Why Forgiveness Doesn’t Work… And What Does

Have you ever experienced the frustration of attracting the same negative experiences into your life over and over again, and not knowing why or what to do about it?

Perhaps you keep attracting romantic relationships that never turn out the way you’d hoped they would… or business partnerships that always seem to turn sour…

Whatever it is, the technique I’m going to share with you in this article will help you destroy your destructive patterns so they cease to haunt you.

To make this article more valuable to you, stop reading for a moment and find yourself an example to work with.

• Close your eyes and think of an experience you had recently where someone ‘wronged’ you and you still have not forgiven them.
• When you’ve found one, think of at least two more times when you experienced that same kind of situation with someone else.
• Do this now and don’t read on until you have completed this exercise.

If you did this work correctly, you’ll have just uncovered a PATTERN that you repeat in your life and probably have no idea what to do to stop repeating it. Well, I’m about to help you with that…

Forgiveness Rarely Makes A Difference

In my experience, what usually ends up happening is once we forgive the person who ‘wronged’ us, another situation just like the first one appears and we find ourselves in the same place again – frustrated, upset and not knowing what we are doing to attract this negativity over and over again.

Sound familiar?

I’ll share an example from my own life:

For many years, I kept attracting business deals that would leave me feeling ‘screwed over’ by my business partners and contractors. The last time this happened was when I was getting my new company logo designed a few years ago.

A friend who owned a design company offered to do the job for me at a discounted rate. Long story short, 9 months later he had still not delivered. When I confronted him, he became defensive and the whole deal went south. I ended up losing my 50% deposit, one of my best friends and never received the logo.

Although I had forgiven all the people who had ‘screwed me over’ in the past, I was still attracting this frustrating circumstance.

Forgiving someone may restore your relationship with that person, but it’s not going to stop you attracting similar circumstances again and again in the near future.

So, how come forgiveness (apparently one of the most highly ‘evolved’ things you can do) rarely makes a difference?

Because in order to forgive someone for something, you first need to resist what that person did and judge it as being wrong, and…

What You Resist, Persists…

So, whatever you are RESISTING in your life right now will have a nasty habit of coming back to haunt you – over and over again in the future.

Why?

Because, the things we resist are usually the same things we FEAR and because of the way the Law Of Attraction works, we always attract the things we FEAR into our lives.

For example, if you fear your partner will cheat on you, you’re most likely going to attract partners that cheat. As long as you resist the experience of ‘cheating’, you’ll attract it.

In my example, I feared being ‘screwed over’ so much, that I attracted that experience – over and over again.

So, what can we do about this dilemma?  The solution is counter intuitive (as often the best solutions are).

An Alternative To Forgiveness

The best way to eliminate FEAR (and negative patterns) is to stop resisting your life the way that it currently is.

Resisting your life is like trying to paddle a canoe upstream, against the current. This requires a LOT more effort than padding the same canoe downstream – using the current instead of resisting the current.

So, instead of forgiving someone for ‘wronging’ you, change the way you see the thing they did and you won’t need to forgive them in the first place!

I’ll admit, this is an advanced concept and does take some practice initially, but it is 100% within your reach.

From Fear To  Fun

When you quit resisting your experience of the world and the people in it, most of your fears (if not all) will disappear – almost instantly. Then, the world becomes a much more fun place to play in, people become a lot more interesting and you become a lot happier.

To stop resisting, you need to quit seeing your experiences as wrong or bad.

If you don’t believe me just yet, humor me and try this idea on like you’d try on some clothes in a department store. You don’t have to buy them; you’re just trying them on. In the same way, I’m not asking you to believe me, just to consider this as an idea.

Allow me to explain…

Everything in our universe has an equal and opposite charge. Black has white, day has night, up has down and the front of your hand has the back of your hand.

Are you still with me here?

This concept is often called the Law Of Duality. Isaac Newton described this phenomenon in his third law of motion as “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

What this means for you is that every problem you experience has an equal benefit to you. Problems cannot exist without their corresponding benefits, like up cannot exist without down.

Consider this: perhaps the reason you get upset is because you only see one side of the coin (the bad side) and don’t ever dig deep enough to discover the equal benefits (the good side) that this problem brings to your life.

When you can authentically allow the benefits you receive from your so called ‘negative’ experience to  inspire you, your jaw will drop with gratitude and you’ll stop resisting, allowing blessing and good times to flow to you.

