Hello and welcome back to The Joy Within’s podcast. Today I want to share an idea that, to me, forms the foundation of forgiveness.

It really helps me to accept and understand the actions of others, even when I don’t agree with those actions. It helps even when – maybe I should say especially when – that person’s decision or action seems so foreign to me that I can’t even fathom why anyone would think or act in that way. I think it helps both with forgiving the “little things” as well as the big ones.

It comes down to a simple perspective.

Forgive Yourself For Not Knowing What You Didn’t Know

Our actions are a reflection of our own, individual level of awareness. Everyone always acts according to their level of awareness – their level of consciousness – in that moment. In fact, we can only ever operate from that state. Our state of consciousness governs everything that we say or do. It governs – quite literally – who we become from one moment to the next.

On some level, I think it’s easy to recognize this fact, but it’s harder to see that this state is constantly shifting, constantly fluctuating from one moment to the next. That’s why you can have some days when you feel happy, peaceful, and at one with everything around you, and then have other days when you might be pissed off, cursing the world, and shocked at your own negative response to some trigger.

Our goal is always to learn how to raise our own level of consciousness and then practice staying more consistently at that higher level, because that is what dictates who we become. It dictates whether we feel joyful, open, loving, and compassionate, or closed off, angry, fearful, and upset.

To visualize this, I like to think of our individual level of awareness kind of like a stock price. On any given day, any moment, that stock might go up or down. It changes daily, but also in longer cycles, but – hopefully – over time the stock is going to go up. Our state of consciousness is just like that.

Forgive Others The Same Way You Forgive Yourself

Thinking in this way helps us practice forgiveness because it helps us to become more compassionate If someone offends you. it helps you to see that the person acted in that way not out of any malice towards you, not because you did anything wrong, but simply because of their own level of consciousness in that moment. And, in fact, given where they were at that time – given their own collection of experiences, knowledge, and beliefs – they could not have acted in any other way.

You might not be able to understand why they chose to act the way they did. You might not understand why they hold certain beliefs or what led them to that action, but you can understand that their actions simply reflected where they were, what they were thinking, in that moment. In that sense, they were doing the best they knew how to do. Nothing more and nothing less.

As you play with this idea, I think it helps to reflect on your own ups and downs over the years. Notice how, in your own life, there have been times when you’ve reached up and acted from a higher version of yourself, just as there have been times when you’ve dropped down and chosen actions that later caused you regret, guild, or shame. Seeing that fluctuation within ourselves helps to see it within others. We’re all human. We all have ups and downs,

If you’ve been beating yourself up about something, this concept helps for that as well. Acknowledge that you did the best you could, given your level of awareness – your knowledge, beliefs, and experiences – at the time.

So I really encourage you start playing with this idea. The really great part is – in order to apply this concept, in order to use it to forgive yourself and others, you have to raise your level of consciousness, right now. So, it’s a really great principle to adopt, whether someone just cut you off in traffic, or you’re still coping with a decades old trauma.

Accept that everyone always operates according to their own level of awareness, in the moment It will bring you more peace, love, and compassion – and raise your own level of consciousness in the process.