The Global Conversation

Tag: forgiveness

  • How can I make my boyfriend forgive and trust me?

    My boyfriend can’t forgive me because for the first year we dated I never invited him to my apartment. I was embarrassed because his apartment is so much nicer than mine, so I was always making excuses not to have him over. He thinks it was because I was unfaithful and living with another guy but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve tried to explain it to him but he’s still holding it against me. I love him so much and miss the good times we had together. How can I regain his trust?… Mandy

    Dear Mandy,

    You’ve learned the hard way, I’m afraid, that relationships can’t prosper fully when one is intentionally withholding information from another. That said, if you’ve sincerely apologized and explained your reasons and he still won’t forgive you, it’s probably time you have a heart to heart talk and try to find out what’s really going on with him. Set an intention for clarity and honest, open, peaceful communication. Here are a few talking points that might help get you started:

    The way I see it—and please correct me if I’m wrong—if you haven’t yet forgiven me, it must be for one of these three reasons:

    1. Because I haven’t explained why I did what I did, well enough for you to understand. I’ll gladly try one more time if you want me to.

    2. If I have explained it fully and you understand what I’m saying, but you choose not to believe me, there is nothing I can do about that.

    3. If I have explained it fully and you understand what I’m saying and you do believe me, but you choose to hold and carry a grudge, there is nothing I can do about that, either. 

    Are any of these scenarios true for you or are you using what I did as an excuse because you don’t have the courage to tell me that your feelings about me have changed? Or maybe you never really felt the same way about me that I feel about you?

    CWG says there is nothing to forgive; there is only to understand. God fully understands the reasons behind everything we’ve ever done—what our fears were, what our thought processes were about that fear, and why it drove us to make that “mistake” (of course, there really are no mistakes in the Universe). That is why we need not ask forgiveness from God. Even before we ask it is already given.

    Also, Mandy, we must always understand and forgive ourselves if we expect to receive understanding and forgiveness from others. This is how the Universe works at a metaphysical level—it reflects back our own thoughts about it. So perhaps the larger question is, Have you forgiven yourself?!

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Life Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com.

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

    An additional resource:  The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

  • Unforgivable?

    There have been moments in my life when I have entertained unkind thoughts. I have also said things in my life that I do not feel proud of. And I can remember times when I have acted in ways that contradicted my best intentions. I suppose each and every one of us can remember at least one time in our lives when our thoughts, words, and actions were not in alignment with our Highest Self, instances when we functioned from a place of fear and not from a place of love, moments when we knew at a very deep and certain level that we had stepped off the path of clarity.

    However, fortunately for most of us, our mishaps, intentional or otherwise, were not instantaneously broadcast on national television, shared feverishly across thousands, if not millions, of internet websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages, or published in countless newspaper and magazine publications around the world simultaneously, as they have been in recent days for Paula Deen.

    Ms. Deen is being sued by a former manager at her restaurants, Lisa T. Jackson, in Savannah, Georgia, for sexual and racial harassment. Jackson’s lawsuit alleges that Deen and her brother, Bubba Hier, committed numerous acts of violence, discrimination, and racism that resulted in the end of her five-year employment with Deen.

    During a deposition in the legal proceedings, Paula Deen admitted to using racial epithets, such as the “N” word, tolerating racist jokes, and condoning pornography in the workplace, candid forthcomings that have landed her smack dab in the middle of a firestorm of sharp criticism and vilification from both the media and the public at large. Ms. Deen’s candor ultimately led to the swift decision by The Food Network to cancel her cooking show on their television station only one hour after she publicly offered her heartfelt apologies and begged for forgiveness from all those who have been affected by her choices and actions.

    I would like to be clear that I am not here to judge what Paula Deen did, or did not do, as being good or bad, right or wrong, defensible or indefensible. What I am interested in having a conversation about is: What happens now? How do we, individually and collectively, show up now in relation to this event and this experience? Do we attempt to drain and deplete Paula Deen of every ounce of goodness and joy that she has given to our world as a trade-off for the moments in which she forgot who she was? Do we punish her? Do we support her? Do we forgive her?

    Is forgiveness even necessary?

    In the book The Only Thing That Matters, we are offered the invitation to consider a radical new way of thinking: Forgiveness Forgone, a concept which says that forgiveness is not necessary when it is replaced, rather, with the more powerful energy of Understanding. If this concept is held as true, then the question becomes: What are we being asked to understand here? Are we willing to see through the thick layers of distortion – anger, fear, judgment – to understand that anything Paula Deen has said or done is truly an expression of love? Do we need to see to it that Paula Deen “loses everything” in order for us to feel as though we are “made whole”? Is that how it all works in this game of life?

