Compassion, the root of forgiveness

To forgive, we need strength. The strength to forgive comes from understanding unconditional love, and with the power of unconditional love, we can understand compassion. Love is forgiving.

Place your hand on your heart, and feel your heart. Your heartbeat can change you for the better no matter what you're going through. With the power of your heart, you can heal anything in your life. Your heart has the ability to change your life, and the change is possible, because you decide what is possible. As times get harder, the more space opens up for you to grow with your challenges and to become someone better than circumstances. Going through ups and downs,I began reading "How to Be Compassionate," by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who speaks about compassion being the key to understanding ourselves, and society. With the power of compassion, we can heal our relationships. Without compassion, we can get caught up in a destructive emotion, in which in we can lose one of greatest assets: our independence. Where there is wisdom, there is a person deciding between wrong and right.

“The sole source of peace within you, in the family, the country, and the world, is altruism - love and compassion.”

Dalai Lama

How can we feel compassion for an unforgiven situation? Lets begin with a few points to help us change.

3 Steps towards Forgiveness

1. Take responsibility for your mistakes. You are the only person who decides to be happy or sad. When you wake up everyday, you have a chance to be happy or depressed, which one do you choose? Forgive but do not forget. Learn from the situation, rather making yourself a victim or a victor. Some situations are un-reversal, and that is what it is. The only thing you can do is make a decision to forgive yourself for your past mistakes and move on by helping others or yourself better the situation through contributing to make the situation for the better.

2. Its not theirs to forgive, its yours. Failure is success, even in the worst situation you can think of, sometimes we need to fail to understand what is the right decision to make.

3. Be Wise and think of contribution. From there you can move out of thinking of what you've done, or what others have done to you, to working on contributing to society by helping. There are many people who need your help. "Wise people think of others, helping them as much as they can, and the result is happiness. Love and compassion are beneficial, both for you and others. Through kindness towards others, your mind and heart will open to peace." 11- Dalai Lama -(How to be compassionate) You are not perfect, and that is okay. You're imperfect, and you are beautiful that way. Instead of focusing on what you did or what others did, focus on giving.