Forgive
forgive
fəˈɡɪv
verb
“stop feeling angry or resentful towards (someone) for an offence, flaw, or mistake”.
Why the hell should I?
That was the last retort I would always make whenever I heard the words ‘forgiveness’ and ‘past’ together in a sentence.
But here’s the thing
By refusing to look back into my past and make my peace with it, I was constantly re-living every single thing that had rocked my world. Refusing to forgive my past repeated it, in my mind.
Every single day. Every single moment.
Multiply that by years and you have a rather large portion of life being taken up by events that no longer exist. No wonder I couldn’t manifest an amazing life like Rhonda said I could. Too many of my thoughts (and resulting feelings) were taken up by re-living my past in some way.
We all do it. You may not realise it. Years of holding the same angst, pain, and frustration at a situation means that you constantly think about it. Usually deep in your subconscious. Something happens and you feel it again. Then you suffer an emotion or a release ranging from tears to rage and depression. It’s an endless cycle.
The good news is you don't have to suffer like this anymore
No matter what you have been through or are currently going through, this absolutely does not need to be your life. A rather bold statement to make but so confident am I in the results of this particular lesson, that I am prepared to make such a statement.
So what can you do?
Write it
What you need: A simple note-book/exercise book/A4 sheets of paper, something to write with, somewhere you won’t be disturbed, a box of tissues.
Head up a page with “My Life Path”.
I literally started with “26th April 1984 – Born”. I then listed every significant event in my life, in chronological order by month and year, in a very matter-of-fact way (see picture). A time-line of your life.
As you write, notice which events trigger strong adverse feelings within you – the ones where you put up the most resistance. Also notice which ones you skim over, or perhaps even miss out completely!
Interestingly enough, when I did this exercise, I had completely missed out my sister's death.
Feel It
Read back what you have written, and each time you get to a difficult part where you start feeling all the upset again, stop here.
Really think about what happened to make you feel that way. What was said. What was done. How you reacted.
Write it down somewhere if you have to, or say it out loud. Sing it if it helps. Whatever you do, instead of judging the situation, person or yourself, just feel it knowing that it’s already happened and the feeling will pass again – just like it has before.
Now its time to heal it with a little help from Louise Hay and Ulrich E. Duprée.
Heal it
"We are all victims of victims"
This one statement from Louise’s book “You Can Heal Your Life”, completely changed how I viewed my past and how I choose to deal with life today. I highly recommend putting this book on your “must read” list.
There is a section in the book where Louise talks about parents and how they “could not possibly teach us anything they did not know themselves”. They were doing the best they could with what they themselves had been taught and had experienced.
She also goes on to write that “those who did all that stuff to you, were just as frightened and scared as you were”. This really had an impact on me and I remember sitting quietly for a while after I read it. The whole book in fact.
So I started to look at my past through new eyes. I went back through each event and realised that I didn’t know anything about anyone else’s past. My father, my step-father, my abuser; no-one really.
I had no idea what they had been through. Particularly my father. So I started to ask a few questions about his past and piece together bits of information I had learnt over the years.
My father was a twin
His brother died in an accident (apparently in front of his very eyes) and he had never been the same since. I know very little about his upbringing apart from the fact that neither his mother or father were particularly loving or nurturing. They had bigger things to worry about like putting food on the table and surviving, rather than attending to the mental well-being of their son.
Ho’ponopono
Ho’pono what now?
Sounds a little funny doesn’t it. But this little gem has really helped me with this forgiveness thing and I am hoping it will do the same for you too.I first heard about it during my Reiki 1 course when one of the other participants mentioned it during a group discussion. Little did I know at the time the impact it would later have on me.
Ho’ponopono is a Hawaiian forgiveness ritual. It has four simple sentences at its core; “I am sorry”, “Please forgive me”, “I love you”, “Thank you”.
Its basic premise is that we can only influence our ‘external world’ if we heal the corresponding inner resonance (remember the whole living inside out thing).
Ulrich E. Duprée has written a little A5 book that explains Ho’ponopono in a really simple way. It is so tiny it literally fits into a back pocket, but it is oh so valuable.
I can’t possibly do it justice in this one blog post, so I would urge you to read it when you get a chance.
So how on earth did these four simple sentences help me?
Well, I said them out loud as I worked my way through my time line.
If I felt a bit more resistance at any point to forgiving (i.e. familiar feelings of upset or anger arose), then I would keep repeating them until that feeling subsided and I felt calm again.
Once I got to the end of my time line, I placed my hands on my heart and repeated the sentences a few times.
Then I pushed the air away from me and said out loud “I let it all go”.
I remember feeling such relief after I did this.
I didn’t have to carry any of it for a second longer.
It was a freedom I had never experienced before and it was so simple. It was the fear of re-living my past that had stopped me from dealing with it.
Once I understood that every thing had already passed and all I had to do was heal, it made it much easier to face.
The word ‘Forgive’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Perdonare’ meaning to give completely, without reservation
It explains in a nutshell how I view forgiveness. The burden you carry can be “given away”, released if you like. Everything has already happened. Nothing is ever going to change that. What can be changed is your feeling towards it, and that will give you more freedom than you have ever known.
I am not saying condone whatever has happened or turn a blind eye and pretend everything is okay. Because it’s not. Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this post.
What I am saying is choose how you want to live now. In the past, or in the present. One cannot be changed, but the other can.
Next week I will be looking at how we can incorporate forgiveness into every day and bring you some real-life examples. Leave me a comment if you want to ask anything or just want to let me know how you’re getting on with this whole forgiveness thing.
Thank you so much for reading and I really hope this post has helped you in some way.
I’ll leave you with another quote from Louise Hay and I’ll see you next week.
You don’t have to know how to forgive, and you may not be wanting to forgive, but just being willing to forgive. Releasing the past will begin the healing process.
This Post Has 4 Comments
So kind to let us share your journey of forgiveness
So powerful!! I am definitely in the “don’t want to forgive” camp…. how does one deal with a situation that despite all your efforts is not just in your past but will persist for sometime to come. Repeat offenders….
Thank you for reading and your comment Tas. Forgiving a situation while it’s still going on does take some courage, because you don’t have the benefit of time passing by where you can take a breather and then forgive in retrospect.
If there was a situation still in my present that kept persisting, I would find some time on my own and either write or say out loud how the situation was making me feel and vent all my frustrations. Once I have got it all out, I would make an Ho’ponopono for it like I described in my post (honestly the book is worth reading) and then let it go. You can’t change a situation without changing your feelings towards it first. I know that sounds a really backwards way of dealing with something but it’s honestly how I approach present day issues. You’ll be surprised at how much easier things become once you start to do that.
My next post will be about forgiveness for every day, so hopefully that will help answer your question too. I tried to fit it all in one post but it was way too long!
Let me know how you are getting on xxx
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