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EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER 9:
FORGIVENESS
| Excerpt 1: "A
sincere act of forgiveness allows us to release negative
energy (i.e., excessive levels of adrenaline, other stress
hormones) that can literally become toxic to the cells within
our bodies. This next passage from Discover the Power
Within You by Eric Butterworth supports this very point: |
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Actually, forgiveness is
the simplest way to lighten our burdens. The man who forgives
is no more saintly than one who insists upon keeping clean.
In reality, the act of forgiveness constitutes a mental bath-letting
go of something that can only poison us within.93 |
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Whenever we are unwilling
to forgive, what we are doing is wasting a portion of our
valuable present moment energy on something that no longer
exists, except within the confines of our own mind."
[93 Eric Butterworth, Discover
the Power Within You, (New York, NY: HarperColllins Publishers,
1968) p. 154]
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Excerpt 2: "When
you do opt to forgive a person or persons that have harmed
you, or one or more of your loved ones in some way, you are
by no means condoning what they did - not at all. What you are demonstrating
by practicing forgiveness is that you will not allow your
psyche and/or your body to be poisoned by the negative energy
associated with holding on to resentments or grudges."
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| Excerpt 3: "Think
about it for a moment, and you realize that it is true; people
(including you) are generally so focused on themselves and
their own personal drama that they tend to be oblivious to
what anyone else is going through at the time. That's why
it is important for you not to take things personally, for
people will be what people will be, and the underlying cause
of their behavior actually has nothing to do with you. In
that regard, consider this passage from a marvelous book
called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz: |
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Personal importance, or
taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness
because we make the assumption that everything is about "me." Nothing
other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.
All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they
are in a completely different world than the one we live
in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption
that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose
our world on their world. Even when a situation seems so
personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing
to do with you.108 |
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[108 Don
Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements, (San Rafael, CA:
Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997) p. 48-49]
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| Excerpt 4: "When
you blame other people, you effectively put both your feelings
and your state-of-mind at the mercy of someone else's behavior
(e.g., I'll be happy or satisfied when they apologize, or
start or stop doing X or Y or Z, etc.). The better approach
is for you to accept full responsibility for your life, adopting
instead the perspective that it was you who attracted this
negative person or situation to yourself so that you might
learn a valuable lesson. It is from this position of personal
power that true-life changes can occur." |
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