    Perhaps the notoriety of situations like these offers us an opportunity to peer into our own personal relationships and notice where we are holding on to grudges or allowing tightly held resentment to dominate our choices. Is there anything in life that is unforgivable? Is there a “point of no return”?

    Perhaps the woes and sorrows of another famous face are unimportant to us as we move through the day-to-day affairs of our own lives. As with everything in life, we all get to decide for ourselves what it means. But for me, I can’t help but notice the many way in which these types of defining moments continue to appear, calling me, beckoning me, and inviting me to once again choose, declare, and ultimately experience who I really am.

    Who will you choose to be?

     

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • My boyfriend can’t forgive me and doesn’t trust me anymore

    My boyfriend can’t forgive me because for the first year we dated I never invited him to my apartment. I was embarrassed because his apartment is so much nicer than mine, so I was always making excuses not to have him over. He thinks it was because I was unfaithful and living with another guy but nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve tried to explain it to him but he’s still holding it against me. I love him so much and miss the good times we had together. How can I regain his trust?… Mandy

    Dear Mandy,

    You’ve learned the hard way, I’m afraid, that relationships can’t prosper fully when one is intentionally withholding information from another. That said, if you’ve sincerely apologized and explained your reasons and he still won’t forgive you, it’s probably time you have a heart to heart talk and try to find out what’s really going on with him. Set an intention for clarity and honest, open, peaceful communication. Here are a few talking points that might help get you started:

    The way I see it, and please correct me if I’m wrong, if you haven’t yet forgiven me, it must be for one of these three reasons:

    1. Because I haven’t explained why I did what I did, well enough for you to understand. I’ll gladly try one more time if you want me to.

    2. If I have explained it fully and you understand what I’m saying, but you choose not to believe me, there is nothing I can do about that.

    3. If I have explained it fully and you understand what I’m saying and you do believe me, but you choose to hold and carry a grudge, there is nothing I can do about that, either. 

    Are any of these scenarios true for you or are you using what I did as an excuse because you don’t have the courage to tell me that your feelings about me have changed? Or maybe you never really felt the same way about me that I feel about you?

    CWG says there is nothing to forgive; there is only to understand. God fully understands the reasons behind everything we’ve ever done—what our fears were, what our thought processes were about that fear, and why it drove us to make that “mistake” (of course, there really are no mistakes in the Universe). That is why we need not ask forgiveness from God. Even before we ask it is already given.

    Also, Mandy, we must always understand and forgive ourselves if we expect to receive understanding and forgiveness from others. This is how the Universe works at a metaphysical level—it reflects back our own thoughts about it. So perhaps the larger question is, Have you forgiven yourself?!

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of The Conversations With God School, is a CWG Life Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com.

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

  • The war is over

    My ex-husband and I padded the bank accounts of several high-priced attorneys and occupied over two years’ worth of courtroom time and resources, mired in the pain and enveloped in the confusion surrounding our divorce, a word which suddenly and ferociously became a synonym for our own personal “war.”  And most regrettably, we allowed our distorted sense of “victimization” and perceived “failure” to interfere with our ability to be the loving support system that our only son desired and deserved.  We, like so many others, found ourselves consumed with the upheaval in our relationship and paralyzed by the illusions of fear and need, as we found ourselves sinking deeper and deeper into despair and moving further and further away from any concept of who we once knew ourselves to be.

    Until one day everything changed.

    And I mean literally in one day.  And more profoundly, not only in one day, but as a result of one choice:

    I changed my perspective.

    It was glaringly apparent, after years of bitterness and conflict, that what we were doing wasn’t working.  So why were we continuing to do the same thing over and over again, making the same choices and expecting different results?  Which, by the way, is the phrase Narcotics Anonymous offers as the definition of insanity in its time-honored book on addiction.

    When I shifted my perspective and held my relationship, and the experiences provided to me within it, in a new light, this is what I was allowed to remember:

    First, our relationship was not ending.  It was merely changing.  The purpose and intent of our union always was and always will be integrated in our human experience in the way we choose for it to be.  We can choose to consciously and purposefully include and utilize the opportunities blanketed within this experience, or we can choose to continue to react to the experience as one that is happening outside of us and, therefore, to us.  Two very different realities are birthed out of each respective choice.

    Second, this relationship was drawn to and co-created by us both as a vehicle within which we were both given an opportunity to experience an aspect of ourselves not yet remembered, not yet expressed, not yet demonstrated.  And because I do not believe that life is a series of random happenings, and I also do not believe that life shuffles us through a predetermined script, I knew there was a larger opportunity being offered here to create meaning and to declare purpose and to know and experience ourselves at a higher level.

    Third, I was led to a deeper understanding of what “forgiveness” means…and what it doesn’t mean.  Neale Donald Walsch’s new book “The Only Thing That Matters” says, “Absolution is not necessary, since all human action is based, at its root, in love, however confused, mistaken, or distorted its expression.”  And as “Conversations with God” puts it:  “No one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.”

