As kids, we generally learn that forgiveness is just a word that you say. When you forgive, it’s like letting the other person off the hook.  They say they’re sorry and you hug and make up.  But what does that really do?  Do we feel differently? Does that make the hurt go away? Generally not.

What really happens is we take that anger and we hide it, because we are not “supposed” to feel it anymore. We stuff the hurt, anger and resentment down as far as we can and try to move on in our “normal” lives.  Of course, if we admit that we still feel angry, then we feel shameful or guilty because we were “supposed” to have forgiven. .  Those emotions build and compound through the years and can lead to sickness, conflicts, even violence. Some people who have been deeply hurt can develop addictions, distrust and intense negativity.  It can affect every area of your life – relationships, work, health and how you feel about yourself.

Do you need to forgive?  Can forgiveness help you?

Forgiveness can help anyone. Everyone has been hurt. It’s a normal part of life.  Forgiveness can help if you are experiencing trouble in relationships, feel like you have unfinished business with someone, have resentment, limiting beliefs, feel like you are stuck, feel like a victim, have health issues, have low self esteem, even if you just feel dissatisfied with your life.

Forgiveness can help you get out of a victim mindset because it puts you in a position of power. You are taking back accountability for your life. Forgiveness is a process of release and transformation.
Most of all, forgiveness is a choice. You can choose to forgive, or not to forgive.  If you want to stay the same, with all the same feelings, thoughts and actions, then there’s no reason to forgive.  If you want to let go of the old, negative emotions and thoughts and replace them with peace, joy and even love, or if you want to be able to trust again then forgiveness is what you are looking for.

Let’s clear up some misconceptions about forgiveness…
Forgiveness makes you stronger, not weaker. It does not mean you lose or give in.
Forgiveness can’t be done with just words – it’s a process that you have to DO.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you are more vulnerable, it doesn’t expose you to more hurt.
Forgiveness doesn’t have to be done all at once, you may only do a little at a time.
Forgiveness is not restitution – you do not have to tell anyone or “make up.”

Forgiveness is a Gift you give to yourself.  It clears your energy, gives you back your personal power and can free you from any emotional ties you have with your perpetrator.  Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person  you are forgiving, it has everything to do with you.

When you hold on to anger and hurt, you sentence yourself to prison.  A prison inside your own body.  Your relationships suffer, your physical and emotional health suffers and you are miserable.  It blocks your success.  Even though you may feel justified about holding that person responsible, you may be depressed and anxious; and you operate from a state of disappointment; nothing that person can do is enough to remove the injustice.  You begin, or continue to build a wall around you, forsaking caring and trust for anger and resentment.
 Because you are holding on to negative emotions, you are, in fact giving your offender control over your body and your life.  Your life energy is spent replaying the event over and over again, reliving the pain and wondering what could have been different.  You can’t feel joy because the anger and other negative feelings are clouding your perception.  Consider now how much energy you have wasted in your life, hanging on to these old, negative feelings?  Think of what you could have done with that energy had you forgiven long ago…

Forgiveness releases you from your prison.  Forgiveness is the eraser of anger and guilt.  Forgiveness is the greatest single healing element in life, balancing your emotions, your body and your mind. 

Tracey Burchard is a Certified Hypnotist, Instructor and Life Coach.  For a powerful forgiveness experience, visit her website for the new audio release Radical Forgiveness.  It’s a step by step process that will help you be free from the ties of anger, hurt and resentment and move forward to a life with more peace and love. Visit www.cdonlinewarehouse.com and download your copy today!

“I forgive you…” It’s something we say as kids, but not so much in adulthood.  And as kids, we don’t really mean it…somebody just makes us say it.  So, what is forgiveness, and how can it impact illnesses, disease, your body and your life?

Forgiveness:
Webster’s dictionary says:

1.    To free from accusation, or the imputation of fault or blame; to clear from guilt; to release from a charge; to justify by extenuating a fault; to exculpate; to absolve; to acquit.
2.    To pardon, as a fault; to forgive entirely, or to admit to be little censurable, and to overlook; as, we excuse irregular conduct, when extraordinary circumstances appear to justify it.
3.    To regard with indulgence; to view leniently or to overlook; to pardon.
4.    To free from an impending obligation or duty; hence, to disengage; to dispense with; to release by favor; also, to remit by favor; not to exact; as, to excuse a forfeiture.

