In the world of behind the times entertainment (IE myself and my husband), we are now catching up on Lucifer.  This show carries lots of hidden and not so hidden gems in terms of our relationship to ourselves.  A topic that hit home for me and set me thinking was the concept of forgiveness-self-forgiveness in particular.  Throughout the show there have been references to how Hell isn’t fire and brimstone, rather it’s the repeated actualization of the reasons we’ve told ourselves we need to be punished.  It’s our guilt manifest over and over again. It’s the idea that we relive the worst parts of ourselves non-stop.  Along with that particular concept of the experience of Hell is the idea that no higher being decides where we go when we die.  A significant majority of us were raised to believe that we go to Heaven or Hell based on our actions and character, the weight of good and bad determining where we go.  In this series, we are the ones who determine where we go based on our beliefs about ourselves.  We can make our soul’s experience Heaven or Hell based on what we feel of our existence.    The other secret Lucifer shares with us is that we can leave at any time.  When we are ready to stop cycling through those awful moments, we can leave.  He doesn’t specify what happens then (or I missed it) so I’m not sure if that means once we’re done with Hell we go to Heaven, but it’s interesting that we are the door and the lock and we can open it at any time.

This last episode expands further on the idea on what makes us believe we deserve to go to Hell.  The character of Lucifer has difficulty hiding his true Devil nature as it seeps through his human cover.  He can’t seem to control it and doesn’t understand why it’s happening.  He even calls for help and says that he doesn’t want to be a monster as even his wings change form.  At the end he shares that he hates himself and he doesn’t know how to forgive himself.  He doesn’t feel he is worthy of forgiveness.  His partner helps him understand he’s personified all the horrible things that people have said about him—he’s believing what people say and because he believes those things about himself, that’s why his true Devil nature comes through.  Once he gets this and starts to forgive himself, once he remembers his worth, his human form comes back and his wings have returned to true angel wings.  So if we believe we are bad enough to go to Hell we will—and if we believe all the things people say about us, we become some version of that.  That sounds a lot like manifestation to me.  It also emphasizes the power of the mind.  We create these cages, we create our own problems, we make ourselves victims, we create the rules we live by—and we rarely choose to change anything because of how we feel about ourselves and what we’ve done.  But the forgiveness part really got me thinking.  How we feel about ourselves literally changes how we look and behave. 

If I’m fully honest, I’ve been in my own type of loop recently.  A combination of timing, heightened emotions, physical changes, changes around me, and frankly, new understanding of the shared history I have with specific people.  I continually buy into what people say about me and what I THINK they say about me.  I also have a negative biased mind for many other reasons, but I’ve internalized so much of what I’ve felt from people that I’ve turned into this bitter, withered, rough, angry, and sad version of myself, riddled with guilt.  That part in itself made me realize that being stuck in a negative loop really is its own type of Hell.  But thinking about how I feel about me based on how I feel about me is weird…I’m either super angry and tough on myself or I fall flat where it’s almost like I’m non-existent.  Seeing this played out on the show in that manner made me realize how much truth there really is to how powerful the mind is and that it can even change what we see in ourselves.  The thoughts lie and if we start making ourselves match that, of course we will see it.  So take some time to break your own Hell loop and forgive whatever it is you’re holding onto.  Let the real you break through.  If the Devil can find redemption and forgiveness, any of us certainly can.