What makes forgiveness so difficult? 

Why don’t I want to let go?

Who suffers when I don’t forgive?

There are several types of forgiveness: 1) forgive the other, 2) forgive myself, 3) ask another for forgiveness, 4) generational dysfunctional family patterns, and 5) karmic patterns from past lives.  Each has a different orientation or relationship, but all require letting go.  Letting go of a hurt, shame, disappointment, anger, being right, being a victim, etc. 

I create elaborate stories to justify hanging on to each emotion, each event, each instance … enhancing the emotion.  The story is one-sided.  It is the story in my head.  The emotion makes the story “more true” and gives it more substance.  As it gains in truth and emotional charge, it becomes harder for me to let it go.  The story gives me comfort and reinforces my beliefs in myself.  It is almost impossible to see outside of my own stories and emotions.  I have to choose to let go of the power of my own story.  It is when the power of these stories keep me a prisoner, hijack my personal power, and hold me in stasis that I began to seek ways to free myself from my own bondage.

There are dimensions of forgiveness that stands outside of space and time. This type of forgiveness is connected to multi-generational patterns, times when forgiveness within your lineage wasn’t given and dysfunctional patterns play out over generations. Another type of forgiveness that is connected is karmic patterns where forgiveness wasn’t granted in another life timeline and now influences relationships in this timeline.

Forgiveness Strategies

All forgiveness begins with a realization and awareness of a need to forgive and let go. Spiritual practice has helped me to open my awareness to see the stories in my head.  I have discovered several practices that have helped me to let go and give blessing to those (including myself) who I hold in the grip of my stories.  This is not an exhaustive list, but gives a couple of examples. 

1.    I try to understand the stories in my head.  I interrogate them.  Now that I look from the eye of a self-constructed story, is it true?  What was my role and accountability in the event?  How would this event look if I was looking at it from the other person’s point of view?  Does that match with my story? Etc. 

2.  I practice genuine gratitude toward the other and myself.  What can I find that I really appreciate in the other or myself?  What can I be grateful for? 

3.  Finding someone to play the role of the other or myself in an event I need to forgive someone, forgive myself or ask forgiveness. I say what I need to say and they listen and speak a truth back to me in the role I have asked them to play.  

4. Work through the five-step process outlined in Tippin’s Radical Self-Forgiveness.

5. To address generational patterns that need to released by forgiveness, schedule a family constellation session.

6. To heal karmic unresolved forgiveness in past lives, schedule a session for a past-life regression.

Resources

There are a number of good resources available.  I have listed just a couple here.

Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself . By Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Ph.D. & Brandon J. Griffin, M.S.

Forgiveness: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Get on With Your Life,. By Dr. Sidney B. Simon & Suzanne Simon.

Radical Forgiveness: A Revolutionary Five-Stage Process to Heal Relationships, Let Go of Anger and Blame, and Find Peace in Any Situation. By Colin C. Tipping.

Radical Self-forgiveness. By Colin C. Tipping.

The Book of Ho’oponopono: The Hawaiian Practice of Forgiveness and Healing. By Nathalie Lamboy. 

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