One of the best ways to step out of a victim mentality is to develop gratitude. Gratitude is simply appreciative notice and conscious acknowledgment of what brings you joy to focus on in the present moment. Focusing on gratitude shifts you out of self-pity.

You can’t think the thought poor me and be grateful for something in your life at the same time. It allows you to ask yourself the question, What is the hidden blessing or opportunity within this situation? When you recognize the answer to that question, it’s impossible to feel like a victim.

The best way to cure yourself of victimhood is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the practice of making peace with where you were, thereby releasing you from the bondage that prevents you from touching happiness. When you forgive someone, it’s as if you are setting a prisoner free only to discover that you were the prisoner all along.

When we do not find a way to make harmony with the things that cause us to suffer, they become wounds of the mind. They become wounds that we carry with us in our consciousness and subconsciousness every day. The pain becomes like shackles that we are so used to living with that we don’t even realize we have the power to take them off.

When we truly forgive someone, the negative emotion no longer exists. Instead, we sense a deep feeling of peace. Because of this, forgiveness is freedom. Sometimes though, simply for the sake of knowing the inherent goodness of forgiveness, we try to rush ourselves into forgiveness when we have not yet changed the thoughts we are thinking about whatever we are trying to forgive. It can never happen this way.

For example, when a person says, “I will forgive, but never forget,” it’s the very tone of captivity in that statement that lets you know true forgiveness has not yet occurred. What we mean to say is that we will never forget what happened in the past, but the recollection of it will not include the negative emotions anymore. When we reach total forgiveness, gratitude is the only emotion that is left.

To say, “I have forgiven,” and not fully feel the peaceful freedom of that statement is to use the word forgiveness but not embrace the full meaning of it. When we are using the word without actually feeling the peace and freedom of true forgiveness, we are trying to convince ourselves to ignore, suppress, or gloss over a very deep wound. Under these conditions, the internal wound, just like a physical wound, will fester.

When we are deeply hurt by something, we feel powerless. We have to acknowledge the hurt and sadness and even get angry first before we can even hope to forgive. It’s important that we give ourselves permission to go through this process in order to avoid the trap of feeling guilty that we have not fully forgiven yet, on top of the terrible feelings of being hurt. When the time is right, it will feel good to forgive.

Forgiving other people isn’t the most important part of owning your life. The most important part of owning your life is to forgive yourself. In truth, forgiveness has nothing to do with anyone else anyway. Although forgiveness feels very good to a receiving party, forgiveness is only ever about yourself. Whether it’s someone else you are forgiving or yourself, forgiveness is only ever unilateral.

We don’t even need the other person present in order to forgive them, or to forgive ourselves. The healing takes place within us and for us alone. Forgiveness is not about taking anything back. Instead, it’s about releasing ourselves so that we can go forward. If we have any pain present within us at all, it means we have something to forgive.

Excerpted from Shadows Before Dawn by Teal Swan. Published by Hay House (May, 2015) and is available in bookstores and online at www.hayhouse.com.

Read Part 2.

Teal Swan, known to many as “The Spiritual Catalyst” or “The Giggling Guide,” was born, with a range of extrasensory abilities including clairvoyance, clairsentience, clairaudience, and claircognizance. During her childhood, Teal’s parents, both wilderness rangers, accepted a job in Utah, unaware of the intensely religious climate of the location. Teal’s unusual abilities were not only frowned upon but also feared by many in the local religious community. They attracted the attention of a family acquaintance who inducted her into a cult, where she was ritualistically tortured for 13 years. Teal escaped from the cult at age 19 and began her process of recovery and transformation. She now travels the world as a spiritual luminary, teaching people how to find bliss and profound selflove in even the most difficult challenges. www.TealSwan.com.