A baby lion was raised by a family of sheep. When he grew older they sent him away because he was different. A man found him lamenting because he was faced with a life alone. The man asked why are you so depressed and the lion told him of his plight. The man said you are not a sheep, you are a lion. When the lion finally realized who he was, he became happy. As long as he thought he was a weird kind of sheep, he remained unhappy.
So he had the wrong story about who he was. Similarly, many of us have stories about who we are or what happened to us. It's not really what happens to us that upsets us, but it's the story we tell ourselves about what happened to us that upsets us. If we change the story, then we can go from resentment to forgiveness. So what actually happened to you that is causing you to remain resentful. What story are you telling yourself?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Need for Forgiveness in the World
The more I do the workshops, the more I see how needed and beneficial forgiveness is for ourselves, for relationships, for minimizing conflict at home and in the workplace, and for dealing with all the bigotry, hatred and prejudice in the world. Ours is a culture of “If I am wronged, I get back.” Most people’s accounts of all the injustices and hurts that were done to them is overflowing and they use these accounts to justify blame and anger. They build up these accounts and carefully save them. Anytime someone performs some horrible act, you can know for sure their victim account is overflowing.
Our culture loves retaliation. Movies are full of it. The hero is wronged and the whole movie is about him taking “justifiable” revenge. So our kids grow up thinking, “If someone hurts me, I must take revenge.Forgiveness is a sign of weakness."
People guard their victimhood. It is a story upon which they can justify their failures. If they lose that story, how can they justify their blame and anger? Anger makes them feel powerful. Ask them to forgive and they fear they will lose their power. But all anger and blame does is hide their pain, pain they don’t want to face. Forgiveness is the only door out of the prison of this pain.
Because forgiveness is so much needed in our world, and because practicing forgiveness brings people to a higher level of God consciousness, my intention is to expand forgiveness workshops around the world.
If you know anyone who might be interested in organizing a workshop please direct them to the site www.yogaofforgiveness.com. Or consider contacting someone at your school, office, community center, yoga studio, temple, church, etc. to discuss the benefit of having such a workshop.
Our culture loves retaliation. Movies are full of it. The hero is wronged and the whole movie is about him taking “justifiable” revenge. So our kids grow up thinking, “If someone hurts me, I must take revenge.Forgiveness is a sign of weakness."
People guard their victimhood. It is a story upon which they can justify their failures. If they lose that story, how can they justify their blame and anger? Anger makes them feel powerful. Ask them to forgive and they fear they will lose their power. But all anger and blame does is hide their pain, pain they don’t want to face. Forgiveness is the only door out of the prison of this pain.
Because forgiveness is so much needed in our world, and because practicing forgiveness brings people to a higher level of God consciousness, my intention is to expand forgiveness workshops around the world.
If you know anyone who might be interested in organizing a workshop please direct them to the site www.yogaofforgiveness.com. Or consider contacting someone at your school, office, community center, yoga studio, temple, church, etc. to discuss the benefit of having such a workshop.
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