***Your Money Monster and Forgiveness

Reader Question:

“What if my Money Monster is personified in several real people? Can I forgive them and still get rid of the Money Monster?”

My Response:

Brilliant question! Your “Money Monster” is the personification of any thing that has ever made you feel unworthy, unloveable, or unsafe in the world… including the meanest thing that has ever been said to you (or you’ve said to yourself), and things that have happened to you or been done to you by others… even things that you’ve observed in the world, things that have seemed unfair (I’m thinking of British Petroleum and the Gulf of Mexico).

The monster is BIGGER than the people in your life. It is NOT your parents, though it may have used your parents or abused you through your parents.

We make your monster SEPARATE from you or your parents? Why? Because we are going to DESTROY IT.

And it’s not healthy to destroy our parents (no matter what they did), and it’s certainly not healthy to destroy a part of yourself!

So, Reader, you’re right on the money (so to speak). Yes, you get to forgive the people but destroy the monster.

*** A word on Forgiveness: I don’t believe in “forgive and forget.”***

Let me explain…
It’s not necessary to hold a grudge. In fact when you finally feel safe I find that grudges go away naturally. Grudges can be very expensive, so we want to let them go. That’s why we forgive.

At the same time forgiveness does not let the other person off the hook, does not make what was done “okay.” (Some things are simply not okay!) Forgiveness really means, “What you did was NOT okay, AND there’s nothing you can do to me that I cannot learn from and grow from and use to discover my true nature as Divine Love.”

Thank you to my dear friend Vaishali for that definition forgiveness.