The Power of Forgiveness

I told you earlier that along with the balmy breezes and swaying palm trees, my relocation to Miami also delivered to me the gift of coming face to face with a hopped-up crack addict with a gun.  That encounter ended up pretty much as you might think, with me taking a bullet to the gut. 

Smart readers have probably already deduced that I lived.  But that outcome was really touch and go for a while and involved some pretty heroic work by first responders and the hospital staff.  The physical healing process wasn’t easy.  But it almost seemed so, in comparison to the process of mental healing.  Fortunately, by this point in my life I had been exposed to some spiritual teachings that were quite helpful to me.  These included the work of the good reverends Charles & Myrtle Fillmore and Catherine Ponder.

Forgiveness was a common theme in this work and I set out to forgive my assailant.  Believe it or not, I was able to quickly and readily forgive the man who shot me.  I know what it is to be powerless over an addiction, so while I hated what my attacker had done, I could empathize with his lack of self-control and likely desperation.

The guy I had a real hard time forgiving – was the doctor who saved my life... 

When I woke up in the recovery room, he told me that they had a hard time finding the bullet in my body but they got it out.  Then he casually mentioned that as long as they were in there, they took out my appendix.

That didn’t make any sense because my bullet wound was on the other side of my abdomen.  He told me it was just standard procedure that whenever they had to open anyone up, they removed the appendix as a precaution.  “That way you won’t have problems later.  You don’t need it anyway.”

I was incredulous at the arrogance and audacity of someone who would cut an organ out of my body without even asking me and left the hospital a few days later with a great deal of resentment.  To make matters worse, the surgery didn’t work out very well.  The sutures came undone, and I looked down to see blood all over my shirt one day.  That necessitated another trip to the hospital.  A week after that, it became infected, requiring another hospital visit.  And the pain was unbearable.  It didn’t matter if I was lying down, sitting, or standing, I couldn’t find any position that relieved the agony.

As the months wore on, I didn’t seem to be getting better, but actually worse.  I woke up four or five times a night in a cold sweat.  I had no energy, and my body seemed to be always fighting off an infection.  This involved trip after trip to doctors and numerous tests.   Along the way I had an intuition.  I asked my regular doctor to take an X-ray, worrying that the hospital left the bullet inside me.

“Save your money,” he chuckled, “They are crazy at Jackson Memorial, but not that crazy.”

The next step was a gastroenterologist, to do an entire upper and lower GI series.  As I was getting ready, the nurse noticed my scar, and inquired about the cause.  I told her about the surgery for the gunshot wound, and she went ahead with my testing.  About twenty minutes later, she came back holding up my X-ray and casually said, “I see they left the bullet inside you.  Is that because it’s located so close to your spine?”

Imagine my shock, then anger.  I had been sick for months and months.  I had no insurance, and had spent a small fortune on doctors, tests, and specialists.  And that doctor had actually told me they took the bullet out.  How (and why) would he have lied to me like that?

I was very confused and not sure where to turn.  I had malpractice lawyers lined up ten deep to take my case.  They all were telling me that an out-of-court settlement for a million dollars was a slam dunk.

But this was after I had discovered The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity book by Catherine Ponder.   So like I always did when I needed guidance, I just closed my eyes, flipped the pages, and stuck my finger in to select a passage to read.

It was on forgiveness.

In the book, Reverend Ponder actually discussed situations like being in a lawsuit with someone.  She said that if you were suing someone, you must be holding onto resentment or revenge, and couldn’t be open to receiving all your allotment of prosperity.  I saw my million dollars swirling down the drain...

Intuitively, I knew what Ponder said to be true.  I spent about 30 minutes meditating on the situation.  I realized that while the doctors and medical team had taken out my appendix and left the bullet in, for whatever reason – they had also saved my life.  I arrived at the hospital on the doorstep of death.  The EMTs had even needed to place a pressure suit on me in the ambulance because my heart was failing.  The simple fact I could consider suing the hospital was because the entire team had kept me alive to even have that thought. They had done the best they could, with what they had to work with, and the consciousness they had.

I forgave everyone involved, released my resentment, and affirmed my tremendous gratitude for their service.  And an amazing thing happened...

That night, I got a complete night’s sleep without waking up in the middle, for the first time since I could remember.  I soon had another operation to have the bullet removed.  But my health started improving dramatically, the day I forgave.

If you are holding on to revenge, love can’t walk in.  If you are hanging on to resentment, then you are hanging on to victimhood.  And if you are holding on to victimhood, then there’s no space in your mind to be a victor.  You must release the negative feelings, as they only eat you up inside, and prevent you from your good.

After all you’ve been through, you’re probably pretty pissed off.  Don’t blame you a bit.  Religions require you to feel subservient so they can control you.  Governments need you to need them in order to remain in power.  Millions of companies want to manipulate you to buy their product or service that probably isn’t in your highest good.  There are people who are jealous and resentful of you, working to sabotage you.  There are people who love you and want the best for you – and they don’t even realize that they’re programmed with their own limiting beliefs that they’re infecting you with.

It’s tragic but true.  We have created a society that beats you down, infects you with fear, and programs you to be a worker drone in the collective.  And most of us get washed into the flow, mired in mediocrity before we even realize what hit us.

It’s understandable that you’re angry with all of the forces and people that have been deployed to keep you down.  It’s understandable that you might want revenge.  But the very best revenge you can ever achieve, is evolving and growing into the new you.  Creating your radical rebirth.  And that means forgiving everyone and everything that tried to hold back the old you.

You don’t have time for vengeance or retribution, because they ultimately lead you to victimhood. 

Besides in most cases, the person who made or accepted the final decision was you.  The only way to let go of victimhood and become a victor is to stop assigning blame to others and take self-responsibility.

Maybe you didn’t have the guts to accept your true sexuality.  Or stand up for your desire to be an artist instead of an attorney.  Or do the critical thinking necessary to discover your true path.  Maybe you allowed fear-based people around you to dial down your dreams and you gave up on your true potential.  Maybe you unknowingly allowed yourself to be programed with low self-esteem and worthiness issues, so you subconsciously were actually afraid of success and happiness.

Welcome to the human race.  We’ve all made decisions like this.  We’ve all knowingly or unknowingly contributed to situations we say we don’t want.  That’s what the mind viruses cause you to do.  That’s what causes all those other people to do the things they did to you.  We’re all prisoners in the Matrix, but the difference is, you’ve become conscious of it and made a decision to escape it.

Forgive your parents and any others who may have influenced you to take a path that turned out to be the wrong one for you, because they were doing the best with what they had to work with.  Forgive those that doubted you, ridiculed you, and attempted to keep you down. Forgive the politicians, religious leaders, tech companies, marketers, social media trolls and even Milli Fuckin’ Vanilli.

Forgive them all.   Because letting go of the past, the hurt, and victimhood – is the only way you’re going to create your radical rebirth, and step into your greatness.  And while we’re at it, there is one more person you have to forgive.  Who do you think that is?

Exactly. 

And that’s what we’ll discuss on the next post.  Before then, would love to see your thoughts below.

Peace,

- RG