Forgiveness: On the Path of Healing (Part 2 of 2)

By Sue Greenwald

Last week, we did some simple exercises to help you understand how harmful it is to hold on to your anger and hurt. Here, let's expand the exercises to get to deeper layers!

Forgiveness Meditation to change the energy of the situation:

Go into meditation. (at least close your eyes, and breathe deeply for a while)

• When you are calm & relaxed, call in the energy or the Higher Self of the one who has wronged you. You may “see”, “feel” or have a “knowing” when that’s happened. If not, wait a while and just go with it.

• You may/may not sense an energetic shift. Give this a while. If you don’t sense anything, don’t worry, just proceed.

• Ask the person’s higher self, with sincerity to forgive you, that you did not mean to hurt them, and ask them to let it go. Say it in your own words.

• Ask yourself to forgive them and let it go. You may feel a shift in the energy as you do this.

• You will most likely need to do this process several times, and you must be sincere when asking for their forgiveness.

• You may still be hurt or angry, but work at being sincere until you are.

• You’ve shifted the energy. You may need to repeat. Do this from the perspective of clearing the situation, rather than what you’ll “get” from doing this. The relief from the disagreement should be the reward, although you’ll most likely see other changes.

If you work at this, it’s certain that the energy around this issue will shift, and even though you did not take physical action to apologize, the situation will start to heal.

I've used this process many times. It's amazing how someone that was not talking with me before will be so friendly when I see them after I forgive them! It'll generally improve the relationship, even if you haven’t physically apologized to them in the traditional way. You don’t have to communicate with them at all for them to forgive you, just to sincerely mean it and send energy their way.

Exercises

A) Make a list of the top 20 people who have ever wronged you. You may or may not still feel emotion about those people or the situation, but if you can recall them for this list, they belong on the list. Add the ones that pop into your mind.

• Sit in a quiet space when you have time and work on each person. This will take some time and probably several sessions.

• Ask for forgiveness from or for each person on your list. You can do this aloud or even in your head. You must truly want forgiveness to change the energy of the situation. Remember, you can't trick the universe. Try to ‘Feel “their energy. When you feel them (if you can) apologize to them. Ask for their sincere forgiveness.

• Work on forgiving and letting go of everything people have done to hurt you, whether intentional or not. It may take more than one sitting to truly forgive someone especially if there was a lot of emotion surrounding this situation. Keep working at it till you can get to true forgiveness

B) List things that you'd like to forgive yourself for. These are things others may not even be aware of, things that you're holding on to and you that you still feel regret, guilt, sadness, or anger for. These are for things that have happened or event things in your mind that you feel guilt or regret for.

• Sit in a quiet space. Take your time, and think about each instance that you’d like to forgive yourself for, real or imagined. See yourself as that innocent child, learning through trial and error, never intentionally trying to hurt anyone in any way. Ask and pray to your Higher Self to assist with letting go of these heavy feelings of Regret, Guilt & Sadness.

• Doing this will start to shift the energy. Apologize or take other physical action to reinforce your shift.

C) List all those that you have ever hurt or angered, even if it was unintentional.

• Sit in a quiet space when you have time and work on each person. This will take some time and probably several sessions.

• This will work for people who are in remote areas or deceased, as you’re working on shifting energy.

• Imagine and ask for forgiveness from or for each person on your list. You can do this aloud or even in your head. You must truly want forgiveness to change the energy of the situation. Remember, you can't trick the universe. Try to ‘Feel “their energy. When you feel them (if you can) apologize to them. Ask for their sincere forgiveness.

• Think about the person that you want to forgive and surround them with a light in your mind. Ask them to forgive you, tell them you are sorry. Do so over and over again until you feel lighter. Do this in your mind or aloud.

• Work on forgiving and letting go of everything people have done to hurt you, whether intentional or not. It may take more than one sitting to truly forgive someone especially if there was a lot of emotion surrounding this situation. Keep working at it till you can get to true forgiveness

Ask that you forgive yourself for each situation. Tell yourself “I love you” often during the day as this will make you feel better and become a habit.

For those that you have wronged, surround them with healing light and ask for them to forgive you. You must truly want them to forgive you for this to work. You don't actually have to communicate with anyone here but the energy must be true

Exercise 2

Write letters to express your hurt and sadness. These letters can be to yourself, those you want forgiveness from, and those you want to forgive. Make sure to honestly express how you feel. You can be as angry as you like in the letters, getting all of your true feelings out. At the end of each letter, asked for the love and forgiveness of each person., with sincerity. This will take some time, but can be very comprehensive as you can cover every instance with a person in 1 letter.

When you feel the letters are complete do a ceremony. Rip them up, burn them, or flush them down the toilet to symbolize a new beginning. Do not mail these, ever!

Just feeling the energy of forgiveness for each person will start to change the situation. You’ll be excited to see the shifts that come your way!

Exercise 3:

There is a Hawaiian technique called Ho ‘Oponopono. You can use this silently or aloud to yourself anytime. Whenever you realize there’s a situation that needs shifting, try this quick technique. For each person or situation, you’d repeat:

• I'm sorry

• Please forgive me

• Thank you

• I love you

These simple sentences will help to change the vibration for the situation and shift the energy. Chant this over and over and see how it makes you feel.

You can add details to this if you like or stick with the basic structure

• I'm sorry John for when I lost my temper.

• Please forgive me John for losing my temper.

• Thank you John for your forgiveness and friendship.

• I love you John.

Repeat this over and over into you feel like the energy has shifted. You should feel peaceful and calm which indicates that you have raised your energy by forgiving someone or yourself.

Forgiveness, any way you can get there, is extremely important for you to move forward. It is not easy and may take you a while to get true forgiveness but it's very worth the time to do