February is the month of love with Valentine’s Day. A great goal this month is to focus on developing healthy loving relationships with yourself and with others. When you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you are free to have healthy relationships with others and this is a great source of joy.
Relationships flourish through many aspects – building and maintaining rapport, trust, love, respect, harmony, peace and many other forms of cultural norms for relationships. After almost two decades working with NLP (Neuro linguist Programming) and assisting others in achieving the life they desire, I have found that the one main thing that makes relationships last is unconditional love. Unconditional love means being accepting and forgiving of yourself and others.
With unconditional love you respect others (their views, beliefs, thoughts), you have the courage to admit to your faults (also called vulnerability), and you trust that the other person is doing the same. It is important to have honest open conversations about what makes the relationship work and when things change it is just as important to have the courage to ask what happened and brainstorm on how to fix things. Unconditional love means I love you no matter what. (You forgive their flaws and imperfections, you accept who they are—and that includes you! You can unconditionally love you and it is necessary if you wish to truly love another person)
This is where forgiveness plays an important part.
Being human, we are bound to do or say something that negatively affects the other person in the relationship. Most of the time it is unintentional but even if it was an intentional act that causes you to sever the relationship, it is important to forgive the other person. Forgiveness allows you to move on. Holding on to a negative event keeps you in a negative place and does not allow you to move on. In fact, it hurts you over and over again and it impacts your ability to find happiness or attract the right person into your life. Forgiveness does not mean that you are saying the event or act was ok, it simply means that you have placed it in your past, ready to move your life to a more pleasant place. You are complete with what happened.
There is a beautiful Hawaiian ritual for forgiveness and is a key to life’s fulfillment. It is called Ho’oponopono. It involves saying out loud or to yourself these 4 key phrases around something in your life that needs to have completion. When something presses your buttons or bothers you and causes you to feel anger, frustration, hurt, etc. there are four phrases that you can say which allows you to release the negative energy that you have taken on.
Ho’oponopono translates to rightly right or pure again. The four phrases are:
You can say this aloud to yourself or think it if you are not in a surrounding conducive to saying it aloud.
Saying I am sorry is recognizing your part in the suffering, for having responded with a negative emotion.
Saying please forgive me asks the universe for forgiveness in acting contrary to the universal laws of harmony and love.
Saying I love you expresses love for yourself and others.
Saying thank you gives thanks for having a problem come your way that opens your eyes and allows you to learn and grow. You give thanks for freeing yourself from the negative emotions.
A great book on this is written by Ulrich E. Dupree
titled: “Ho’oponopono”. The author explains the meaning behind each phrase in this magical forgiveness ritual.
Our world truly needs more forgiveness than ever right now. Each person on Earth is connected on an energetic level.
There is a lot of anger and blame going on right now. We are all humans and we can forgive what has happened to work towards a better future together.
We need Unity and Renewal. How is holding on to hurt, anger, frustration, etc negatively affecting how you feel and/or how you act? Is it worth it to hold onto it??
Or would your days be better if you could move forward past the hurt, anger, etc….???
Imagine what forgiveness and finding completion could do to your life…….Imagine how much better you could feel if you were not hanging onto any negative thoughts about the past…..
Truly finding completion will restore peace and harmony to your relationship–whether it is with yourself or another person. Recognize that the need for completion is of paramount importance these days. Because what is unsaid often rules the moment if you do not have completion. The unsaid and undealt with negative emotions will negatively impact what you say and do. When you release these negative thoughts and emotions they no longer rule you and you are back in control.
Start today by forgiving yourself for things you have said and done. Then forgive others for things they have said or done. Find completion for your past so that you can have a wonderful today and tomorrow. Say these four phrases for anything that is bothering you. You will be amazed at how easy it is to forgive and to learn from the past, making your present and future exponentially better.
“Perhaps you live, or used to live, in an unhappy partnership, or have just ended a relationship and still carry with you the hurts that must be healed. As long as we think of a relationship with
resentment, hatred, sadness or disappointment, we will attract similar relationships through the resonance principle, or generally block ourselves off from new, harmonious and loving relationship.
If you do not heal wounds from old partnerships, it is very probable that the same wounds, renewed, will be inflicted on you again. Anger, hatred and bitterness are strong emotions that attract their targets with precision.” (Pg. 83. Ho’oponopono by Ulrich E. Dupree)
Focus on having a healthy relationship with yourself and with others by practicing this forgiveness ritual. It costs nothing to try it. What have you got to lose except a lot of negative emotions?????