This Valentine’s Day (and Every Day!), Embrace Love and Forgiveness as a Means to Living a Freer, Fuller & Happier Life
Happy Valentine’s Day! Today is a chance to reflect on not only the state of our love life, but all of our relationships, and explore how we can continue to nurture them.
This year, my Valentine’s Day message, regardless of the people in your life or not in your life, is to remember that at all times, there’s a love breathing you.
Love called you into being, and it’s that love we celebrate today – as parents and children, friends, family, coworkers, spouses and lovers. Today we celebrate the love that makes life really come alive for us!
There’s a spiritual practice as ancient as humankind for making love come alive…
This spiritual practice for loving more intently and dynamically is the practice of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an integral part of every world religion, every major philosophy, and every person’s life who aspires to love more readily and mindfully.
The fact is carrying forgiveness in your heart will help amplify the love you have for both yourself and others. It will help you heal wounds from the past and move forward in your life with love as the propeller of your being.
The more able you are to practice forgiveness, the more inner peace you’ll experience within yourself, as well as more joyful, productive relationships with others!
For those of you that meditate, you know that one of the benefits of meditation is an increased ability to explore how you can continue to nurture your relationships.
Here’s an AMAZING story about the transformational power of love and forgiveness
Many years ago in Oregon, a young 29-year old man who attended my ministry at the time came and told me he wanted to make a stained-glass rendition of our ministry’s logo, which was a beautiful sun against a local mountain called Mt. Hood. The young man’s father was a stained glass maker in Idaho, and he wanted to pay him a visit so that the two of them could create the stained glass together.
Telling me his plan, he began to cry. He said he hadn’t been home or seen his father in two and a half years, since coming out to his family as gay. He said…
“My father has never spoken to me about me being gay. When we do talk, he speaks very quickly and hangs up the phone. I feel so disconnected from him.”
But the young man recognized the opportunity to make the stained glass piece together with his father, and possibly have a chance to talk.
He wanted to give me the gift of the stained glass artwork and said “I just want you to hold good energy for me when I go to Idaho that perhaps my father and I can find some common ground.”
So the young man went home to Idaho and he and his father worked together successfully on the stained glass piece – but the conversation between them was awkward.
Anytime the son tried to talk about his life back in Oregon, his father steered the conversation back to the project at hand. The son became increasingly disheartened and full of pain at what he perceived as his father’s lack of interest in his life.
After a few days, they finished the piece and it was so beautiful – they were both very proud of the work they’d done together! But as they were leaning the stained glass against a wall to very gently dust it of, the part of the glass that was the sun cracked right down the center! The father got angry and stormed off, upset that part of the artwork would have to be redone.
The son decided to stay at his father’s place an extra day, and found a piece of golden stained glass to make the repair. When the two of them began working on the artwork again, the father quickly became frustrated because the work wasn’t progressing quickly enough.
This time, the son left the room, saying, “I can’t work like this with you.”
Shortly after, the father came and knocked on his son’s door, asking what was wrong. The son decided to open up to him, telling him the truth that was in his heart.
He said, “You’ve terrorized me with your anger since I was a little kid. I’m afraid of you when you get angry. I came here because I wanted so much to be close to you. Yes, I want to make this stained glass. But more than that, I want to be close to you, and you won’t even talk to me about my life.”
The father sat down beside the son and started to weep, telling his son “I want more than anything to be close to you. You’re my son. But I don’t understand what’s going on in your life. I have no experience with this. I don’t even know how to talk to you about it.”
So right then, they decided to start getting to know each other in a real and meaningful way.
They took turns asking questions about each other’s lives and really listening to one another. It was the beginning of a new connection. The son led with the forgiveness necessary to open back up to his father, and when they parted ways the next day, the two of them were closer than they’d ever been.
And when the son left to return to Oregon, they had repaired both the sun in the artwork and the father-and-son relationship behind it.
Forgiveness is also an act of self love
I love this story because through the act of forgiveness, a beautiful, loving relationship was forged between two people.
But forgiveness runs deeper than that – it’s also about self love and self healing.
We often don’t get the opportunity to actively forgive someone we feel has hurt us. Perhaps the person we need to forgive has passed on, or we haven’t seen them in years. Maybe we don’t even necessarily want an active relationship with someone who we feel has wronged us, and that’s okay. Because there is one place that can always be healed, and that’s our own heart.
When you practice forgiveness, when you choose to think lovingly towards someone with whom you may have had a challenging relationship, you open your heart and spirit up to a renewed sense of self love and love for others.
So this Valentine’s Day, instead of focusing on any one relationship, however amazing or challenging, try aligning yourself with love and forgiveness in general towards the people in your life. You’ll feel freer, fuller, and happier for doing so.
And now, here’s a FREE gift to help you forgive the past, heal your heart and set yourself free
Holding onto pain from the past can create an energetic block within you that can dampen your ability to fully experience all of the happiness, fulfillment and joy that life has to offer.
If you’re ready to free yourself from the constraints of the past, my free 10-minute guided meditation Heal Your Hurt, Free Your Heart, is for you!
