What is forgiveness and how does one forgive?

It actually takes a lot of work and energy to hold a grudge and not allow forgiveness. It not only causes continuous sorrow and pain in your life, but it can also end up causing physical illness and discomfort. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are situations where forgiveness is not something you want to force because it actually reinforces that the past hurt was expectable and doesn’t need acknowledgement or to be handled.

If you have been dealt an injustice, especially a really personal one, moving on to forgiveness before you have felt the pain of it can actually hurt you more. If a women who was molested throughout childhood is told she needs to forgive the perpetrator before she feels the pain that it caused, can actually convince her body that the perpetration never happened, and she doesn’t have a right to be hurt by it. This is not what I am taking about. I am the first one to believe that feeling your hurt is healthy and helps allow you to move forward.

I am also not talking about the small things: Holding a grudge at the Starbucks girl who messes up your drink order when you are already running late, or the guy you accidentally cut off in traffic who pulls up next to you flipping you the bird and screaming obscenities at you because you are a woman and don’t know how to drive. Those are easy steps, and most often you realize it’s not about you, and soon you let it go and forget about it. How many of you are still pissed off at the waiter who took too long to bring you your food last Tuesday? I’m guessing not many, because, well,–let’s face it, you are all enlightened souls who know that another’s misactions are not a reflection on your person, its just someone having a bad day themselves; so rather than get upset, you probably end up sending them a bit of love and light and hope for them a brighter day.

So, for all that said, this is not the kind of forgiveness I am talking about. How do you forgive when it is a friend or a lover who has done the misdeed, the injustice or the betrayal? I am guessing that you have at least one person on your plate that you just can’t bring yourself to forgive. So how do you do it? As I said before you may not be in the place where it serves you to forgive right now and that is perfectly ok, you might need to be in the injustice and feel it a bit more. But be aware of that too. Don’t stuff it down and ignore it or try and hide it. Have a conversation with that knot in your stomach, that pain in the back of your head.

Or don’t do the opposite and hold on to it longer then you need to. I know several people who are holding on to all the injustices of life this has become their identity and to let it go would mean to loose themselves. Don’t be that end of the stick either. Find out what your anger and hurt is telling you. If it’s telling you its time to forgive, well, that’s fantastic! But now we are back to where I started: What is forgiveness and how do you do it? We have all been told that forgiveness heals our lives and us. We all know that it’s freeing when you let go of the anger and forgive, but for some reason this is one of the hardest things to do.

I am still learning this myself so I don’t clam to have the answer. But I wanted to share with you a few of the things I have been doing around forgiveness. I’m sorry if I get a little out there for some of you, everyone is different and what might be someone’s good mojo might be someone else’s black magic. What I have learned is that forgiveness is something you do for yourself, not the other person.

1) Through visualization I am imagining a person who has done me an injustice. I see them and myself at the scene of the injustice. I look at myself and I forgive myself and I ask that little piece of me to come back into my body here in the present. I apologize to that piece of me that didn’t feel protected or taken care of. I tell her I love her and I will take care of her and I want her to come join me in the present. She doesn’t need to stay out there at that scene any longer. I then face that other person and I forgive them. I don’t push it or force it. I just try on how it feels to say, ‘I forgive you’. I will do this every day or once a week and just notice how the feelings change. This can also be done in reverse, if a person is holding anger towards you, imagine them in front of you and you ask for their forgiveness.

2) Write a letter to the person you are holding anger towards. Do not send it, just write it. Poor out all your hurt feelings, why you feel the way you feel, and don’t be nice, or polite. When you are done, put it in a journal for a couple of days or weeks. Then take it out and read it again and write another letter. Continue this without sending it until the emotional charge doesn’t seem to be there any longer. Then destroy the letters, burn them, rip them up, bury them, whatever works for you to feel that you have said everything you needed to say and you are ending this story now.

3) The book The Artist’s Way has a fun exercise that I have used before. Take an injustice from your childhood that you are still holding on to. Write a letter to an imaginary court in your defense. The author of this is great book, Julia Cameron, is offering a once in a life time workshop later this month in Arizona for more information on that please click here.

a. Erin Kelly verses Mr. M, a case about injustice and wrongful accusation
I Erin Kelly am writing to you on behalf of my client, Little Erin…

4) Simply breath in and out of my heart. A wonderful technique called Heartmath.

Do you have a tecknick that you use to help you forgive? Please share, Id love to hear from you.