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Forgiveness (an excerpt)
Morrie Schwartz

Using Our Energy
tom walsh

The "All or Nothing" Mentality
Jeff Keller

Everybody Knows That . . .

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I think so many of us are too hard on ourselves for what we didn't accomplish or what we should have done.  The first step is to forgive yourself for all the things you didn't do that you should have and all the things that you did do that you shouldn't have.  Get rid of the guilt.  Negative feelings don't do you much good.  The way to deal with them is to forgive yourself and forgive others.

Forgiveness is a tricky term.  It does not only mean that you apologize, although regretting what you did is part of it.  You may want to make amends if you can, but there are some circumstances where there is nothing more you can do.  Even when you cannot mend fences with others, you need to tell yourself:  "Yes, I did it and it would have been better if I hadn't, but now I want to forgive myself for having done that negative deed."

Forgiveness helps you come to terms with the past.  I've learned how to forgive myself, and this has helped me no longer feel deep regrets or sadness about my past.

For twenty years, I went around feeling terrible about the fact that I had treated a colleague very meanly.  He was in an organization with me, and I did not want to lead a group with him.  For all those years I carried around the guilt that I had been unkind to him and that it wasn't right.  When I saw him again recently, I went up to him and said, "Look, I've carried this burden for twenty years.  I really feel terribly apologetic for what I said and did to you, and I really want to ask your forgiveness."

He said, "Oh, it's perfectly all right.  I remember the time when I was feeling dejected and low and you put your arm around me and were comforting."

I felt tears in my eyes because of the generous way he responded to me and the relief I felt.

There's a difference between using your past and wallowing in it.  Say I had an experience with a nasty person and I got nasty back, but I don't want to be that way anymore.  I can use that experience to work out a different response whenever someone is not so pleasant to me.  If I don't like my reaction, I can change my response.

You can review your past, benefit from your successes, and learn from your mistakes without judging yourself.  This is an excellent time to do a life review, to make amends, identify and let go of regrets, come to terms with unresolved relationships, and tie up loose ends.
  

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Using Our Energy

My brother-in-law just had a heart attack.  He was very fortunate, for they got him to the hospital very quickly and the doctors were able to put in a stint to correct his particular problem--a blocked artery.  It happened in the morning, and we visited him in the afternoon, and he was already doing quite well.

As our visit progressed, though, he started talking about his ex-wife and some of the things she'd been doing, and his focus became very negative.  He sees his approach as being very matter-of-fact, but the fact is that he's focusing on something that hurts him very badly and that affects him very negatively.  He was in the hospital, about to start a recovery from a very severe occurrence, yet he was keeping his mind on a very negative aspect of his life.

I encouraged him to stay focused on the positive things in his life for the time being, for his body needs positive energy coming from his brain and heart.  The more he focuses on things that bring him down, it seems pretty obvious that his recovery will be much slower.  He needs to keep his mind on things that will bring him positive energy, and not depress it.

Allen Klein wrote "In the humor programs I present nationwide, I often conduct a small exercise that has a big impact.  I ask the audience to read the following list of words:  cheerful, fun, giggle, happy, jolly, joyful, laughing, playful, smiling.

"After they finish reading the list, I ask them how they feel.  Then I have them read another list.  This one consists of such words as:  bleak, depressed, dismal, gloom, hopeless, misery, tears, unhappy, upset.  There is almost no reason to ask how they feel after reading this list.  I could hear the despondency in their voices and see it in their faces."

The type of things that we focus on, and how we focus on them, determines to a great extent how we use the energy that we have, and what kind of energy it is.  If we can teach ourselves to focus in positive ways on positive sides of all issues, we can go a long way towards determining just how we feel in many situations.  We can literally lift ourselves up, or push ourselves down.

Someone who insults other people, for example, is using energy in a very negative way.  His or her words are destructive in nature, and they're intended to lower the energy level of the person being insulted.  Someone who tries to encourage others, on the other hand, is using energy in a positive way, trying to help someone else to be able to use energy positively.  Words are much like a hammer--if you use it to pound in nails and build things, the hammer can be very positive.  If you use it to destroy something that shouldn't be destroyed, then it's a very negative object.

You're using energy right now to read this article.  Today you'll use the energy that you have to create things, to communicate with other people, to go places, to eat and give yourself more energy, to listen, to speak, to touch.  The way that you use the energy will contribute to other people's good days or bad days--you can give them something that will lift them up, or you can bring them down, or you can try to have a completely neutral effect.

But one of the most important aspects of helping ourselves to use energy in a positive way is to keep our focus positive.  The more we keep our own minds on the positive of the world, the easier it is for us to pass on the positive.  If you listen to the radio a lot, you can recommend good songs to others, but if you never hear new music, how can you tell others what's good to listen to?  Our positive focus is much like that--the more our minds and spirits are involved with the positive of the world, the more able we are to pass on the positive, and the more likely we are to be able to find just the right positive input to give at just the right time.