Currently on my spiritual growth I am trying to bring more love into my heart and express more and be less judging of others.  Finding this quite a  challenge at the moment.  I am able to express unconditional love to my children.  So easy, the heart is always open, it never shuts.  I am nicked name the "gobbler".   They get kissed, eaten, hugged, told that they are loved a million times a day but when it comes to other family members, my heart seems to shut.  I can feel it, it doesn't feel open like it does with my children.

It saddens me to feel this way especially when it comes to my husband.  I want him to be able to feel my unconditional love and not me pushing him away at times.  I feel this could be possibly due to passed hurts with him.  I have forgiven him but obviously I still carry something there that lies quite deep.

Anyway, I was wondering, as I am finding it difficult to express my love to family members (especially my parents) am I able to send the love soul to soul, so that they can feel my love at a soul level.  Just a temporary measure, until I can release passed hurts.  I thought I had done a lot of forgiving, but obviously not enough or the issues are quite deep and I am now being forced to face these issues, and not wanting to.

Your guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Love,
Annette
x   

Brett, sometimes while my husband is sleeping I will touch his hand or arm lightly and send him my love.  I know you don't have to touch but I like to and if he needs any healing at the time he will receive it too.  I understand what you say about the feeling you get when you send the unconditional love, words can't describe it.  To me its as if I am being sent the love and it engulfs my whole being.  Even if I tried to tell him that I loved him or appreciated him etc it could never convey the feeling when I do it this way.  It is nice to hear it verbally though.

When I had a regression about 15 years ago, I did something similar that you describe about forgiveness.  In my mind set I sat infront of my father and told him I forgave him etc.  It has taken this long to finally have some peace and understanding as to why he behaves a certain way but I still am not fully at peace because I wish he would be more loving to me.  I know what you are going to say, I need to send him love and when he sees my love radiating he will respond, well hopefully.  That is the problem, I still have deep, deep issues.  Not sure what they are, might even be from a passed life, who knows, who cares, I just want to release them.

I know what you say about showing too much of yourself on the forum.  Sometimes I think I should go back and delete the post, I have revealed too much. hee hee.  But thank you for your lovely story.

Annette
x

Thank you for starting this thread, Annette.
Brett - your story about sending unconditional love to your pupils meant so much to me. I am very grateful that you shared it.

ggxx

Annette

You are very beautiful and very courageous. xxx

Another perspective for you: if you feel the need to hold back, it means that you are still protecting yourself from further perceived hurts. Please don't make yourself wrong for that. I think we sometimes spend too much time trying to give unconditional love to others, and not enough to ourselves. It sounds to me like you need to expand your own personal power. You know you love your family. That is not the issue. Your issue is fear, which sounds well 'justified' with both your husband and father. It's easy to love your chidlren and not fear them - after all, who has the power in that relationship??? You do.

You will find it much easier to pour love onto others when you are feeling extraordinarily loving towards yourself and powerful and STRONG within yourself.  When you are feeling more that way - then be more 'unconditional' with your family. I bet you find it much easier! :-)

I think Brett's comments are beautiful and admirable but I must say that when I have tried such things (eg with nasty co-workers in the past) it has back-fired on me because they could see my sensitivity and that only encouraged them to be more relentlessly spiteful. So I think it depends WHO you are dealing with and WHAT YOU personally need to learn. I needed to learn a lot about personal power and all my 'Dalai Lama' states did not help me one bit - in fact it made things worse in many cases. We all need some spiritual warrior in us too. I needed to develop the warrior, not the lover for quite a long time.   

I truly think this is about your own feelings of lack of personal power (based on past experiences), and not your (in)ability to love others sufficiently.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this! :-) Take care.

Sam xx

   

Sam,

I do agree with your comment about personal power.  My father has dominated and suppressed me my whole life and I am slowly learning to stand up for myself and beliefs.  I love your comment about the spiritual warrior and having develop that side of you first.

Jen I send a big hug to you too. 

GG I hope this thread helps other that are in need of healing too.

All my love,
Annette
xx

thank you Sam

What an interesting thread...

So much to digest and ponder...

Forgiveness of another...and anothers forgiveness towards oneself...or the lack of either...or any combination of...

It all seems a little one-sided to me though, in the sense that I see little or nothing about forgiving oneself...unless I missed it.

Unconditional love....is it even possible to love another unless you love yourself?...at least as a matter of degree///...(That's debatable in some ways, but you have to take into account there are many diffferent types/forms and reasons for and to love).

Forgiveness of others is a perfectly rational and 'selfish" act. Vengeance and hatred and the many forms they display only eat away at the individual...what appears to be founded on "strength" is ultimately a weakness.

Forgiving others in my experience is wayyyyyyyy easier than forgiving yourself. Of course though...many believe they have nothing to forgive themselves for and every reason to judge another. Game over...end of "growth".

Many years back I was responsible for the death of another human being.

It wasn't a pre-meditated event, it was simply an accident...that could have "happenned" to anyone.

Still...the family of that person suffered a huge loss...and in their eyes I was the cause of that loss. Did they ever forgive me? No....

Would it have made it any "easier" for me to live with it if they had forgiven me?

Yes.

I have other tales to tell where I was deliberately (out of sheer stupidity and ignorance) the cause of pain to others...I have many tales to tell where others have caused me pain and distress and anguish way beyond what I would ever post here.

Either way...I think forgiving yourself (which is partly learning what unconditional love is all about) in the face of real (read obvious) tradgedy is way more difficult than forgiving another. If you have stared real pain and tradgedy in the face...from both sides of the fence...as a 'victim" and a "causer" forgiving another is easy if you have a functioning brain-thingy...

So what are the steps here?

First forgive others...you simply must UNCONDITIONALLY forgive others who have wronged you or you perceive have wronged you.

Why...'cause you're fffff....fu....dead in the water if you do not.

Until and unless you forgive anyone and everyone who has hurt you in any way you do not get access to the mother lode where the real gold is.

Partly forgive-=part access...may as well not bother.


So ok let's say you wake up tomorrow morning,,,you've had a visit from God in a dream who gave you a tune up, basically saying...look pal....forgive...ok?...so you do....


Next step is you are handed a mirror...and millimetre by millimetre you are revealed to yourself.

You are never given more than you can "handle" or "digest" and it is always up to you how much you choose to bite off....

Ever wondered why in life so many times you (and you have witnessed it in others yes?) go through the same scenario(s) again and again and again.....?

Anyway...enough fer now...Unconditional Love?

First forgive.....others....then be prepared to learn to forgive youself. I've mastered the first part of this equation....now I'm facing up to the second part (learning to love and forgive myself).

To infinity....and beyoooooooooooonddddddddddddd!

;-)

John

Let me pose this question, Buzz. Why is it harder to forgive ourselves than to forgive others.. if in deed it is.. I s'pose it depends on the relative crimes/bad deeds/failings/whatever.