Forgiveness cont.

As I've been implementing what I learned from Erica's presentation I've learned a lot more about forgiveness!

I've noticed that we have a lot more to forgive in our lives than we may realize: the bus being late, not having time to train for my marathon, people not being able to read my mind, etc. These seem pretty petty but they tend to fill up your day! Things never seem to go according to plan. I can't even explain how applicable the idea of forgiveness is in these situations.

As I said in my previous post, I chose a person and an organization that it is my goal to forgive. It is kind of shocking how similar the feeling of forgiveness is for a person or a bus!

Every time the person or organization came to my mind I would think "instantly forgive" and as I wrote about in my last post, it allowed me to clear my mind and decide that I wanted to focus on other things like how to bring joy to the world. It was obviously very helpful! In fact, I kept trying to forgive the individual but it wasnt working! Finally, I realized that I'm not actually angry with her, I'm angry with the people that can't see through her insincereity. Once i forgived that I could really feel the difference! Sometime we don't even know what e're mad at!!!

So, then I started to apply this when I was waiting for the bus, really needed to get to class, and the bus doesn't come... I don't have control over the person/organization and I don't have control over the bus. So, when the bus is late I think "instantly forgive" and focus on how my life will go on even if I'm late. I did my part to have a good outcome. Me being angry will not make the person/organization change and it did not make the bus come faster. 

This has brought me a lot of peace, allowed me to remember that it's ok for things to go wrong and has allowed me to invite a lot of peace into my very chaotic life. 

It has also been interesting with my marathon training. There is not enough time in the day for me to train! I could wake up earlier, not do homework, not spend time with Jeff, but I know that I get sick when I don't get enough sleep, my education will suffer if I don't do my homework, and I will be an unhappy camper if I spend less time with my husband. 

So, while initially I was really stressed about this, I have done everything I can and have made my decision to let running be what suffers. I may pay the price on marathon day but that is the price that I chose to pay over other ways I could pay. So basically, I've had to forgive the other things in my life and forgive  myself for not being capable of more. Because it's OK. When I start to think I should be able to do more I remember that I've done everything I can and me being anxious isn't going to change it. 

I'm SO GRATEFUL that I've been able to apply this!