Stop Resisting It and You’ll Stop Attracting It

When I first tried this with my logo ‘problem’, I was astounded to see that there actually were just as many benefits to not having gotten my logo from my friend, as there were drawbacks:

1. I got a better logo elsewhere for 1/4 of the price
2. I learned to set powerful boundaries with a very upset man
3. I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to stand up for what I wanted
4. I discovered an awesome new graphic designer that I am going to hire in the future and save tons of money on my designs

But my BIGGEST breakthrough happened when I realized that the very thing I was resisting (being screwed over), was what I was actually doing to others in business.

This was a bitter pill for me to swallow. I mean, I considered myself a fair and honest businessman. However, when I looked deeper, I realized that when I negotiated in business, I often negotiated to win, sometimes without concern for whether or not the other person won too.

All I was interested in was getting the best deal for me.

Upon reflection, I realized that I was doing the very thing I hated having done to me!

When I saw this, I was horrified.

So now, here is the toughest question:

Where do you do the VERY EXACT same thing that the person you need to forgive has done to you?

This question is incredibly important. Until you can accept a trait within yourself, you’ll never be able to accept it in another and you’ll continue resisting and attracting that same trait as an experience in your life.

I know this kind of thinking is challenging, but you can do it.

I’ve witnessed a rape victim uncover where she ‘raped’ other people metaphorically. When she saw how she was just like the rapist, she broke down in tears and let go the pain of being raped. Answering this question changed her life.

After I did this exercise, I made a promise to myself that from then on, I was only going to enter into win-win business agreements.

Since then, I never again experienced feeling screwed over, and have (finally) broken the pattern of attracting those kinds of people and experiences into my world.

How To Break The Cycle Of Repeating Negative Patterns

Use this technique to quit resisting when you next experience someone ‘wronging’ you.

• STEP 1: Write down exactly what happened and the exact traits the other person displayed that upset you
• STEP 2: Write down where you have displayed these exact same traits with someone else
• STEP 3: Write down the benefits you received from having had the experience of being ‘wronged’
• STEP 4: Write down the opportunities you can create now that you’ve seen the benefits

Take a moment now and complete this exercise.

If you do the exercise completely, openly and with radical honesty, you’ll find yourself no longer resisting.

Better yet, you’ll no longer need to forgive the person, because you’ll no longer see their actions as bad.

Most importantly, you’ll stop attracting that type of experience into your life.

If you really want to lock in your personal transformation, you may even want to buy the other person a gift to thank them for bringing so many benefits into your life.

Where Else You Can Use This

This exercise is SO great because it quick and easy! With practice you’ll complete it in your head in a matter of seconds.

Use it when:

• You have an argument with your lover
• Your boss or colleague annoys you at work
• Somebody betrays your trust
• Another driver cuts in front of you in a traffic jam
• Anytime you feel bad

Try this on authentically and with a commitment to making it work and I promise you a transformed life where your problems melt away and transform into gorgeous benefits.

You’ll Be Sexier!

Once you become proficient with this new mindset, you’ll notice a nice benefit: People will WANT to hang around you, do business with you and have sex with you (no kidding)!

Why?

Because everyone loves being in the company of someone who does not resist them.

Having cultivated this quality in myself, I am often amazed at the incredibly powerful people who choose to hang out with me, not because of what I have accomplished or because I may be interesting to talk to, but because of the space I provide – a space where they are not blamed and can feel at home to be themselves.

Last but not least, if you’re willing to take this idea into every area of your life, you’ll begin attracting MAGIC like you will not believe…

Let’s Sum It Up

I know this is a radical concept that challenges conventional wisdom,  and I know  that if you read my blog regularly, you’re open enough to receive it.

I want to acknowledge you for reading this far and (hopefully) doing the exercise. It takes courage to look at yourself with such honesty. Well done!

So, let’s wrap up with a summary of what we have learned:

• We all have limiting patterns that we repeat in our lives over and over again
• Forgiving someone is like a band aid – it’s a temporary fix, but does not stop these patterns repeating
• What you resist – persists, because we attract the things we resist into our lives
• We live in a world of duality and every problem or ‘negative’ experience contains a hidden benefit(s)
• We get upset only because we don’t see both sides of the coin (good and bad)
• People who see both sides of the coin are sexy!

Practice the 4-step exercise above and you’ll find yourself a much happier person who can attract a LOT more of what you do want into your life.

Last, but not least, if you’re willing to take this idea into every area of your life, you’ll begin attracting magic like you will not believe!

Please leave me a comment below and let me know what you learned from this article and doing the exercise.

Bruce

P.S. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Dr John DeMartini for teaching me this concept.