Daily Bible Study – Immanuel experience…

LEARN and PRACTICE the WORD of GOD

(Continuation from yesterday)

Forgiveness may be the last thing on your mind when someone does something truly awful to you, but it’s not just for them—it’s essential for your own well being.

Tips – how to forgive someone…

1. Take some time and identify how you feel. Keep your focus on what hurts and what you’d eventually like to let go of. The best part is you can take as long as you like to forgive someone. You’re in control here. So buckle down, scream and shout, and you’ll know when you’re ready.
2. Put yourself in their position, especially the people who are suffering because of you. You may never understand why they did what they did, what others suffers because of you but it can sometimes help to see things from their eyes. It’s important you never blame yourself for anything—or try to find excuses for them—but taking some time to empathize with your wrongdoer for a moment can make it easier to see the reality of the situation. Remember, we’re all human and we are nowhere near perfect.
3. Move on to the next act – Your past history and all of your hurts are no longer here in your physical reality. Don’t allow them to be here in your mind, muddying your present moments. Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary, otherwise they wouldn’t be in the play.Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

4. Remember what forgiveness involves. You are not condoning the wrong or acting as if it never happened—you are simply letting it go.

5. Reconnect to Spirit – Make a new agreement with yourself to always stay connected to Spirit even when it seems to be the most difficult thing to do. If you do this, you will allow whatever degree of perfect harmony that your body was designed for to proliferate. Turn your hurts over to God, and allow Spirit to flow through you.
6. Remember that forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation. It’s important to keep in mind that forgiving someone doesn’t mean that both sides are healed! Unfortunately, the old phrase of “forgive and forget” isn’t really beneficial in real life. You should remember what someone has done to you, even if it means you can no longer be a part of their life.
7. Don’t go to sleep angry- each night as I drift off to sleep, I adamantly refuse to use this precious time to review anything that I do not want to be reinforced in the hours of being immersed in my subconscious mind. I choose to impress upon my subconscious mind my conception of myself as a Divine creator in alignment with the one mind. I reiterate my I ams, which I have placed in my imagination, and I remember that my slumber will be dominated by my last waking concept of myself. I am peaceful, I am content, I am love, and I attract only to myself those who are in alignment with my highest ideals of myself.
8. Witch the focus from blaming others to understanding yourself. Whenever you’re upset over the conduct of others, take the focus off those you’re holding responsible for your inner distress. Shift your mental energy to allowing yourself to be with whatever you’re feeling — let the experience be as it may, without blaming others for your feelings. Don’t blame yourself either! Just allow the experience to unfold and tell yourself that no one has the power to make you uneasy without your consent, and that you’re unwilling to grant that authority to this person right now.
9. Learn to let go and be like water – Rather than attempting to dominate with your forcefulness, be like water: flow everywhere there’s an opening. Soften your hard edges by being more tolerant of contrary opinions. Interfere less, and substitute listening for directing and telling. When someone offers you their viewpoint, try responding with: “I’ve never considered that before—thank you. I’ll give it some thought.”

10. Recognize the benefits of forgiveness. Letting go of anger and resentment can help you to keep calm, improve your health, and increase your happiness. (Proverbs 14:30; Matthew 5:9) Even more important, forgiving others is a key to receiving God’s forgiveness for your own sins.—Matthew 6:14, 15.

11. Be empathetic. All of us are imperfect. (James 3:2) Just as we appreciate being forgiven, we should likewise forgive the mistakes of others.—Matthew 7:12.

12. Be reasonable. When we have a minor cause for complaint, we can apply the Bible’s counsel: “Continue putting up with one another.”—Colossians 3:13.

13. Act gently. Work to forgive as soon as you can rather than letting your anger fester.—Ephesians 4:26, 27.

14. Practice giving – In the midst of arguments or disagreements, practice giving rather than taking before you exit. Giving involves leaving the ego behind. While it wants to win and show its superiority by being contrary and disrespectful, your Tao nature wants to be at peace and live in harmony. You can reduce your quarreling time to almost zero if you practice this procedure:Wherever you are, whenever you feel strong emotions stirring in you and you notice yourself feeling the need to “be right,” silently recite the following words from the Prayer of Saint Francis: “Where there is injury, [let me bring] pardon.”
15. Stop looking for occasions to be offended – When you live at or below ordinary levels of awareness, you spend a great deal of time and energy finding opportunities to be offended. A news report, a rude stranger, someone cursing, a sneeze, a black cloud —just about anything will do if you’re looking for an occasion to be offended. Become a person who refuses to be offended by any one, any thing, or any set of circumstances.
16. Don’t live In the past – be present. When we find it difficult to forgive, often it is because we are not living in the present, and instead, we assign more importance to the past. We assign a good portion of our energy and attention lamenting the good old days that are gone forever as the reason why we can’t be happy and fulfilled today. “Everything has changed,” “No one respects anyone else like they used to…” This is assigning responsibility to the past for why you can’t be happy today.
17. Embrace your dark times – In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did. Every spiritual advance that you will make in your life will very likely be preceded by some kind of fall or seeming disaster. Those dark times, accidents, tough episodes, break ups, periods of impoverishment, illnesses, abuses, and broken dreams were all in order. They happened, so you can assume they had to and you can’t unhappen them.Embrace them from that perspective, and then understand them, accept them, honor them, and finally transform them.
18. Refrain from judgement – When you stop judging and simply become an observer, you will know inner peace. With that sense of inner peace, you’ll find yourself happier and free of the negative energy of resentment. A bonus is that you’ll find that others are much more attracted to you. A peaceful person attracts peaceful energy.
19. Send love
    I spent years studying the teachings of Patanjali, and he reminded us several thousand years ago that when we are steadfast—which means that we never slip in our abstention of thoughts of harm directed toward others—then all living creatures cease to feel enmity in our presence.
    Now I know that we are all human: you, me, all of us. We do occasionally slip and retreat from our highest self into judgment, criticism, and condemnation, but this is not a rationale for choosing to practice that kind of interaction. I can only tell you that when I finally got it, and I sent only love to another of God’s children whom I had been judging and criticizing, I got the immediate result of inner contentment.I urge you to send love in place of those judgments and criticisms to others when you feel they impede your joy and happiness, and hold them in that place of love. Notice that if you stay steadfast, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.A Meditation to End on Love
    Picture yourself at the termination of a quarrel or major dispute. Rather than reacting with old patterns of residual anger, revenge, and hurt, visualize offering kindness, love, and forgiveness.Do this right now by sending out these “true virtue” thoughts to any resentments you’re currently carrying. Make this your standard response to any future altercations: I end on love, no matter what!
20. Meditate the Word of God some more until forgiveness works in us
21. Time will certainly heals sickness. Understand this – whether you like it or not, over time, you will stop feeling the pain, so why hold on to something that’s going to away anyway?
22. Shift the focus, feel the pain and think of the thousands of others in the world who are also feeling the same pain, then send a loving-kindness message to everyone to be relieved of this suffering
23. Stop thinking and just do it. Open your heart and forgive
24. Psalms 51 is a psalms of forgiveness.
25. Pray and ask Jesus to impart His gift of forgiveness.

Prayer Heavenly Father, have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love, according to Your great compassion and according to Your grace, blot out all my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. I believe my sins are forgiven through the divine exchange of Jesus, Who offered His Life in the service of all, help me with Your Kindness. Make me strong through the Eucharist. May I put into action the saving Mystery I celebrate in the Mass. Protect me with Your Love and prepare me for eternal happiness. I pray by the name of Jesus. Amen.