The “F” Word
Big subject. Tricky to write about. But worth it, because it has been called the greatest healer of all. Because forgiveness can give you back to yourself and bring you peace. It can end suffering, improve your health, create freedom from judgement, anger, bitterness, resentment or even hate. Stop inner battles with yourself or the re-cycling of past hurts.
But of course we can be resistant to forgiveness – we often like to hold on to our grievances. We want to punish, to seek revenge. We feel justified and after all, aren’t some things unforgivable? I thought this about one particular matter until I realised that it was me who was suffering, and I became willing to give up the justification.
I think it’s a pertinent time to contemplate forgiveness because in addition to all the usual people (including ourselves) or circumstances that we normally hold grievances again we have so much more going on.
Perhaps we even need to forgive an inanimate object such as the virus – after all it may have killed or made a loved one seriously ill, taken away your job, tipped you into financial uncertainty, ruined your business, put an end to your dream trip – or to forgive those who have made poor decisions, putting so many lives at risk.
Sometimes there is so much to forgive it can seem overwhelming and just not possible but we can recognise it is a gradual and continuous process of liberating ourselves.
We don’t forgive to condone, we forgive to take ourselves out of the belief we are victims, to let go of our ego’s belief we have to blame something or someone else. We forgive to find connection, peace and happiness within ourself.
We can use tapping to support us through this difficult process. Here are a few suggestions:
- Define the problem in the set-up statement and instead of saying “I deeply and completely accept myself” say “I choose to forgive _____” . I like using the Choices Method here because if you say “I forgive _____” there is every chance there will be a little voice in your head saying “no I don’t“!
- You can help combat that by tapping on finding it difficult to forgive someone or something, or yourself. As in “even though I find it so difficult to forgive myself, I choose to accept myself anyway”.
- Or you could tap on not being ready to forgive – “even though I’m not ready to forgive _____, I choose to bring love and compassion to myself”. Or afraid to forgive – “I’m afraid that if I forgive I’ll get hurt again”.
- Or perhaps tap on feelings of wanting to get even in some way.
- In pursuit of your own peace and freedom, you may like to make a list of who or what you feel you need to forgive so you can work through it – this may include family/relatives, spouses, ex-spouses and past love relationships, authority figures from teachers to government leaders, your physical body, your own past or present thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, accidents or offences by strangers, and perhaps acts of fate, luck or a higher power. (Thanks to Jerry Jampolsky for this list).
If you end up with a very long list don’t panic – I did say it was a gradual process and you can make it a work in progress. - I personally think it’s good to start on the list of things you need to forgive yourself for. Our attention is often on other people but when it comes down to it we are often most in need of letting ourselves off the hook.
- And to finish with, a good default tapping on yourself is “I was doing the best I could, and even though I don’t think it was good enough, I forgive myself”.
This is a time when transformation is being demanded of us – and as we move through this transition and all the external changes and challenges that are presenting themselves, orienting ourselves towards creating a new and more peaceful inner landscape could be of utmost value.
