Find Forgiveness

When you forgive others for everything, and yourself for everything, you cut the chain between the hooks in your heart and the barge full of pain, burden, and emotional debt that you’ve been dragging behind yourself for what feels to be your whole life, without realizing it. Everything that the world owes you; and everything that you believe you owe the world - can be released in a flash through forgiveness of all others and yourself.

The barge drifts quietly back into the past, no longer yours to carry. The hooks fall from your heart - and you are free.

It really can be that simple.

Yet almost everyone I know carries wounds they have never fully forgiven, and burdens of self-blame they continue to relive,long after the moment has passed.

This is why forgiveness is so powerful, and why I talk about it as passionately as I do. Forgiveness is not just moral - it is mechanical. It is the act of severing the cord between your present identity, and an emotional archive that activates your nervous system - and keeps trying to reassert control.

Forgiveness doesn’t make what happened okay. It doesn’t erase accountability. It doesn’t require reconciliation. It doesn’t mean you forget. It simply means, "This no longer gets to run my life."

Try This: The Forgiveness Mantra (about 5 minutes)

Sit straight, shoulders back, close your eyes, take a long, slow, deep breath. Hold it in until you are ready to exhale, and then say this out loud, slowly, as you read it - like you really mean it.

“Whoever you are, whatever you did. That was then, this is now. I forgive you, thereby release you. Thereby release me, now I’m free and at peace, and wish that for you.

Then take another deep, slow, long breath, and hold it as long as you can. As you release, then say:

“Whoever I was, whatever I did. That was then, this is now. I forgive me, thereby release me. Now I’m free and at peace, and wish that for all.”

These two phrases cut that chain, and are the mechanism for disconnecting the hooks in your heart from the barge you have been dragging behind you. They can and do free you from the stories and triggers of your past. It really IS that simple, shocking though it may feel.

Over the years, I have become convinced that forgiveness is not the end of healing - it is the beginning. The moment we forgive ourselves and others, we become available to life again. Only then can we become truly capable of helping others heal.

Try This: The Two Phrases (about 5 minutes)

Bring one person to mind with whom you still do not feel complete. Someone from any age of your life, whom you have not yet forgiven . It may be you.

Slowly, speak these two phrases, three times, five times, maybe ten times if you’ve got something big to release: “I forgive you for everything; and I forgive myself for everything.”

Notice where it catches, and stay one breath longer than is comfortable. These two phrases can cut the chain. See how your body feels. Feel your emotions. Don’t be concerned if they are strong. This is big work.