The Art of Forgiveness

Mariel Forde Clarke  –  1st September 2021

The weak can never forgive – as forgiveness is the attitude of the strong (Mahatma Ghandi)

It took me years to come to the realization that forgiveness had nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with me. Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself, it releases you from self-judgement and releases you from being imprisoned by your own negative judgements. It is not about a surrender in thinking he /she was right and you were wrong, No it’s a conscious decision you make to take back your own power and set yourself free. It is a liberation from victimhood to victory.

Many moons ago the hardest test in my life was to learn the power of forgiveness. No matter what self help books I read, when it came to the chapter on forgiveness, I quickly licked my finger and flicked and licked until the next chapter appeared. Eventually after three years of ducking and avoiding all things on forgiveness, my light bulb moment came early one morning when I was doing a visualization.  The task was to hold a mirror up to my face and begin to look deep into my own eyes until I could see the child within. After a long time I could feel a peace envelope me, and as I looked closer my eyes filled with tears and the words fell out of my mouth “I forgive you – please forgive me” I repeated this mantra over and over again until suddenly a cry hurled out from the very depths of my soul “today you have set yourself free from all the people, places and situations in your life,  you have reclaimed your power – you are free”.

This was my moment of transformation, I forgave myself and stopped punishing myself, I released myself from the self-righteous mind of resentment that I had imprisoned myself within. I decided to be happy and find peace in the knowing that there will always be a right and a wrong, whichever way I wished to perceive it I understood at that moment “there is no right nor wrong, there just is”.

Forgiveness is being able to say:
You cannot hurt me and then control me, even in your absence, by turning my heart cold and changing who I Am and what I value. I am the one who make those choices, you cannot choose for me how I feel. I will not allow you to dray me into your dark world. By forgiving you I am releasing Me – not you. You must live with the darkness in your heart. But I do not – and I will not.

Namaste dear Ones

Mariel