Forgiveness, a pill to take like your life depends on it, because I really do believe that my life depended on it.
Okay, so we’re back another week, continuing our discussions on For the Love of My Father, which will be back on Amazon, I believe, next week. It’s currently not in stock. If you want to order it, you can contact me directly at OliviaSBenson.com, but it will be back on Amazon next week for purchase.
Last week, we talked about forgiveness as a life changer. That’s what I said about it, that forgiveness was a life changer for me. And it’s such an important topic that often I say to myself, I should call the book How to Forgive, or How to Forgive Your Father, or any of those number of things, how to forgive and change your life.
The reason that I called the book For the Love of My Father
There could be a number of different topics. And by the way, now that I’m talking about the title of the book, let me tell you that the reason that I called the book For the Love of My Father was because for many years in my life, I thought that the thing that would have made a difference in my life as I was growing up would have been to understand and to receive the love that I wanted from my dad. And I thought that was the key to everything.
Eventually, as I began to understand God — as I call it, God, energy, force, spirit — I understood life, I understood the challenges of life, and I realized that that idea, of whatever it is that I thought that I would have been willing to do, was really not the key. The real love that I needed, and that would change my life, was really the love of God, the love of GEFS.
It was never really about the love of my father
And so, whatever the issue, in my particular case, this book and the things that I speak about are really about my relationship with my dad. But whatever the situation might be, we sometimes think that we would do anything for the love of a particular person. But when we really get to understand GEFS, that is God, energy, force, spirit, and understand the nature of the universe, then we realize that the ultimate love that really heals us, makes us whole, completes us, is really the love of God. So it was never really — despite the truth, despite the experiences that I had — it was never really about the love of my father.
Now, there are a couple of interesting titles in the book. I talk about forgiveness pretty much everywhere, because it’s so key. But there is a chapter in the book, and it says, forgiveness, a pill to take as if your life depends on it. And at some point, I even say it’s like medicine.
And I know that maybe some of you, well, if you’re listening to this, if you’re watching this channel, it’s either because you have some issues related to your father, or maybe your mother, or some other family related issue. And so you’re looking for something. And I can tell you that for me, because that’s all I can offer you, is what actually worked for me. And it was such a life changer, that I think many spiritual teachers around the world would agree that getting to that place of understanding the importance of forgiveness is going to be key in really healing your life, not just with regards to your father, but with regards to any other issue.
It just so happens that in my process, with my dad, I came to understand that forgiving him, and everything related to all of my experiences, was really going to be the thing that was going to liberate me and allow me to move forward. It was really sort of like having a load. All of the experiences were baggage. And the only way to really move forward freely was to figure out how to relieve myself of the baggage of those experiences.
And I’m looking over here because I’ve told you guys about this a few times, and all of my cups are my favorites, but this one, forgiveness, a pill to take like your life depends on it, is an amazing reminder. The website is OliviaSBenson.com and you can buy it there. As I said before, the book is on Amazon. There’s only one left, I believe, in the hardcover, but the paperbacks will be back next week. And if you really want one, we also have them. So if you go to OliviaSBenson.com and get in touch with us, we can also mail them out.
There’s always more beneath
Now, if you go to the book, and here’s the chapter, forgiveness. It’s chapter four, forgiveness, a pill to take like your life depends on it. And by the way, I’ve read the book cover to cover, aside from writing it myself. I’ve read it from cover to cover and sort of studied different parts of it, because it keeps me fresh not only on what I have said, but also in terms of the practice.
And by the way, it’s not an easy practice, because sometimes when you’re working with yourself — at least this is my experience — you think that you’ve done the thing, and that you’re all well, and that everything is all right, and everything’s healed, and you find out that there’s more. Number one, there’s always more beneath. And also that sometimes you really have not fully released a pattern. So the pattern kind of sneaks up on you, and then it replays. And unless you’re conscious and aware and sort of watching yourself, you really have a very challenging time in terms of being able to really release things.
We like to see people suffer
One of the things that I think is a huge problem with us humans is that we like to see people suffer, right? So when I say that, I don’t mean it generally, and of course I’m not talking about everybody, but we think that if somebody did us wrong, we really want to see them pay the price. And what happens with that is that that’s not really how it works. Somebody can do something and you may never see that they receive their consequences.
But if you understand that it’s a cause and effect universe, that energy just moves back and forth, and that the universe is ultimately in balance — because many times we see it out of balance, but the universe knows how to fix itself, how to right itself — and if you understand this as a true principle, if you understand this as a fact of life, then the issue of whether you see someone else suffer as a result of what they’ve done or not done to or for you, then becomes less important.
