Why you have to forgive before you can love.
When I was dating and wanting to find love, the hardest truth I had to realize was that I was blocking love from finding me. Why? I was blocking love because I was still holding onto the past. I was letting breakups, negative experiences, and childhood insecurities determine my current dating life.
It felt like I was carrying around this heavy backpack filled with shame, guilt, anger, sadness, and doubt. Anytime I would try to put myself out there and find love, the backpack would weigh me down again.
When I first started my self development journey of finding myself, I kept coming across the idea of forgiveness and how important it was. But honestly, I wasn’t all that excited about practicing it.
I had negative feelings around forgiveness. I thought that by forgiving someone who hurt me, it was excusing what they did. I also thought that if I forgave someone then it would mean my hurt and sadness was not justified.
But the more I was opening up myself to the idea of love, the more I realized that forgiveness would be crucial. I could not open up space in my heart for love while still holding onto the past. Forgiveness was my ticket to freedom.
About a year before I found my soulmate, I experienced a breakup and the worst heartache in my life. The pain had felt like I cut my arm off and my chance of finding love was nonexistent. I had so much shame and guilt around ending that relationship. Even though I ended it, it was still very painful.
However, the year that followed that breakup was one of the best of my life. I entered into a spiritual journey and learned to fully love and accept myself. I started to see why I had to go through that experience and why that breakup was my life’s greatest lesson. Without that heartache, I would not have met my soulmate (I’ll save that story for another blog post)!
Once my confidence was increasing and I was starting to love my life, I realized I did not want to carry around that heavy backpack anymore. I didn’t want the shame and guilt to block meaningful love from finding me.
So I learned to embrace forgiveness and use it as a tool for empowerment. And I want to show you the beauty in forgiving. Below you will find the 3 reasons why forgiving is crucial to find love. At the end of this article you will also find a beautiful and powerful forgiveness exercise you can do today.
And if you are ready to increase your confidence, learn to love and accept yourself, and attract love, that’s exactly what I do with my clients! Click here to schedule your free call with me and learn more. I can’t wait to meet you.
Here are the 3 biggest reasons to forgive, enjoy!
Forgiveness has everything to do with you and nothing to do with the other person.
Most people hate the idea of forgiveness because they think it excuses the behavior of the other person involved. This can’t be further from the truth. The practice of forgiveness has everything to do with you, not them.
Forgiveness is not about letting other people get away with hurting or disappointing you. Instead, it’s about freeing yourself from the weight of the experience. It cuts the thread that exists between you and whoever hurt you. Without forgiving, you are still energetically tied to that person (and who wants to still be tied to their ex, they are an ex for a reason)!
Forgiveness also lets you see all the beautiful lessons that came out of that hurtful experience. It sheds new light onto why it happened for you and what you were meant to learn instead. Forgiveness shows the Universe that you are no longer open to attracting people who will hurt you, you are ready for a meaningful connection and authentic love from someone new.
This is so important when finding love because if you are still holding on to hurt or shame from past experiences, you are blocking joy from entering your life. If you are still mad at your ex for breaking up with you, you are missing out on all the amazing men waiting to meet you.
Forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. With forgiveness comes love, freedom, joy, and happiness. When you let yourself forgive the past, you let dating and finding love be enjoyable again.
By not forgiving, you are letting that person control your experience.
If you are dating and wanting to find love, but still holding onto resentment or guilt around past lovers, you are letting them control your experience. Deep down, you still have a belief that you won’t find love again. Deep down you still belief that a past lover owes you an apology or explanation.
I get it, breakups and losing love is incredibly painful. It was one of the hardest experiences in my life. But I knew that if I wanted to find the great love that I desired, I couldn’t keep holding onto what could have been.
Let’s take a look at how this could play out. Say you dated someone you really liked and saw a future with, then out of nowhere they ended the relationship with you for their own reasons. Now if you are trying to date again but still have resentment, you are going to assume every relationship will end the same way. Deep down you will think that all lovers will leave after a couple of months so why even try?
But girl, you are doing yourself a disservice! Don’t let one experience determine the outcome of your love life. Lean into forgiveness, start to see the lessons of why it happened, and open yourself to the idea that good lovers are out there (hint: they definitely are)!
By practicing forgiveness, you are taking control of your love life and releasing the weight of those negative feelings. Do not let anyone else dictate your future, get yourself in the driver’s seat and go after what you want.
Forgiveness is the best way to clear space in your heart to let love in.
The secret to fulfilling and long-lasting relationships is vulnerability. Vulnerability with yourself and your partner is what builds unbreakable bonds between two people. But unfortunately, most of us are scared of being vulnerable. The child inside of us is scared of getting hurt again.
So it’s very understandable that when a lover leaves you or a breakup happens, deep childhood wounds inside you get activated. Lifelong fears get realized and insecurities are brought to the surface. I am sending love to you if you are feeling this right now.
But I promise you do not have to suffer anymore. Past hurt does not have to determine your future. You can and will love again, I promise.
The absolute best way to clear space in your heart and let love in is through forgiveness. When you forgive the past, you let your inner child know that they are safe to be vulnerable. You let yourself be open to the idea of love.
Forgiveness is a practice I take all my clients through during my private coaching package. If you’re ready to forgive and love again, set up a free call with me!
So now that you now why forgiveness is crucial before finding authentic love, let me give you a powerful forgiveness exercise. For this exercise, I want you to think of a past lover or experience that still really hurts when you think about it. Or maybe you still carry guilt or shame around something that happened to you. Anything that is still hurting you to this day, you can use it here.
Forgiveness Exercise
Close your eyes and bring up the past experience or person.
Without judgment, observe what happened and the feelings it gave you.
Place your hand on your heart and forgive yourself for what happened.
Now I want you to write a letter to this person or experience, forgiving them and everything that happened. Detail out all the important lessons you learned and what you will avoid doing in the future. No one will read this letter so please be brutally honest!
Remember, this is not about excusing someone for hurting you, rather it is you declaring that this will not longer have a hold on you. This person will no longer be in your life or in your mind, you are free!
Once you are done, take the letter and rip it up in tiny pieces and throw it away. Or have a mini ceremony and (safely) light it on fire as you clear away the experience and open your heart to new love.
Now I want to hear from you, how was the forgiveness exercise for you? What are you excited to call into your life now that you are free from that past hurt?
I’m rooting for you!
Annie