The first thing that comes to my mind as I read the Webster’s definition is “I don’t think so…”

A wave of resistance just bubbles up in my stomach, my chest and my throat and I further resolve that I’m not going to let my perpetrator off that easily!  They need to suffer!  You want me to overlook what they did?  Free them from blame?  Release by favor?  You gotta be kidding!  They hurt me – they need to suffer.

In my mind, the hurt that they caused me validates my feelings of anger, hatred, disgust, blame and more.  Every bad thing that happens to them just reinforces my need for justice, for payback, for revenge.

Here’s the question – is this what I want?  Do I want to be angry?  Do I like the thoughts that are going through my head?  Every time I think about the incident, I feel more and more hurt and disgusted.  My hate grows.  What, exactly is that doing to me, physically, mentally and spiritually?

Physically I get tense every time I think about this person or what they did.  Sometimes the tenseness is there even though I’m not thinking about it. My stomach, chest and shoulders tense up, my face frowns and my forehead creases.  I may head to the refrigerator to find something to “stuff down” the feelings with, or maybe a drink to dull the emotions.

Mentally I am so out of focus I have a hard time reading a book, working or even cleaning.  I keep thinking of the hurt which just brings a flood of emotions that are uncomfortable, so to cover the emotions I try to think of something else, absorb myself in TV or anything that can take my mind off it for a while.  After a while, it becomes a habit to just do anything but think those thoughts that bring on the uncomfortable feelings.  My focus is gone, my memory is touch and go and my communication becomes fierce and angry.

Spiritually – well, we’re not supposed to feel this way, so I feel distanced, separated, guilty, ashamed and maybe even mad at God, the Universe or whomsoever I believe allowed this injustice to happen to me in the first place!

And what is all this doing to my perpetrator? 

Nothing.

That’s right.  Nothing. Zip.  Zero.

He’s sailing through his life, getting promoted at work, forging new relationships, enjoying his time, having fun with his family and not thinking an ounce about me and what he has done. 

All my anger, bitterness, resentment and hatred has done, has been to hurt me. 

“But HE hurt me…”

So I have to step back for a moment.  It seems that the things I’m doing to myself now are hurting me more than he ever did. I have to ask myself if I’m seeing this for what it really is.

Did he hurt me? Did he do it on purpose.  Did he mean to hurt me?  If we act and react based on our inner, subconscious beliefs, what is it that he believes that could make him act that way or treat me in that manner.  Is it about me?  If someone else were there instead of me, would he still have done it?

And the answer comes.  He’s reacting to life through his own beliefs.  He is a factor of his environment, his beliefs, his choices and his results.  He’s living his life in an unconscious state of his programming, running away from his feelings, hiding from anything he thinks might hurt him – just like pretty much everyone else.  On the outside he’s searching for happiness, safety and love just like the rest of us.  On the inside, his programming says he doesn’t deserve, he can’t have, he can’t be, etc.  He’s not hurting me to hurt me…he’s hurting me because he’s unconscious of who he is.  The things that have happened to him in the past to make him who he is have become the beliefs that run his life, and he doesn’t know how to change it.  Poor man.  It must be really sad to go through life like that – to have inner beliefs that sabotage your every move, to never know real happiness.

Would I want to be him?  Would I want the life of any of the people who have really hurt me?  No way.  Not in a million years.

Do they deserve my forgiveness?  Maybe, maybe not. Do I care anymore?  No.

It’s not about them anymore.  How can I punish someone who is already punishing themselves?  When I know my anger has no effect on them – it just gives them the power to control me and my feelings.  Yes, thinking about them, hating them, wishing destruction on them simply destroys me.  It eats away at me from within, creating misjudgement, illness, distance.  I need my control back.  I need to free myself from this ugliness.

So I choose to forgive.  I choose to feel it. Maybe I can’t love them, but I can cease to hate, I can forgive them for being who they are. I can forgive them for feeling how they feel, and expressing their hurt and fear in a way that threatened and hurt me. 

I don’t hate him, I feel a bit sorry for him.  I can see the truth…he lives on in unconsciousness.  I set him free, and in doing so I set myself free.  I reacted the way I did. I felt the way I did based on my own faulty programming.  I stop judging. I stop punishing. I stop blaming.  I forgive.

