Discussion
In looking further at the application of radical forgiveness, there is an emotional experience from my own life that I would like to offer as an example. This experience is one that has been deeply rooted in my reality for some time now. It comes from the time that I was in high school. My first big love had just moved away to go to college. When we were together, he had introduced me to my high school’s party scene, and after he left, I continued to go to parties. What I found, however, was that going as a young woman without a boyfriend was quite a different experience. Suddenly, young men started coming on to me. I had very low self-esteem at this time in my life and attached a great deal of my self-worth to being with a man. I ended up trying to be with these high school guys as a way to make myself feel better. It certainly did not. After each night of being at a party, I found that I felt even more terrible about myself.
This cycle continued until it culminated in an experience with a male friend of mine. He persuaded me into having sexual relations with him even though I was so intoxicated that I could barely walk. The experience was very physically and emotionally painful to me. I felt very confused and lost afterwards. I finally turned to my parents for help, and they felt very strongly that I needed to do something so that this man didn’t continue to lead other high school women into similarly painful experiences. This momentarily turned my feeling of being a victim into one of being a hero. He was convicted of having sexual relations with a minor, but this only made me feel worse about the whole situation because I was unsure as to what had really happened between us. Was I raped? Was it my fault that the whole situation happened because I drank too much?
I felt upset with this young man, but most of my doubt and sadness was towards myself. Forgiving myself for not being stronger in this situation has been one of my hardest challenges with forgiveness. It has affected my self-esteem, relationships, and beliefs of the world. I went through several types of therapy and felt that I had let the incident go. The processes of therapy that I went through all fell into the category of ordinary forgiveness. I simply wished that the whole thing hadn’t happened, but also felt so tired of dealing with it, that I convinced myself I had worked through the incident. It wasn’t until I moved back to the area in which this occurred and saw this man in passing that I realized I still hadn’t radically forgiven the situation, him, or myself.
A great deal of healing occurred for me during a beautiful meditation on my heart center that I learned in a healing class. In this meditation, I visualized my heart center as a temple with a lovely garden outside of it and a gate surrounding the area. In my vision I saw myself entering into the gate of my heart and then going inside the temple itself, where there was a red crystal. I became centered in this space, connecting myself both to the earth and the heavens. I then asked that the higher self of the person I had this experience with enter into my heart temple as well. I felt very scared at first, but then started connecting with him at a higher level than any of our previous interactions. We conversed about how both of our egos had been hurt, but also how the core of our beings were untouched. We were both glowing with light and held hands. He then said goodbye and disappeared, leaving me with a very open heart. I am now shifting my perspective to one that embraces this experience, seeing it as a core lesson for me on forgiveness. This was a great lesson in not feeling victimized by the universe and instead looking deeper at the situation to find out what I could learn from it.
This is all part of radical forgiveness. It shifts the energy around the situation, allowing for new beliefs to be formed about what happened. We manifest our own realities, and with this, we can heal past wounds by learning the lessons they presented for us and then re-kindling our trust in the universe.
In the book Health Building (1985), Dr. Stone asks us the question: Have we learned what we need to from painful experiences? Are we ready to move on to healthy, love-filled ones? There are lessons that we can learn from being in pain, whether it be emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual in nature. There may be other ways to learn such lessons, but pain can be a vehicle for them to present themselves in our lives. One of the most beautiful parts of Dr. Stone’s questions to me is the ability we have to move past painful experiences. By learning our lessons and shifting our perceptions, we can step into a joyful, healthy experience of life. I am currently in the process of doing this and can see that in doing so, I am turning into the person that I have always wanted to be. What lessons are being presented in your life? Have you seen these lessons in the past, and if so, how have you dealt with them? Can you see something that you’ve learned from them?