Forgiving others

Mental health matters. Wellbeing is at the top of my list of self care. Whether it's meditation or a relaxing bath I need to stay on top of my game if I am to manage the mental pressure of living with CPS.

There are things that I personally can do to keep my stress levels low. But what about the intolerance or impatience directed at us by other’s. It may be family members who cannot understand us, or work colleagues that look at us with suspicion. Either way these negative interruptions affect us emotionally.

For a long time I resented my wife. My new illness caused a big upset at home. I was unable to do much of what I did before. My new restrictions were something she never expected. CPS turned our lives upside down over night. I eventually came to a place of understanding her reaction to my disability. As I did others suspicion of me and my invisible illness. I always said that if my leg was hanging off people's reaction to me would be different.

What I came to realise was that in order to keep my pain levels down I had to live with a certain attitude towards other people. I needed to be in a position of forgiveness. To remain neutral to the reactions or inactions of others. It was doing me no good sitting in resentment and judgment of of those who upset me. It just fuelled my negativity and ramped up my pain levels. It fed my depression and anxiety.

I came to see the real problem was my anger. After all, I have no control of what other’s may do or say. What I can do is be observant of my reactions. The solution to this lies in mindfulness meditation and the ability to just ‘watch when I feel negativity rising, no matter what the situation. Whether I am right or wrong. If I can just watch it will pass without me getting dragged into the emotional drama. I can remain neutral.

What happens in the present moment can have ongoing effects unless we deal with the present with grace. We can forgive other’s by not emotionally reaction to them. Staying out of anger ourselves brings a real freedom.

Non contemplative meditation is one way to build resilience to stress from moment to moment as we go about our day. This simple free practice is a powerful awakening exercise that brings the practitioner to a heightened sense of consciousness. And in remaining awake we are then in a position to ‘watch’ when tempted to react. Soon we find ourselves emotionally neutral to the stresses of daily life. We come to react differently, with grace. I have been practicing it daily for over 7 years and nothing has changed my life more. I found peace in the stillness of meditation.

https://schwarzhoffmedia.com/non-contemplative-meditation/