Baggage below decks
So in my particular case, there were — and when you read the book, if you haven’t already — there were so many experiences that were, I don’t know what the right word would be, but very, I’m going to just use the word traumatic, in terms of a relationship between a child or a girl and her father. And so many experiences that were extremely difficult, gut-wrenching, and at the time they happened, I honestly was simply lost. I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do. But fortunately for me, I was willing to walk through life with a spirit of humility, and also with a lot of faith and hope that things would always get better.
And that ability to sort of always have a positive outlook sort of got me through the worst. It got me through it, but that didn’t mean that I was not affected. And then eventually came a time in my life where I realized, and I describe it as, I discovered that I had a lot of baggage below decks. I’d been sailing, my ship was heavy, and there were many experiences, negative experiences that I had suffered and I hadn’t really processed.
And one of the examples that I use in the book is that life is like a ball for me, a ball of yarn, and you kind of roll it. But as you’re rolling, in my particular case, there were a lot of knots, and those knots were negative, difficult experiences. And then you get to a certain point where you have a ball of yarn, and you undo the knots. And in that process of undoing the knots, one of the things you have to do is forgive.
The amazing thing is that I loved my dad. I think I said that, I think probably in every video, I love my dad and I still love my dad. But coming to the place where I loved him in spite of himself was a process, because there were many situations in which there must have been a great deal, even though I hadn’t processed it. I had one instance in which I had a direct disagreement with my dad. And it wasn’t even a disagreement, it wasn’t an argument, it was a situation in which he said something and I sort of responded in a way that indicated — not with a raised voice, not with a negative anything — just what I said indicated that I recognized that he had not been present in my life. And I think it was a surprise for him just as much as it was a surprise for me.
But the ultimate thing was that as all these things became clear, that there was baggage below deck, that there were things that needed to be cleared up, then I had to come back and take the time to undo the knot, to do the forgiveness work. And it is work. It’s not just going to disappear. And even when you think it’s disappeared, you find out that it’s still somewhere under there.
Nobody gets away with anything
So it is a process, and it requires you to be devoted to it. Because, and this is what I found for myself, eventually there’s so much pain, suffering, trauma, challenges, whatever you want to call it, there’s so much of that going on that you are desperate for answers. And all the things that are in the world are never going to bring you lasting resolution, lasting peace. The only way to really get that peace is to work on the things within.
Eventually, once I understood there’s a cause and effect universe, nobody ever gets away with anything. And even if I don’t know it to be so — in other words, if I felt that my dad had been less of a dad to me, or that he had done me wrong, or whatever the case might be — I will never know what the consequences of that behavior were or are for him. I won’t know that. What I do know is that there is order in the universe, that there is a God, and that nobody gets away with anything at any time. And that is what I trust in.
Compassion for his situation
At the same time, I came to realize, and there’s a story in the book about our last meeting, my last meeting with my dad. And at the same time, I came to realize, okay, nobody behaves this way. You don’t bring children into the world and behave in a way that indicates that you’re not connected to them, unless something has gone off tracks.
And without being oblivious to the fact that there were some definitely bad things that happened, I was able to get to the point where, more than anything, there was compassion for his situation, compassion for the fact that clearly he hadn’t understood certain things, and clearly that he had been affected or damaged in some way that led him to behave in another way.
And little by little, as I described it before, the experiences of life are placed over the core of who we are, the essential self. And little by little, as you do your forgiveness work, those experiences are lifted, is one way. Some people would say are transmuted into love energy, and then that essential self is liberated and you are allowed to shine.
But the process of realizing: first, I have baggage from my relationship with my dad. That baggage is affecting me in some way. The only way for me to be relieved is to go through the process of forgiveness and using the tools to make myself free again, to also in that process have compassion, to get to know how the universe works. Because unless you understand that and you trust that process, then it almost doesn’t make any sense. Because if you live in this dimension where what you see is what you get, you may never get what you want to see.
But if you understand that most of what happens in the world happens in the invisible, and you have a relationship with God and you trust that, now you can say, I’m willing to let it go. I’m willing to stop asking why. I’m willing to believe that there’s an order, and despite anything that happens and the negativity of so many of the things that happen, it can ultimately be for my good. And the suffering can serve for my ultimate good.
There’s more in the book about all of these things. Obviously, these are just little chunks of discussions that we have. But if you’re interested, the book will be back on Amazon next week. The book is For the Love of My Father. I have a website, it’s OliviaSBenson.com, and we have products there. This is one of the cups, forgiveness, a pill to take like your life depends on it, because I really do believe that my life depended on it.
I am on YouTube as Olivia S. Benson. This video, and a series of other videos, are there, all discussing the book. Also, I’m on Facebook as author Olivia S. Benson — remember to put the S. And I am on Instagram as well. Next week, I believe I’ll be doing a couple of radio interviews, and we’ll let you know more about that.