And I silently send these thoughts to him in my mind…”I truly forgive you.  You don’t deserve it. You didn’t ask for it.  But this is my gift to myself, to forgive you with the essence of my being, and by so doing, I take back any power I ever gave to you. I regain control of my thoughts, my feelings and my actions.  From now on, you are just who you are, you are doing the best you know how to do based on your experiences, your knowledge and your awareness.  You have no more power to hurt me.  I see you for what and who you really are and I do not condemn you for that.  I forgive you and set you free.”

With that, I feel a huge weight lift off my chest, and a sense of peace enter my body, my mind and my spirit.  I will punish myself no longer.

Tracey Burchard is a Certified Hypnotist, Life Coach and Stress Management consultant and has an active practice in the Orlando area.  She provides Corporate Workshops, Personal Sessions and Phone Sessions, and has authored a line of Self Improvement CDs and MP3s available on her website at www.bodymindhyposis.com.  Learn to really forgive, to change your beliefs, boost your self esteem and more – visit website for details.

Face it, we all put things off.  We leave the hard stuff till last and hope that it somehow gets dropped off our "to do" list.  We find other things to do that are "more important." It's just amazing how many "emergencies" can pop up to lead us away from taking the action we need towards our goals. Procrastination takes many forms, and all those forms are just ways of avoiding the things we need to or want to do to achieve an end result - success.

Why do we do it? Why do we procrastinate?  Well, because we view tasks as difficult or unpleasant, of course.  We have a fear about what we need to do, or doubts about whether we will actually be able to do it.  Procrastination is drenched with fear and doubt.  It leads people to self destructive behaviors like overeating, drinking, even watching TV, just to get away from the feelings of overwhelm, guilt and shame that it causes.  We'll find any excuse to do those things that we fear, eventually just deciding that it wasn't that important anyway.  Here's an example...

My client was recently laid off from her job, so she decided that now would be the perfect time for her to start her own home business.  She's a very smart lady, and a talented graphic artist with many contacts in the business world.  We devised a business plan for her to start her own consulting business where she would provide graphics services to people that she had done work for before, and to get referrals from them for additional clients.  She was very excited about being able to work from home, set her own hours and make more money than she would if she had a "job." 

She got up that Monday morning with her list of potential clients, ready to point them to her new website, give them quotes and get some business.  But as she looked at the list, she kept thinking of all the things she still needed to do.  Didn't she need a brochure?  What if they asked her to mail something.  Her business cards were on order, but they hadn't come back yet...What if she got too many jobs at once, how would she be able to handle it?  By the time of our session on Thursday, she hadn't made the first phone call.  Every time she looked at the phone, she felt a flood of feelings - guilt, fear, anger at herself...especially for putting off something she thought would be so simple.

My poor client had been putting herself through hell for almost a week over a few phone calls - I bet you've done just about the same thing.  She just didn't know how to work through the procrastination.  Here's what we did to move her through it...

First, we found the fear.  The fear wasn't about making the calls, it was about not feeling like she was good enough to sell her services.  Time for self esteem work.  Once she really accepted that her work was excellent, her resistance to calling her clients diminished.

Then we set a goal.  She was to talk to 5 people per day.  Just 5.  Before lunch.   If she went to a breakfast meeting and introduced herself to 5 people or more, she was done for the day! 

Then she committed to swallow the frog.  Sounds gross, right?  What would you do if you knew you had to eat a frog today?  Would you leave it till the last minute, so you had to worry about it all day?  Goodness knows what kind of stories you'd have made up by the end of the day... How much energy does that waste?  You'd want to do it right away, to get it over with - then you could make up stories about how strong and brave you were.  Same thing with the hard stuff.  She had 2 phone calls she was dreading - that was getting in her way of making any phone calls at all.  She committed to swallowing the frog right away - sitting right there in my office!  Once she was done, she had a job from a client, and another that was going to look at her website!  Swallow the frog, my friends...

Then we put some accountability into her marketing efforts.  At the end of every week, she put together a report that showed all her marketing efforts and the results, and emailed them to her new "accountability partner," a close friend that also had a business and was willing to partner with her to keep each other accountable for their progress.  This was an amazing motivator for her!  Many times, what we won't do for ourselves, we will do for others.

