5. Forgiveness

Forgiving allows our heart to see more good in ourselves and others

Our work is to submit to Allah. To do this we must shift and hold our mind in a constant positive view of Allah, ourselves and others. In previous posts I shared how gratitude, contemplation, and being truly open are tools to help us shift to and maintain a positive view. Forgiveness is another- forgiving others and ourselves.

Forgiveness is important because if we don’t forgive we hold on the the anger, hurt, bitterness and hate inside of us. Those feelings impact and cloud our heart from seeing clearly. The most important person we have to forgive is ourselves. If we cannot forgive ourselves for our mistakes, errors and shortcomings we cannot forgive others.

The only way to forgive yourself is to allow yourself to feel the feelings. Feel the feelings of shame, guilt, frustration etc. Feel them and work through them, then let them go. Just let it go, tell yourself its okay because it is. It’s in the past, it’s done, there is nothing you can do about it now. If you need to apologize or repent, do that.

Give yourself a chance to start fresh, you are not your mistakes. Just because you did/did not something before does not mean you will do/not do it again. When you truly forgive yourself and let it go you allow yourself a chance to be better. Don’t say “I always” or “I never” this limits you. You can change, you can improve, you are not beyond hope. If you hold on, beating yourself up constantly, you cannot fully move forward.

Allah WILL forgive you, he is the most merciful. It is a trick of the shaytan (devil) to make you believe that what you did is unforgivable and keep you in a state of feeling bad. Feeling bad prevents us from doing good. Do not believe the shaytan, it is okay. Learn the lesson, repent and/or apologize, forgive yourself and move forward knowing Allah has erased it from your records.

When you’re able to do that for yourself it will be easier for you to forgive others. Others, like you, are not defined by their mistakes and shortcomings. If they wronged you they are not a bad person they just did a bad thing. Moreover, our feelings do nothing to the other person, they will go about their life unaffected by the fact that you’re still angry at them. Your forgiveness is not for them, but for yourself. You do not want that negativity in your heart.

Practice tip:
Understand that pressure, insecurities and fear can move each of us to behave in less than desirable ways. Acknowledge those realities and do not hold yourself or others to be perfect. Give yourself deliberate time and space to think through the wrong. You cannot forgive without reflecting. Reflect, so you can process all the learnings that the experience holds, Allah gave you that experience to learn something to make you better. Don’t overlook them or dismiss them, appreciate and collect the lesson, then you will be able to let it go and forgive.

EXERCISE:

Tonight forgive yourself for something (or even better- everything) in your past.
*Pro exercise*- each night forgive yourself for anything that happened during the day.

This post is part 5 of a series see the other posts here.

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