If you’d love to create greater freedom in your life to more fully experience and savor all of the love, connection, happiness and peace of mind you desire, click here now to download your free audio meditation
Ms. Mary Morrisey,
I am grateful for the story of the Son and his Father and them working on the stained glass. The broken stained glass was a “symbol” of the status of their relationship and the work needed to repair it.
Forgiveness is always needed to heal our feelings of hurt, etc. It takes risk, faith.
I have had a painful experience which occurred about 20 years ago. Everyday I review it, and have the strong desire to heal it but I do not believe, trust the other person to understand, accept, believe my intentions, actions. I don’t want to experience that person’s accusations/allegations again. I suffered much pain from the incidents. I have thought that I may be similar to a famous Catholic priest who was accused by a young man of having molested him. Some years later the accuser admitted that he had lied. I think that the person that accused me has rigid judgement, unable to understand. I need to forgive myself, not expect that person to understand, forgive me. Thank you.
One way “forgiveness” has played a role in my life is:
Forgiving the man who was drinking and driving on October 10, 1984. This date changed my life and my family’s. My brother was killed in an accident at age 30. I placed myself in his shoes and thought how challenging it would be to live with myself the rest of my life, knowing I had made a choice to drink and drive and caused someone else’s fatality which then caused a huge void in someone’s family. Forgiveness has played an important role in freeing up emotional space for more positive experiences to come into my life. Compassion and understanding for others with similar losses has also been an additional outcome.
Absolutely loved this story of forgiveness. Most touching and emotional, from the heart. Have shared with several people, as well as, two of my fan pages!!
Thank you, Mary! I truly appreciate your work and the heart you put into everything you offer in your programs and different avenues of social media!
Happy Valentines Day to you and your family! Lynn
My forgiveness of my stepmother set me free to have a very loving relationship with my Dad.
Forgiveness and taking time to listen, really listen
And not sit there and judge
Listen to them and share a hug and liove will help but be sincere not condemning!
Br like Jesus spread peace and love
Listen
I have learned a great lesson.i everyone can benefit from this.
Divorce can be so hurtful not only for the two getting divorced but for the people who are closest to them . Of course a parent will come to stand by their child.
My inlaws sent very hurtful letters to the courts about me, as they didn’t want me to get primary custody of my child. To make a long story short, in my divorce journey, I realized that my daughter would be losing so much, I had moved out of state trying to build a new life. I knew no one. I didn’t have a support system,where wouldvmy daughters be?
I made the decision to give primary custody to her dad, so my daughter could be with her grandparents. School, friends, church. It killed me but I know in my heart it was the right decision. My second choice was to look at my inlaws in a different way~ as my daughters grandparents instead of inlaws…it helped. I decided to move back but my first decision was to remain…
Mother’s Day was approaching, I told my daughter and my ex to spend the day with his mom. I wanted to show her respect as well as this was my gesture of forgiveness.
In doing so, I became friends with her and spent holidays with both of my exes parents.
The decision to give primary custody to my ex was right and it was shown to me a few years later when he died right before my daughter’s senior year of high school.
That decision gave them the quality time they needed and deserved. My ex and I even became friends again even though we married other people.
Forgiveness has the power to move mountains.
I wish my ex could have been there to see the graduation from high school and college, to walk his daughter down the aisle and to be able to hold his beautiful granddaughter.
Forgiveness brings peace of heart and mind, and the ability to move forward with life without regrets. We can only submit our hurts and sorrows to the all mighty for peace and beauty in its return. He gives beauty for ashes. Out of the ashes rises the beauty of a new life and an open heart. Broken relationships often bring broken hearts, but God heals all.
Thank you very much. This is a good message for today.
What has forgiveness done for me? I must say the word WOW when I really dig deep and investigate how I want to answer this . It is such a BIG question.
My life journey lead me through a valley so low that when I looked up to the mountain I saw no top. I felt so small, incomplete, and invisible. But I discovered that I was not ever alone when I experienced an awakening inside of me, exploding with love. I was in a moment of loneliness to an ever empowering feeling of greatness!!! I was safe, I was whole, I was complete and I was ME!!! I found ME!
For the past three years since my awakening I have learned that all I see is a reflection of me in physical form. So with that I have been able to forgive myself if I am feeling hurt by someone. I know that every hurt attached to another is an area I need to work on within myself. Being able to forgive gave me a maturity that I never knew I had and gives me a different perspective on all relationships and the lessons being taught. And wow are we being schooled through life with every single engaging relationship around us!!! Those truly wanting an education just need to go out about their day and converse with all they encounter. We never know who we are meant to learn something from in order to expand us.
Forgiveness is the best way we can love ourselves and once we love ourselves we are able to love others. I have learned through myself that it can’t be the other way around. And with that is the maturity from the knowledge I have gained through the stormy weather we sometimes call life. I used to think that Life would happen to me BUT now iI know it happens FOR ME!
This is an exceptional story.
Thank you Mary ?
Once I forgave it freed me to openly Love others!