Forgiveness and Rewiring the Brain

(please note that you can also listen to the audio version of this blog on my Youtube channel)

You are reading this today either because you have some shit we want to release, or you have an open mind and are interested in personal growth, or both.

Forgiveness and Letting Go are powerful ways to heal. When we hold onto judgement, fear, pain, sadness etc then it works like a poison eventually affecting our physical bodies making us sick, and affecting our minds and the way in which we view and act in the world. Dr Wayne Dyer used to say – it's not the snake bite that kills you, it’s the venom that works its way through your body afterwards that does. Holding onto pain and judgement long term is toxic. It’s our perceptions and reactions to experiences that determine the intensity of our suffering, not the actual experiences themselves.

But the good news is, when we work on our mindset, we take back control of our lives and the choices we make, and we can heal, forgive and move on. Even if this feels like an impossible concept right now, just be open and hear me out.

We are made up of energy. Everything is made up of energy. Even our thoughts, intentions and emotions. All vibrating at different frequencies. This has been proven by science. When we break it down to a microscopic level, each atom in our bodies have a portion of matter, and a portion of space that is vibrating. The space is energy. Our mindset controls how much matter and energy are in each cell at any given time. Dr Joe Dispenza teaches - When we are vibrating at a high frequency, we are more wave, when we are vibrating at a low frequency, we are more particle.  

Think of a radio station. When we vibrate on a high frequency level, we are then able to connect to everything else vibrating on that level – such as intuition, 6th sense, love, abundance, joy etc and that’s the lens in which we view the world. When we are vibrating on a low frequency, we tend to focus on what we don’t want and don’t have, and in doing so we attract more of the same into our life and we increase the density in our cells making us feel heavier, more fatigued and less inspired and creative. 

Where focus goes, energy flows. We give power to what we think about. The more emotional charge that is behind those thoughts, the more power and effect on our environment it has.

By the Law of Attraction, we attract what we are. What we are is formed by what we think about it, and what we think about turns into what we believe. These beliefs hardwire us into an automatic program which controls our actions, choices, perceptions – and therefore our lives. 

To get out of darkness and repetitive behaviour, what do we need to do? We need to turn on the light. We need to change the way we think and the way we live our lives. To turn on the light and bring awareness to our thoughts, we need to practice mindfulness. 

Before we dive into what we need to forgive and how we go about doing it, we need to understand how we can rewire the brain. 

I’m generalising here, but from a neurological perspective, when we have a thought, a neuron is fired in the brain. Seeing as we have 60-70,000 thoughts a day and 90% of them are the same, those neurons that have fired together over and over again become automatic. Once those thoughts are automatic, they are stored in the body, like how we learn to drive to the point where our body can drive us from A to B without any conscious thought. Like how once we have learned to walk, we no longer consciously think about what muscles and actions are required to do so, our body does it for us automatically. Like how you learned to ride a bike and even if you don’t ride one for years, your body still knows how to do it as soon as you get back on. Those neural pathways in the brain become thicker and stronger with repetition.

So to rewire the brain and disrupt the pathways and thought patterns that no longer serve us, we need to make new choices. We need to have new thoughts. To do this we need to learn something new and be open to new perceptions. Books, podcasts, documentaries, workshops, retreats, women’s circles, following certain people on social media etc – all of these things can impact the wiring in the brain. So choose what you put into your brain wisely. Is what you are feeding your mind helping your personal growth or hindering it? 

Repetition, consistency, openness, challenges – all of these things help rewire your brain. Question every thought that arises and ask yourself – do I actually BELIEVE that thought?

Journaling is also a very powerful way to rewire you brain and expand your consciousness – writing your thoughts or answering journal prompt questions can reveal some things you didn’t even know you held within you, and its also a wonderful way to release stored stress within as it brings clarity, and the ability to let go when its “outside” of you instead of stored within your programming. I’ve been writing in my diary almost every day since I was 13 – 25 years now! And if I miss too many days my mind begins to feel very full, and I become agitated. Once I write my thoughts down, I feel like I can let them go and move on. You can let out the irrational and illogical thoughts which helps process what’s going on within the mind. With the written word and there’s no judgement or trying to be someone you’re not. Theres no hiding, its open, vulnerable and raw. 