After her first 2 months in business, she has replaced her income and is on her way to making even more money, with much more flexibility and balance in her life.  So, if you tend to procrastinate, take these steps and see how it will propel you forward in your goals.

Join my newsletter at www.bodymindhypnosis.com - the Powerful Motivation Program will be released next month - just in time for all those New Years' resolutions!

Do you remember when you were a kid, sitting in school and just daydreaming away?  Probably looking out the window at the playground with your imagination running wild. You were off on some adventure riding a horse through a grassy field, or maybe dreaming about the day when you'd get your first kiss...

And then - the teacher calls on you.  The adrenaline floods into your body, your heartbeat races and you realize that you have no idea what's going on around you.  You've got that "deer in the headlights" look as you apologize to the teacher and listen to her lecture you about what a loser you are with your head in the clouds.  You'd better start paying attention or you'll amount to nothing in this world. 

The message most of us got as kids (and we're passing the message along to our kids...) is that daydreaming is bad, wrong, a waste of time, and if we do it we won't be successful.  So we pretty much stopped doing it. At least we tried.

Daydreaming is a normal process, humans can only focus for a certain amount of time, then the brain automatically shifts into the daydream mode.  When we try to shut down our ability to daydream, we lose the ability to visualize which has a distinct impact on our creativity. Daydreaming is a normal part of being human, it's an enhanced state of creativity where we are able to tap into the more complex regions of our brains.  Absolute brilliance has come out of daydreams, in fact, Thomas Edison found the answer to many problems in his daydreams.  Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe wrote stories based on their daydreams.  The chemist Friedrich Kekule daydreamed of two serpents biting each other's tail, and forming a ring.  He jolted awake, and saw the answer to how a benzene molecule is structured.  It's a ring!

Some high-tech companies actually give their employees time during the day to daydream, and have seen a boost in the creativity and innovation.

Maybe daydreaming is not appropriate in the classroom during lecture, but to classify the act as wrong and unfruitful, and to make people feel bad or guilty for daydreaming is simply an indication of how little we really know and maybe of the "boxed in" thinking in our public school system and even in our workforce.

So, do yourself a favor, take a little catnap and let your do what it will.

There are tons of expectations placed on us these days. Work, family, community - not just our own commitments, but our kids' concerts, games, practices, parties and more. With employers demanding more and more of our time and effort and the stress and demands of our everyday lives, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed.

Overwhelm can stop you in your tracks. When it hits, it's like a hurricane swirling around you - you're sitting in the eye of it watching, frozen, while the chaos gets bigger and bigger. The stress of being overwhelmed can cause a whole host of issues from a depressed immune system to actual depression. Procrastination, withdrawal and avoidance are some of the biggest signs that you are experiencing overwhelm.

So, what to do?

First off, breathe. I know, you've heard that before. But generally, when we get stressed, we stop breathing - or we take short breaths in our upper chest. This doesn't help. Take some real breaths - imagine breathing all the way down to your toes, breathing in peace, and breathing out stress. Not only does this force you to focus, it brings needed oxygen to your muscles and brain so that you can focus and take action.

Now, get out pencil and paper and make a list. Part of the reason you are so stressed is that you are trying to remember everything you have to do. Get it on a list, and categorize if you like.

Next - take a look at the big picture. Do you really have to do it all? Right now? If you could only choose one thing from your list, what would it be? What can wait till tomorrow? Or next week? You may find that some things aren't necessary and will fall off your list as time goes by. Prioritize by writing numbers 1-5 next to each item, then do them in that order.

OK. Who can you get to help you? Learn to delegate. Have the kids do the smaller, less important things. Get a friend or co-worker to help with projects - offer to reciprocate. It can be fun to work on things together and as they say - two brains are better than one.

Take care of yourself. Eat right and exercise. Pizza and french fries are simply not going to give you the energy you need to be focused and productive. I know, I know...but remember - you have to deal with the consequences. Even a short, brisk walk will get your energy up and increase your focus so you can make headway on your list.

Music. Volumes have been written about the ability music has to change our mental and even physical states - like overwhelm. Listening to upbeat music when doing physical or repetitive labor, and softer styles like classical when you need focus will help keep your mood even and productivity high.

By this time, the hurricane should be passing - you step out of the midst of it with much more clarity, able to brave all the new assignments, commitments and opportunities that arise!