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“TO FORGIVE IS TO SET A PRISONER FREE AND DISCOVER THAT THE PRISONER WAS YOU”
Lewis B. Smedes- Ethicist and Theologian
In my life, I have found forgiveness to be essential on my path to becoming free. In my quest to become free from physical and emotional pain and open to my full creative expression, forgiveness has been my ally. I had to forgive myself for any regrets about going on a trip to Australia at age 21 and experiencing a sporting accident that propelled me into years of chronic pain. I recently had to forgive being cyber bullied when I experienced a shocking intrusion from Facebook trolls who invaded my weekly Facebook Live program. During a heart-to-heart conversation with my amazing fans, the Bravehearts, about a 15-year old girl who has cancer, this violation shook me and my fans, but I had to forgive to free myself and my fans from being bullied.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
I’ve forgiven friends over the years and been forgiven in return. I am certain that there will be others to forgive and those to ask forgiveness from in the weeks and years to come. It is very healing to allow someone to apologize and ask for your forgiveness. It’s important to hear them out; it can be an important step in their personal growth, as well as your own. In this intimate experience, both people can let go of negative feelings and constricting energy. Forgiveness allows us to live in the present moment. Mother Teresa has said, “If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.”
In our daily lives, we are frequently hurting one another in small ways. Someone pulls out in front of us on the highway, and often we explode. We don’t know what is happening at that precise moment with that person—he or she could be experiencing a trauma or very stressful circumstances. We gossip about each other behind each other’s backs. We make judgements without having the experience of living and walking in that person’s shoes. The list goes on and on.
Forgiveness can be practiced daily, hourly, moment to moment. One of the practices that I follow is to take inventory before going to sleep each night. I ask myself if there is anyone or anything that I need to forgive. And, I ask for forgiveness from the Creator for anything, small or large, that I need to be forgiven for.
By being able to forgive myself, forgive fate, forgive anything and everything that contributed to my life-changing sports accident, my life has become more expansive and more creative than I could have ever imagined. As a direct result of the chronic pain that resulted from that accident, I found my voice and created my band, My Silent Bravery. My Silent Bravery symbolizes persistence, perseverance and inner strength to overcome obstacles in the face of adversity. Without forgiveness of this situation, My Silent Bravery would have never come into creation. Today, I can’t imagine my life without My Silent Bravery, and truly when I look deeply and trust that everything is in divine order, I have that sporting “accident” at 21 to thank for it.
Forgiveness takes intelligence, discipline, imagination, and persistence, as well as a special psychological strength, something athletes call mental toughness and warriors call courage ~Edward M. Hallowell
What Forgiveness Is and What It Isn’t
Frederic Luskin, Ph.D. is the Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project and an Associate Professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. He also serves as the Co-Chair of the Garden of Forgiveness Project at Ground Zero in Manhattan. Dr. Luskin is the author of the bestseller Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness and Stress Free for Good. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, author of Living a Life That Matters, says “I have read many books about forgiveness; this one is by far the best.”
Dr. Luskin has worked with many organizations and has trained lawyers, doctors, church leaders and congregations, hospital staffs, teachers and other professionals to manage stress and enhance forgiveness all over the United States. Dr. Luskin’s work has been featured in Time magazine, O magazine, Ladies Home Journal, U.S. News and World Report, Parade, Prevention as well as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA TODAY and the Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Luskin says that the simple definition of the universal meaning of forgiveness that he works with now, is that “Forgiveness Is the ability to make peace with the word no.” Here is a short video where he shares about the essence of forgiveness.
Steps to Forgiveness
Dr. Luskin further shares the three key steps to forgiveness.
1. “The first step is to fully acknowledge the harm done, whether by you or somebody else, and to own the fact that you’ve lost something—that you didn’t get something you wanted, and it hurts.”
2. “The second step of the grief process is to experience the feelings normally associated with the negative experience.” “You experience a range of emotions—you’re sad, you’re scared. But when you forgive, you understand that there are other options besides continued suffering. You’re not letting go of the event—that’s immutable. But you can transform the emotional response to it.”