Mindfulness practices also help – bringing awareness to your everyday actions such as breathing, hearing, smelling, touching, seeing, tasting, sensing etc. Using actions that you do every day as a trigger to remind yourself to be mindful can help, things like washing your hands and showering. Focus on the feeling of the water and the way the water moves.

Meditation is the quickest way to rewire your brain. It’s like hitting the reset button on your internal programming and nervous system. If you think of our nervous system like a bucket, whenever something stressful happens it goes in the bucket. When the bucket is empty, we can handle frustrations, and they seem minor. When the bucket is full, it only takes one idiot driver on the road or your child yelling MUM for the 100th time for example to suddenly lose your shit. It wasn’t that situation that generated a massive reaction, it was because your bucket was full. Meditation is a way to empty the bucket. Laughter is also a great way to help relieve the pressure built up within. 

There are many ways to meditate and the more stressed and heightened your nervous system is, the harder it is to sit still. There will be a lot of resistance and “other” things that are more important. It can be confronting. But what happens when we don’t clean our bodies, our teeth, our hair, our clothes, and our homes? How does that feel when we leave them too long? I know cleaning can be a nuisance and time consuming, but we make it a priority because the alternative is worse. So why don’t we clean our mindset? We know we have to exercise our bodies to be healthy, but why don’t we make exercising our minds a priority? Meditation is exercising and cleaning the mind.

Meditation to begin with doesn’t have to be an hour in a cross-legged yogi position with a perfectly still mind and a state of bliss. That’s unrealistic. Meditation to begin with may be sitting on a chair for a few minutes with your eyes closed focusing on the breath and observing and allowing the discomfort of the experience as your mind jumps all over the place creating the impulse to get up and move. But it’s a start and it's important for your overall wellbeing. It may be laying on the floor feeling into your heart space everything that you are grateful for.  It may be going for a walk on the beach and focusing on the feeling of the sand beneath your toes. It may be listening to a song and feeling the vibrational frequency of the sound. It may be following a guided meditation on an app for example.

So these are some of the tools to rewire the brain to give you the chance to take back control of your thoughts, your reactions, your actions, your beliefs, your choices and ultimately the trajectory of your life.
Once your mind has opened through mindfulness and awareness, this opens up the doorway to being able to forgive more effectively. 

We tend to attract a reflection of our inner world – for example, if we believe we are not worthy and un-loveable, we attract people and situations into our lives that make us feel unworthy and un-loveable. When you rewire the brain, when you meditate and when you focus on love and gratitude, your brain and heart begin to function coherently together. When this happens, we go into our “flow state” where we are inspired and creative and operating on a high vibrational level, and this gives us the capacity to see what we need to heal within ourselves. We begin to see these situations and people that we have issues with as opportunities for personal growth and transformation. This mindset means we don’t stay stuck; we don’t allow the toxic thoughts and resentment, blame and shame poison our minds and our physical bodies. We are able to process and work our way through difficult circumstances a lot quicker and smoother and the universal flow supports you.

Intellectually it's easy to understand how to forgive. We can see people’s actions as their own internal programming and can see that we don’t need to take it personally because it’s not actually about us. We can be compassionate and know that they are just expressing their pain – even if we don’t condone their behaviour, but we can be kind and let it go as it’s a reflection of their inner world.

We can even see it as a reflection of our shadow self – the parts of ourselves that we don’t like being reflected in what we don’t like about other people's behaviours.

We can even understand it from a scientific perspective - our brain receives a mega 2 million bits of information per second, yet we can only handle around 64 bits at a time which is less than 1% overall.
In order to decipher the load, the brain deletes what it thinks isn’t relevant, distorts what it doesn’t understand, and generalises it to make it easier to comprehend. This is why two people who have the exact same experience remembers very different things.

