Release Your Need for the Love That Others Have No Power to Give You

“Forgive those who take from you, or walk all over you. They are your biggest teachers. Take your power back from them and lovingly set them free. Let them go by releasing your neediness for their love. Love yourself instead!”

David Elliott, Healing

Forgiveness is difficult for many people because we fail to understand ourselves, let alone the persons we believe have harmed us. And so through building resentments, we hold tight to our inner-pain while daily giving away our emotional power to those who have hurt us.

It’s much easier to forgive when we understand why we are holding on to the hurt. We think it‘s all about the other person’s behavior. Truth is, that’s only a small part of what’s holding us hostage. The larger part of the problem is all about us. As David Elliott says in his book Healing, we need to release our neediness for the love of those we are at odds with; we need to stop demanding that they give us something that they don’t have to give-- or that isn’t ours to demand from them at all.

Too often we are unable to forgive someone because subconsciously we are still wanting something from that person that they cannot possibly give us. For example, we may start dating, or even eventually marry, someone who subconsciously reminds us of our father or mother. Because the attraction is subconscious, we are not even aware of our true attraction to this person, and often the attraction boils down to this: Mom or dad was emotionally unavailable to us, and so we never really felt loved by them. We want to rectify this and make things right. So we subconsciously choose someone who is just as emotionally unavailable as mom or dad, and begin the process of trying to rectify our parent/child relationship through a stand-in. In reality, we are once again demanding from someone a love that they don‘t have to give. This new object of our twisted subconscious mind has no more ability to give us the love and affection we need than our parents did.

So, who are we really having a problem with here? The problem isn’t with mom, or dad or their designated substitute. It’s with us. We are still wanting and demanding what we cannot get, and, as a result, we are blaming others for not having the ability to meet our demands. We are blaming them for simply being the way they are. We cannot change an emotionally unavailable person into the ideal mom or dad, or spouse. And as long as we are subconsciously demanding that they change to suit us, we will be disappointed, hurt and unable to forgive them.

The solution to this problem is simple, but no necessarily easy. We have to examine ourselves. Let’s think about the people in our lives that are on the losing side of our grudges. Were we wanting from them something that they couldn’t possibly give us? Were our demands unfair? Are they-- like us-- the victims of our subconscious mind? If so, we need to let go and surrender our powerlessness over these people to God. We need to ask God to help us to take our power back from these people by helping us to stop wanting the love or attention that they have no power to give us. We will then receive the graces we need to release and to forgive them for not being the people we wanted them to be; for not being the perfect mom or dad or spouse; son or daughter or friend. Lastly, we need to forgive ourselves for being out of touch with our own subconscious needs. In doing so, we will allow ourselves to heal and allow our souls to shine!