3. “The third and final step is that what you’re grieving can’t be a secret.” “There’s such good research on resilience showing that people who go through harmful experiences and don’t tell anybody have much worse consequences than people who do tell others. The human connection is central to healing. That said, the people who tell everybody about their grievance have the second worst outcomes. The resilience research shows that what you need for a healthy response to difficulty is to share your problem with a few select, caring people over time. You don’t spill your guts to everybody, and you don’t spill your guts to nobody.”
“A deep human being feels pain and allows one’s self to suffer because that’s part of the human experience. Without acknowledging that you’ve been wounded, and you’ve lost something, you don’t gain the benefit of the experience—of acknowledging that you’ve been hurt and mistreated, but also of healing. And, so there is a power that comes from the experience.”
“But a deep human being also lets go of their suffering—he or she doesn’t maintain it forever, doesn’t create his or her personality around it, doesn’t use it as a weapon. You don’t cling to the negative part of the experience so that you can have something to hold accountable for your failures.”
At our essence, we are energy. We can choose to lock up our energy by insisting on not forgiving. Or, we can free ourselves with forgiveness. It’s that simple and that powerful. And, it’s often not easy.
“Unforgiveness shackles you to the person who hurt you…it binds you to pain. Forgiveness sets you free from that bondage.”
~Hope for the Broken Hearted
Forgiveness With A Powerful, Ancient Hawaiian Technique– Ho’oponopono
Another powerful forgiveness practice that originated in Hawaii is Ho’oponopono. It was originally taught by Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona. Morrnah was a healer and in 1983 she received a great honor by being designated as a living treasure of Hawaii. She was teaching Ho’oponopono to small and large groups of people as well as to hospitals, colleges and even to United Nations personnel.
Dr. Hew Len was the most avid student of Morrnah Simeona and a practitioner of the Ho’oponopono technique. He was the first person who got documented and confirmed proof of the healing miracles initiated by the Ho’oponopono process. From 1984 till 1987 he worked as a staff psychologist for Hawaii State Hospital overseeing a high-security unit housing for male criminally insane patients. Now, to make things clear – these are the type of guys you don’t want to turn your back on. These guys committed murders, rapes, assaults and due to their degree of “insanity” were locked into a psychiatric high-security facility. Violence against each other and staff members was common.
Fast forward to 1987 (3 years later), wrist and ankle restraints were no longer used in this facility. Violence almost ceased to exist, only involving mostly new patients. New off-site activities were introduced to former violent patients. The spirit and order in the unit was greatly improved and eventually, the whole unit was closed because there was no need. People just improved, healed and released or moved into other non-violent wards.
This was all well documented by multiple witnesses and personnel. How did such miraculous change take place in the hospital?
According to Dr. Hew Len:
He did not do any therapy or counseling with patients.
He did not attend any staff conferences on patients.
He practiced the Ho’oponopono process on a daily basis that included accepting 100% of responsibility for everything being experienced by him.
Dr. Hew Len practiced the Ho’oponopono process every day and this process caused the most miraculous transformation within the most challenging environment. So, what exactly is Ho’oponopono and how does it work?
When Dr. Hew Len was asked how he managed to heal these violent patients without actually seeing each of them in person, his answer was: “I didn’t heal them. I healed part of myself that created them”.
Ho’oponopono consists of repetitions of the following phrases:
- I Love You
- Please forgive me
- I am sorry
- Thank you
These phrases repeated will ignite the self-transformation process for the practitioner. This is exactly what Dr. Hew Len did to invite divine transformation powers for his surroundings during his work at this Hawaiian mental hospital.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Who or what do you need to forgive?
A great Kabbalist known as the Ba’al Shem Tov said, “The way I behave towards the world and others is how the Light of the Creator behaves toward me.”
I invite you to join me on MSB TV on Facebook Live Tuesdays at 8:30 pm EST.
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Credits:
What Is Forgiveness? Greater Good Magazine, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, August 19, 2010
Ho’oponopono, PresentLove.com
The Kabbalah Centre
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Photo: Pixabay