Their brain processing system as it computes the information, or situation is determined by their past experiences - which is unique to the individual. So if both people in an argument think they are in the right because how their brain is processing the situation is completely different.

The memories we tend to hold on too are ones that have generated a high amount of emotional response - either positive or negative - yet our perception of those memories is based on the lens in which we viewed the world at the time, based on the information we had in our brains for that processing system. Which we now know isn’t trustworthy.

Just because we think a thought or have a memory – it doesn’t make it true. If there’s something that you can’t let go of and can’t forgive, that does not serve you, ask yourself - is it actually true? What are the facts or what are just perceptions? May there be another perception available?

Then there is radical forgiveness which is the spiritual mindset that nothing bad has actually happened in the first place. We can then see that this person or situation was something our soul conspired and chose for this lifetime for the purpose of our transformation and expansion of consciousness and we can feel gratitude for the person or situation for playing their part in your story. I know this can seem a bit out of left field, but stay open to this line of thinking and let it sink in.

It may sound to woo woo and like bullshit, and there’s no actual proof that this is the case – but would this line of thinking if you truly believed it, would it bring you peace? Isn’t that the goal at the end of the day?

I highly recommend the book Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping, he has work sheets and a step-by-step process to help you forgive and let go from a radical forgiveness energy perspective. 

So there are lots of different ways to look at and process forgiveness. I personally believe that if we have a spiritual mindset, we have more tools to deal with difficult situations and we heal quicker. It’s worked for me.

I grew up with an alcoholic father. A loving man, but he had many internal demons. He never hurt me physically, but he would hurt himself a lot by punching holes in walls and windows, resulting in injury that I would have to clean up at 9 years old. He screamed and yelled a lot, saying very traumatic and emotionally damaging things towards me, and he broke things around the house. 

As a result, I attracted bullying into my life – which was the frequency I was putting out to the universe, proving to myself how I felt about myself being worthless and unlovable – and I ended up leaving multiple schools from awful bullying situations which kept replaying themselves out at each school which I now know was the universes way to try and teach me to heal from this way of thinking. Have you noticed any reoccurring patterns in your life with relationships or work situations? 

This all left me being a very dramatic and emotional unstable teenager, desperate for love and stability, yet feeding off the drama. I found drugs as a way to escape, and traveling as a way to run away and try to fill the emptiness inside of me. I used to give myself the label of being a negative person and that the world was better off without me. I used to say that my mind wouldn’t stop spinning and that I needed to install traffic lights in there to handle the chaos of constant cars crashing into each other at a million miles per hour.

Yet I also had a deep inner awareness and logic, and the need to understand my brain and what was happening. I had a thirst for knowledge. Luckily, I also had a mum who was very open minded and supportive. She had been through the worse things possible in her lifetime, and she learned from those experiences and became a better person instead of allowing herself to be the victim. So her influence and support were powerful as well. I read psychology and spiritual books, and over time I rewired my brain, to the point now that I can now teach others to do the same. I’ve done the hard yards, and I know what works. But it takes commitment. 

I reached a point where I could forgive my dad completely. Bit by bit I managed to release my expectations and judgements of him, and when I did, miraculously our relationship improved. Now that he has passed on, I can honestly say that there is not one part of me that wishes for my upbringing to be different, and I am so grateful to him for what he had to endure as part of my story. That was his path, and it was also mine. Imperfectly perfect. There is no resentment, and I have so much love for him and feel closer to him now in the spiritual realm than ever. 
I can also say that I am present a large portion of the time now, very aware of my thoughts and my actions. I can enjoy silence in my mind when I meditate which is the most incredible feeling.

I hope this has resonated with you and given you some tools to go forward from here.

