The desert, while not a place known for forgiveness, has a lot of amazing and beautiful aspects to it. Living in the desert, you also find out rather quickly how dangerous the great outdoors can be when you aren’t being present and you aren’t respecting the environment. Intense heat, lack of water, hungry animals, poisonous insects and poisonous reptiles. There are even tales of the Jumping Cactus, also known as the Jumping Cholla, reportedly able to jump nearly 10 feet (but not really).
A Painful Lesson in Awareness
In actuality, these cactus have such weak connections between their segments that merely gently brushing against a segment is enough for their spikes to hook into the clothing and gear of a hiker. The unsuspecting hiker may walk several steps before noticing sharp pains from the cactus spines working their way through clothing into the skin underneath. Looking around, the nearest cactus is several paces away. Which led to the myth that some cactus can jump to attack the unwary.
I found out the hard way several years back. I enjoy early morning hikes and sometimes the light is not that great as the sun is just rising. I was paying more attention to the beautiful colors of the sunrise and not as much as I should have to the trail. Not noticing the Jumping Cholla I lightly brushed as I passed, my pant leg snagged several clusters. Which promptly managed to embed themselves in my pant leg. Merely walking caused the spines to drive themselves deeper into my leg, quite painfully.
The Journey to Forgiveness
Throughout their lives, people go through painful and traumatic experiences which may have been caused by someone else. Often times people will keep those experiences with them for the rest of their lives and continue to feel the pain. Just as if they had the painful spines of a cactus embedded deeply in their skin, never to be removed. They carry these wounds with them, reliving these painful events over and over again, countless times.
Someone hurt them. Someone did terrible things to them. Someone may have victimized them. These things may very well be unforgivable.
At this point though, everyone makes a choice either purposely or by default. Do you choose to give up your power and take on the role of a victim? Or do you retain your power, acknowledge that something bad happened, make sure it won’t happen again and continue building an even better life?
Choosing Your Path – Victim or Victor
It’s very easy to choose to be a victim after painful and traumatic events. Being a victim has a power of its own. People feel sorry for you. You feel sorry for yourself. You are told it’s not your fault. You are relieved of all responsibility. You hold up your pain and your injury for everyone around you to see and have no doubt that you are a victim. You receive recognition and validation that you may not have earned previously. You are accepted into a community of fellow victims and enablers who want your pity and validation just as much as you want theirs. This is a very easy and seductive path.
Breaking the Cycle
Then there is the more difficult, yet far more rewarding path. Recognizing you may have been victimized by someone or something, but choosing to not be a victim. Choosing to empower yourself to heal yourself and build an even better life. Sometimes it even involves admitting that you played a role and have responsibility for letting something bad happen to you.
Part of the journey towards empowering yourself is through forgiveness. One of the very common misconceptions people have about forgiveness is that forgiveness is about the offender. Just the opposite is true, forgiveness has literally nothing to do with what the offending person deserves. It’s not about condoning what was done to you or ever allowing it to happen again. Forgiveness is entirely about loving yourself and what you deserve.
Why Forgiveness Is Essential for Self-Healing
It’s not uncommon for people to feel powerless after painful and traumatic events. It’s a very human reaction to hold onto your pain, which in turn stagnates your healing. Unfortunately, refusing to forgive is analogous to leaving a cactus spine embedded deeply in your skin. People refuse to remove the spine so the cactus knows how much pain they are in, how much you are suffering and it will never forget what it did to you. But the thing is, the cactus isn’t the one in pain and isn’t the one suffering. It is pretty oblivious to everything going on with you. To the cactus, everything is in the past and never even once enters into its awareness. Cacti are just doing what cacti do because that’s their nature. It’s not uncommon for people to feel powerless after painful and traumatic events. It’s a very human reaction to hold onto your pain, which in turn stagnates your healing. Unfortunately, refusing to forgive is analogous to leaving a cactus spine embedded deeply in your skin. People refuse to remove the spine so the cactus knows how much pain they are in, how much you are suffering and it will never forget what it did to you. But the thing is, the cactus isn’t the one in pain and isn’t the one suffering. It is pretty oblivious to everything going on with you. To the cactus, everything is in the past and never even once enters into its awareness. Cacti are just doing what cacti do because that’s their nature.
The other path is to love yourself more than you enjoy the validation of being a victim. Holding onto that pain and suffering by not forgiving places a heavy burden on you which drains your mental energy and emotions. Holding onto the pain prevents you from evolving and growing to be the best you possible. It closes you off from genuine relationships with people.
Finding Freedom from Emotional Pain
When you forgive, you are not condoning what happened. You’re not saying it was right. You’re not allowing it to happen again. What you are doing is loving yourself enough to free yourself from the burden of your pain. You are choosing to become stronger, more resilient and more in control of your life and your destiny. You are starting your healing process.
By forgiving what happened in the past, you are removing the cactus spines from your skin and moving forward in your life. The cactus that gave you the spines is still oblivious, it still doesn’t care. But you do.
There are many different ways to begin forgiveness. The Hawaiian art of forgiveness, called Ho’oponopono, is quite effective. Meditation offers value in calming your mind and emotions to allow you clear thinking.
However, my absolute favorite method is hypnosis. Hypnotherapy very effectively helps release emotional pain, thus enabling you to move forward in the forgiveness and healing processes. The memories will still be there, but they will hold less power over you. A skilled hypnotherapist can easily guide you, using proven techniques, to let go of the pain and trauma to give you the release and relief that you deserve. Allowing you to live in the present instead of being haunted by an unwelcome past.
When I was out hiking in the desert just past dawn with a leg full of cactus spines, what did I do? What was my choice? I could have left the spines in my leg and scowled and yelled at the cactus as I limped home to get aid and sympathy from someone else. Instead, I carefully removed each spine to release the pain a piece at a time. I still limped home to give myself minor first aid so my healing could begin.
What are your experiences with and thoughts on forgiveness?
Remember, you’re not alone!
