Suffering is optional. Everything that you think someone else did to you, or is doing to you, that is your own decision.  That is you doing to you.  That someone else is only your agent.  That husband who cheated on you long ago,  who you have never forgiven, who makes you bitter and angry, he is only the agent you have chosen for your suffering. But it is not necessary.  There is not an iron chain of causality between you and the past.

 

 

Were you to realize this, and cast off your chain, this agent you have chosen would either disappear quietly from your life, or would change with you in peace.  He is not the cause of your suffering.

 

Suffering is optional

 

That mother who never appreciated you properly, who undermined you constantly,  against whom you have kept a grudge all these years,  she is only your agent, so that you can project out those feelings of anger and inadequacy.  Could you now make yourself immune to her barbs? Could you let them fall uselessly to the ground? Could you see her words as water washing over your back?

Could you forgive her for her blindness?

Could you forgive yourself for seeing her as blind?

 

Everything you think of changes, because you think of it

 

That husband who left you with kids to raise, that wife who never lets you forget you failed, everyone neglectful, ungrateful, disappointing, any focus you have for your misery, could you invite them out into the light, and question them?

Can you now let go of all anger towards anyone? They were only your agents.

 

 

That feeling of entrapment, of being in the wrong situation, of being wasted, I let all of that go now.  I forgive everyone that I believed did me wrong. It was me that was wrong. Thank you.  I am ready to go forward now.

 

What if you let them go, all those roles you chose out of some harmful old script you didn’t even write.  That pattern of adultery that runs through your family, what if you just stopped picking it up? Stopped reacting to it? Let it go.  Realize that the only energy it has is what you are now giving to it.  It doesn’t really even exist. Dismiss these agents of your own self-loathing and fear. These are only words.  Go free. The past does not exist.  If it does, where is it but in your mind?

 

 

From this moment on, I choose only goodness and simplicity in my life.  I recognize that what seem to be other people are only the agents of my decisions, and I now decide to let my agents rest with me, in simplicity and peace.

 

Transformative change