurt you in the future.

Forgiveness is important in our ability to learn, grow and evolve in our lives.  More importantly, it's essential if we want to be happy.  Holding on to feelings of anger and resentment toward someone who has hurt us can keep us from moving forward in our lives.  As long as we're focused on something that happened in the past, we can't move into the future.

It is difficult to give up our negative feelings toward the offender, because they 'deserve' to be punished in our view.  But ask yourself this question:  is expending negative energy on this bad guy hurting them - or you?  The answer, of course, is it is hurting you!   So, we choose to forgive, not for the other person, but for ourselves.

Forgiving does not mean that you condone, or even accept, what the other person did.  It also does not mean that you have to continue to have a relationship with this person if they are likely to hurt you in the future.  It does mean that you can let go of what happened and move on.

A topic for another time: forgiving ourselves.

CBT and Intentions

For a while now I have been working with setting intentions in my life and experiencing them manifesting. I've also used Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) successfully not only in my own life, but with clients. I had recognized for some time the connection between these things, but yesterday it just so happened that I was doing some CBT training and also attended an Intention Circle, so their relationship to one another is very much in my mind.

In addition, yesterday I was also doing some prep work for the Career Enhancement class I will be teaching beginning in September. As I mentioned in a previous entry, taking a similar class was instrumental in my choice of my current career. At that time setting my intention about changing my career also made the end result (my current career) possible.

What I am reminded of every time I attend an Intention Circle (check out Meetup.com in Seattle if you're interested) is how every thought I have is an implicit intention. If I wake up in the morning and think "I hate this rain. It always makes me feel depressed." then guess what -I'm going to be depressed today. In CBT I would then change this thought to a positive thought like "I'm happy to see the rain; the poor plants really need it." and I am setting my intention to enjoy what is rather than be miserable about what is. If I can't change it, why let it affect me negatively?

Which leads to the basic premise of CBT: my thoughts determine my emotions. Many people have heard that we each choose how we feel, but many people either don't believe that or just don't get it. In my next entry I'll talk a little about choosing how we feel and owning our emotions.

Inspiration

In preparing for my career enhancement class I've been taking a look back at a similar class I took almost 4 years ago that ultimately led to my choice of a new career. It's the first time I've looked back at these exercises in at least 3 years, and it is heartening to see that the insights I had at the time, and the conclusions they led me to still hold true for me.

I've frequently thought about the impact taking this class had on my life by giving me the opportunity to see that my life could be everything I wanted it to be. I'm so looking forward to sharing this gift with others!

Living the life you love - Step 1

A lot of people struggle with not being happy in their career or job, but don't really know what they want to do, or how to accomplish a change. The first step is deciding that you deserve to be happy; having hope that you can have a career that fulfills you, and also provides you with the material support you need in your life.

As long as we believe that we have no choices, or at least no viable choices, we will remain stuck. So take a look at what is preventing you from even exploring other options. If you find yourself responding to any suggestions with "Yeah, but" take a look at what your fears are about changing.

Once our roadblocks are identified we can begin to take steps to knock them down.