by Lisa Cybaniak
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What does forgiveness mean to you? Personally, I know a lot of people are down-right confused about my ability to forgive my abuser of 10-years. But it’s important to understand what forgiveness means and doesn’t mean. And crucially, that when we speak of forgiveness, we’re talking about our ability to forgive ourselves just as much as anyone else.
Today we’re talking openly about the choices we make in life – how many bring us shame and embarrassment, but that at any time, we have the ability to practise forgiveness and make a different choice about how we are living are lives, and experiencing our world.
Ayse Hogan is a Life Mastery Coach specialising in Personal Growth and Development, a Master Clinical Hypnotherapist and Instructor, Master Regressionist, and Shamanic Practitioner, to name but a few of her certifications. She’s also the C.H.I.E.F of the soon-to-be-unveiled International Academy of Universal Self Mastery, otherwise known as IAUSM (pronounced “I – Awesome”) – how cool is that?
Don’t worry, Ayse will explain what the acronym C.H.I.E.F stands for, in this episode!
Meet Ayse Hogan
Ayse is no stranger to making choices in her life that she later needed to forgive herself for. And, like all of us, she’s also far too familiar with the need to practise forgiveness of others. In fact, just prior to Ayse’s spiritual journey, she was at the brink of ending her own life because of her inability to practise forgiveness. She couldn’t live with herself and the pain any longer. That is, until she was shown a different path.
And she’s here today to share her story of self-discovery and give her master tips for how you too can welcome forgiveness into your life.
So, let’s dive right in!
Forgiveness is for YOU
Ayse says that the first thing you need to understand about forgiveness to embrace it is that forgiveness is for you and no one else. You enter into forgiveness so that you no longer carry the pain, hurt and shame that will eat you like a cancer.
You’re not forgiving the person so you can build a relationship with them. Heck, you aren’t even forgiving them so that you can invite them in for a cup of tea. No. You don’t need to embrace them in order to embrace forgiveness.
Forgiving someone for wrongs against you isn’t about saying their actions were acceptable. Rather, it’s about saying that you’re no longer willing to be impacting by their choices in life. YOU are deciding to make a different choice and let it go.
You don’t forget or welcome them into your life. All you are doing is choosing to lose the baggage.
Accept Responsibility
We’re talking about forgiveness of others, but also of yourself here. Ayse reminds us that we have a LOT of control of our lives. We control our own decisions, thoughts, actions and reactions. What we can’t control is other people.
If we’re trying to forgive ourselves, then we need to own up to the decisions we previously made, realise we were NOT choosing from a place of love, and accept it. As Ayse says, the minute you can own it, you control it.
This means that you need to get real about how you’re thinking about this situation. So many times, we blame others for the decisions we’re making. It’s time to stop the blame game, own it, and make a different choice.
If we’re trying to forgive others, this same concept applies. If someone has done you wrong, you need to remind yourself that their choices at that time were not coming from a place of love. And if you’re willingly staying around this person, say in a dysfunctional relationship of any kind, then you need to decide if the abuse you’re getting from them is less than the abuse you’re giving yourself.
Own it to control it.
Forgiveness through a Positive Mantra
Ayse describes this tip through her experience with forgiving herself, but I can see how it could also apply in the forgiveness of others.
You most likely won’t believe whatever positive words you’re trying to say about yourself, or the other person. But the idea here is that you create something positive and you repeat it over and over again until you mean it.
For Ayse, it simply was, “I forgive myself”. She wasn’t able to elaborate any further at that time, so you don’t need to either. If telling yourself that you’re a beautiful human being inside and out that makes the best choices she can where she is in that moment, is too big of a stretch, then stick with the basics.
More from this episode
Ayse talks about so much more in this episode, such as her story of spiralling out of control and planning her suicide to being launched into a spiritual journey that brings her to us today. She talks about her struggles to let go of her past because it was all she knew, and the methods that helped her do just that.
And, she shares her new project with us, something I’m also a part of, the International Academy of Universal Self Mastery, or IAUSM, and how it all has come together in just 2 months after receiving a vision of it during a meditation.
Ayse has been on an incredible journey, one that continues to grow with lots of twists and turns. You’ll love this episode, I just know it!
Press play on the episode above to get all the details!
Follow Ayse Hogan and IAUSM
Find out more about IAUSM here. You can also follow IASUM on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram
Want to help this podcast? Follow us, subscribe, and leave a comment on this, or any other episode!
Resources
Get these books that Ayse highly recommends:
Join my free Online Book Club here!
Register for my free 30-Day Challenge for Emotional Wellness!
Watch my free Moving Forward after Abuse Webinar, here!
Voice over credit: Shari Vandermolen. Shari is offering a free download of one of her songs to the fans of the Life Like You Mean It podcast! Just visit www.GiftFromShari.com and tell her where to send it. Shari’s debut album is available for streaming on all the major platforms including Spotify and iTunes.
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