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When I was dating, I had to realize the hard truth—I was blocking love.

I blocked love by holding onto the past. I let old breakups, negative experiences, and childhood insecurities determine my life. My past felt like a backpack of shame, guilt, anger, sadness, and doubt. I’d put myself out there, but the backpack kept weighing me down.

When I started my self-development journey of finding myself, I came across the importance of forgiveness. Initially, I wasn’t excited about practicing forgiveness. I thought it invalidated my pain by excusing what people did to me. However, the more I opened to the idea of love, the more I realized forgiveness was crucial. I couldn’t open my heart while holding onto the past. Forgiveness was my ticket to freedom.

About a year before I found my soulmate, I experienced the worst breakup and ensuing heartache of my life. I went through tremendous shame and guilt around ending the relationship. It was so painful, it felt like I’d cut my arm off. I remember thinking my chance of finding new love was nonexistent.

The following year was a journey of learning to love and accept myself. I saw my breakup as a life lesson. Indeed, without that pain, I would not have met my soulmate. I’ll save that story for another post. With increasing confidence, I started loving my life. I realized I didn’t want to carry that backpack anymore. I didn’t want shame and guilt blocking love from finding me.

I learned to embrace forgiveness and use it as a tool for empowerment. I want to show you the beauty in forgiving.

Here are three reasons why forgiving is crucial to finding love:

1. Forgiveness has everything to do with you and nothing to do with the other person.

Most people hate the idea of forgiveness because they think it excuses the other person’s behaviour. This can’t be further from the truth. Forgiveness has everything to do with you, not them. It’s not about letting them get away with hurting you; it’s about freeing yourself from the weight of the experience. Without forgiving, you’re tied energetically to the person who wronged you. Forgiveness cuts the thread between you. Who wants to be tied to their ex; they’re an ex for a reason!

Forgiveness lets you see the beautiful lessons that emerge from your painful experience. It sheds light on why it happened and what you were meant to learn. Forgiveness shows the Universe you’re no longer open to attracting people who will hurt you and are ready for new love and connection.

Forgiveness is key to finding love. If you’re holding on to past hurt or shame, you’re blocking joy from entering. If you’re still mad at your ex for breaking up with you, you’re blocking all the amazing people waiting to meet you.

Forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. With forgiveness comes love, freedom, joy, and happiness. When you let yourself forgive the past, you let dating and finding love be enjoyable again.

2. By not forgiving, you are letting that person control your experience.

If you’re dating and wanting to find love, but holding onto resentment or guilt around past lovers, you’re letting them control your experience. Deep down, you’re holding a belief that you won’t find love again. You believe a past lover owes you something.

Breakups and losing love are incredibly painful. Loss is one of the hardest experiences in life. If we want to find the love we desire, we can’t hold onto what could have been. Let’s take a look at how this could play out.

Say you dated someone you really liked. You saw a future with them. Out of nowhere, they ended it for their own reasons. Now you have resentment. You feel your next relationship will end the same way. If all lovers leave why even try?

You are doing yourself a disservice! Don’t let one experience determine the outcome of your life. Lean into forgiveness. See the lessons of why it happened. Open yourself to the idea that good lovers are out there. They definitely are!

By practicing forgiveness, you’re taking control of your life and releasing the weight of negative feelings. Don’t let anyone dictate your future. Get in the driver’s seat and go after what you want.

3. Forgiveness is the best way to clear space in your heart to let love in.

Vulnerability is the secret to fulfilling and long-lasting relationships. It builds unbreakable bonds between people. Unfortunately, most of us are scared of being vulnerable. Our inner child is scared of getting hurt.

Breakups and losing lovers trigger deep childhood wounds. Insecurities surface. Lifelong fears are realized. I’m sending you love, if you’re feeling this now. You do not have to suffer forever. Past pain does not determine your future. You can and will love again, I promise.

The best way to clear space in your heart and let love in is through forgiveness. When you forgive the past, you let your inner child know they’re safe to be vulnerable. You open to the idea of love.

So now that you know why forgiveness is crucial before finding authentic love, let me give you a powerful forgiveness exercise. For this exercise, I want you to think of a past lover or an experience that still really hurts. Maybe you still carry guilt or shame around something that happened to you. You can use anything that’s still hurting you here.

Forgiveness Exercise

Close your eyes and bring up the past experience or person.

Without judgment, observe what happened and the feelings it gave you.

Place your hand on your heart and forgive yourself for what happened.

Now I want you to write a letter to this person or experience, forgiving them and everything that happened. Detail out all the important lessons you learned and what you will avoid doing in the future. No one will read this letter so please be brutally honest.

Remember, this is not about excusing someone for hurting you, rather it is you declaring that this will no longer have a hold on you. This person will no longer be in your life or in your mind, you are free.

Once you are done, take the letter and rip it up into tiny pieces and throw it away. Or have a mini ceremony and (safely) light it on fire as you clear away the experience and open your heart to new love.

Now I want to hear from you, how was the forgiveness exercise for you? What are you excited to call into your life?

I’m rooting for you!

~