    The marrying of these two spiritual concepts created the perfect recipe of change for me and facilitated a new perspective, one that propelled me into a deep sense of appreciation and profound gratitude in relation to someone who once was my partner and who now is my friend.

    When some of the top stories in today’s headlines are “Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ Bitter Divorce” or “Real-Life War of the Roses,” as described in a story by ABC News where Michael Rose and Rona Rose’s divorce resembled the popular Hollywood movie that coined the popular phrase and amplifies the rage of a bitter divorce, I now understand the gift I have been given and value the opportunity to share my personal experience to help others.

    Why are we as a society enamored with the downfall of celebrity or high-profile relationships, as the rows and rows of tabloid magazines in our grocery store checkout stands reflect?  Perhaps it soothes our own perceived sense of failure to notice that the “most notable” in our society, too, are struggling with relationship challenges.  Perhaps our egos hurt less when we think someone else hurts more.

    What if, just for today, you assigned a new meaning to something that is changing (perhaps a relationship) in your life?

    What if you saw this event through the lens of an entirely different perspective?

    If there is a new perspective that feels better than the one you currently hold about a particular situation that you are facing, what is standing in the way of you embracing it?

    Could you “end the war” right now?

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support .   To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

     

  • God will never forgive you for anything

    (Part 3 of a 5-part series)

    This is important. Please read…

    If you think that you are going to be forgiven by God for anything you may have done “wrong,” you are mistaken. Conversations with God tells us that God will never forgive you.

    Read that, never. As in, never ever. For anything.

    It won’t matter how much you beg, it won’t matter how much you plead, it won’t matter how many times you fall on your knees begging for mercy. God will never forgive you for anything, ever.

    If you are looking for forgiveness from God, you are looking in the wrong place.

    Now there is a very good reason that God will never forgive you. God has nothing to forgive you for. You have never done anything in the entirety of your life that could displease God. You have never done anything that could anger God. You have never done anything that could damage or hurt God.

    Do you believe in a Deity that would or could have any reason to be unhappy? Do you believe in a Deity that would or could have any reason to be angry? Do you truly imagine that the God of this Universe (which today’s science is now telling us is actually a universe of Universes…a Multiverse!) could actually be hurt or damaged in any way…much less by something that Little Old You have done?

    Well, no, you might say, God doesn’t “punish” human beings because they have offended Him. God sits in judgment and punishes human beings because Perfect Justice demands it.

    In some minds that makes sense, and helps people to reconcile a Totally Loving God with a Fearful Deity who would nevertheless condemn His children to eternal and unspeakable agony for their “offenses.” Yet Have you ever heard the phrase, “There ain’t no justice…”? Well, that’s how it is in Heaven. There’s just ain’t no justice. And the reason there is no “justice” is that the whole concept of Justice depends upon the existence of Right & Wrong. And there’s no such thing as Right and Wrong. That’s an abstraction, an hypothesis, constructed totally in the mind of Man. And it’s been twisted beyond recognition even in its imaginary form.

    The reason there is no “justice” in Heaven is that in Heaven, everything is Perfect. As well, everything is Perfect “on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” For Earth is part of Heaven…and we just don’t know it.

    You have never done anything that could cause God to punish you in the name of seeking “justice.” Do you seek “justice” in the case of an 18-month old baby who knocks over the 200-year-old vase that was the irreplaceable Family Heirloom? Do you punish her with everlasting separation from her Source of Life and Love?

    Do you imagine that human beings are much more than 18-month-old babies in the Life of the Cosmos, and in the Mind of God? Is it your thought that God sees us as fully conscious, totally aware, completely knowledgeable, unlimitedly wise beings who are absolutely responsible for their every thought, word, and action in a Reality about which they know and understand Everything?

    Do you conceive of human beings as being at the top of the Evolutionary Process that produces Sentient Beings in the Universe? Or is it possible that we have no idea what’s going on here, not the slightest conception of the Reality in which we find ourselves, and are just now truly birthing ourselves into the Cosmic Community of Sentient Beings?

    If the second were true, is it your thought that a righteous and virtuous God would punish us with Everlasting Damnation and Eternal Torment in the Fires of Hell for having made what even we would call a simple childhood mistake if we were witness to a toddler “misbehaving”?

    What kind of a “God” do you think we have, anyway…? Do you imagine that we truly are Children of a Lesser God?

    (Neale Donald Walsch is the publisher of The Global Conversation internet newspaper and the author of the Conversations with God series of books. His latest book, The Only Thing That Matters,  distributed by Hay House, is now available in print or audio form from Amazon.com by clicking here.)