5 other little tips I would like to share before I wrap up that also helps with forgiveness –

1. Don’t deny your shadow self. The part of you that you may not like. The part of you that makes you do things that you are not proud of. Be kind to yourself and accept that it is part of human experience. Acknowledge it and use that awareness for growth. However, don’t lose yourself in it and don’t let those emotions control you. 

2. Practice self-love. This can be in the form of gratitude work (writing down all the things you love about yourself and try adding to it every day. Repeating it to yourself as much as possible).

Or mirror work – looking at yourself in the mirror every day and repeating a mantra that you want to believe. Any statements linked to the words I AM. Such as I AM beautiful. I am brave. I am loved. I am supported. I am worthy.
And scheduling time for yourself every week to do something that brings you joy and nourishes you. Where it’s all about YOU and your wellbeing and not anybody else’s. This sacred time calms your nervous system and recharges you.

Other ways to love yourself is to be aware of your environment and the people, experiences and information that you expose yourself too. Set boundaries where needed. Care for your body by getting enough sleep, moving your body, eating well, drinking enough water etc

When you love yourself, you are able to give others so much more. Of course, we are very capable of loving others even if you don’t feel like you love yourself, but when you love yourself, what you are capable of providing for others is way more impactful and powerful.

3. Let go of the need to be right all the time. Let go of expecting others to be different than they are. Allow others to be as they are and have their own opinions without trying to change them. This will release a lot of suffering, and it is incredibly freeing. 

4. Remember that the brain and nervous system don’t know the difference between just thinking and remembering something, and the experience actually occurring in that moment. So when we keep replaying situations linked to a powerful emotion constantly in the mind, our nervous system reacts to it like it’s actually happening in that moment. 

It puts us in the fight or flight response mode which cause an intense amount of stress on the body, especially when it’s replayed over and over again. This can cause some pretty serious issues in the body and mind over time. In other words, don’t dwell on the past or worry about the future. 

Try to stay present and in the moment as often as possible. If your mind starts to spin – ask yourself, right in this moment, how is this an issue for me? If it’s not something you need to act on in that moment, let it go. 

Focus on things like your breath, your senses, whatever activity or task you are doing in the present moment. Adjust your posture to align to a different emotion (for example standing like a superhero makes us feel empowered etc), shake out your body in some form of movement, listen to a song that picks you up etc If its anger that is gripping you, the energy behind that is quite physical so it can help to do things like scream into a pillow or punch a pillow.

And lastly,

5. When you are triggered and are experiencing some form of trauma response – if it’s extreme and regular, you will need to work with a professional. Somatic therapy can help.

But with every day traumatic situations that spike emotions in us, there are ways to minimise that emotional response from being stored into the body. First step is to get to safety – that may be walking away from an argument instead of engaging, or whatever may be the case. 

Then in that moment, always try to feel into your body. If your mind is in chaos, become the observer and be the one that’s listening, instead of the one that is doing the thinking. This removes the attachment to the thoughts and lessens the power of the emotion. 

Instead focus on what you are feeling in your body. The body shaking for example, is the nervous systems way of processing the adrenalin that has arisen. Allow it to happen and notice the shift and change of sensations. 

Like a dog does after barking and fighting with another dog, he shakes it off and goes back to normal. Like an antelope does after running away from a lion. Animals are a perfect example of how our nervous system works in emergency situations – they either freeze and play dead, they run away, or they fight. But they don’t replay it over and over in their minds afterwards. Their body does its release technique, and they carry on as normal. 

However, if a dog for example is in a constant state of fear when being tortured by a human over and over again, it loses the ability to process it, and they become vicious, or they give up. That’s pretty much what we do as humans because we constantly replay situations in our minds which doesn’t allow our body to heal, and it causes incredible damage to the way in which we operate in the world. 

I hope that helps. If you have enjoyed this blog/talk, please subscribe to my You Tube channel, leave a comment, like the video and share with those that you think would benefit from hearing this message.

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Thank you so much for sharing your energy and time with me today. Namaste x