10 Apr A healthier alternative to forgiveness
Since before the emergency for COVID-19, we have noticed among our clients a drastic increase in diseases caused by anger and resentment such as eczema, heart dysfunction, high blood pressure, migraines, digestive difficulties, anxiety, and insomnia.
We are writing this short post in hope of helping to prevent or relieve these symptoms.
We believe there is no doubt that we are living this life with an evolutionary purpose. Possibly, an evolutionary course as long as the present and any of our past and future lives.
To evolve as humans, we have tools like our consciousness, which is an infinite source of wisdom, personal experiences accumulated in our lifetime, our brain that helps us analyze what is right or wrong, the teaching of those who have more experience than us, and many resources of self-education. But when we are not fully connected to our consciousness, when the brain is not efficient enough to give us a correct evaluation of a situation we have never been in before and no one or nothing has ever taught us what to do in the specific circumstance, we can make a mistake. Recognizing, analyzing, and committing to avoid the same mistake in the future, becomes one more tool at the service of our evolution.
Unfortunately, any mistake can cause harm to other people and put them in the position to forgive us to avoid carrying an emotional burden as a consequence of our misbehaviour or to live with it.
Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of those who have suffered the mistake. When we realize that we have been wronged, insulted, or in any way offended our brain analyzes the situation and generates an evaluation that is naturally commuted into a judgment of guilt towards the one who made the mistake. At that point, we have to face emotions of sadness, discouragement, disappointment, or worse, anger, resentment, or contempt.
Psychoneuroimmunology is a relatively new division of science that studies the body psychobiological unity, which is no longer postulated based on philosophical convictions or therapeutic empiricism. It has widely demonstrated a concept that ancient cultures around the world know for ages: negative emotions that dwell in our body impair the immune system, cause physical pathologies, inflammation, mental disorders, and psychosomatic symptoms of any types and degrees of severity.
Many religions around the world point to forgiveness as the only tool to face emotional consequences from a mistake we suffered. It is true, but forgiveness is just one tool that we all have at our disposal to stop suffering emotionally yet it is often a long process during which negative energies keep lingering in our body causing damage.
What would happen if we accept a priori the statement that a mistake is an evolutionary tool and that its seriousness simply depends on the evolutionary level of who commits it?
Simple: our brain would not generate any judgment of guilt which is the cause of the harm more than the mistake itself, thus we would be free from unhealthy emotions and not need to engage in a long and unhealthy process of forgiveness.
Without judgment, there is no guilt. Without guilt, there is no harm.
This non-judgmental attitude and spiritual disposition bring one more significant benefit: free from any negative feelings, we will be emotionally more balanced and clear mentally to face and remedy at best any material damage or inconvenience a mistake might have caused.
Thus, accepting a priori and serenely mistakes or wrongdoings of others becomes a phase of personal evolution for us as well.
Accepting a priori and serenely also our own mistakes or wrongdoings is a powerful form of self-healing.
TIP
Should you wish to train your non-judgment ability, feel free to follow these steps:
Chose an event in your life where you felt offended by somebody else’s misbehaviour. Pick one not particularly traumatic for you to start.
Close your eyes and clear your brain from thoughts. Now, re-run in your mind the event you have chosen with all the subjects involved, you included. Repeat this step keeping in mind what was stated before in this article about the nature of mistakes until you feel completely non-judgmental towards any facts or subjects involved, you included.
Once you reach this goal, increase the difficulty of the exercise considering more traumatic events in your life.
This is not a meditation but a tool to unload your negative emotional baggage accumulated in your lifetime, repattern your brain’s cognitive process, have more control over your feelings and the autonomic nervous system. Be patient and persistent.
If you will run into similar circumstances in the future, your mental and emotional responses will be way more balanced and manageable.
Let me know if I can be of any help in the process email hidden; JavaScript is required
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