Healing Your Heart: The Power of Forgiveness.

Have you ever experienced the amazing effect of power and healing that comes with forgiveness?

Your heart softens, your body relaxes, and your spirit lifts.

Forgiveness propels you from a place of stress, anxiety, and anger toward ease, peace of mind, and physical well being. It makes you more compassionate, optimistic, and self-confident. I also believe that it heals your soul.

Keeping anger and resentment alive creates a vicious cycle of negative thoughts that keep you entrapped in the past.

Being able to forgive requires greatness and humility. It calls for acceptance of others and their mistakes as well as letting go of the urge to hurt back.

This can be a tall order.

We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect.

By forgiving others you ultimately forgive yourself. {click to tweet}

Brian Tracy wrote a wonderful article, “4 People You MUST Forgive”. He states that the four people you have to forgive are your parents, your close personal relationships, everyone who has ever hurt you, and finally, yourself.

Forgiveness only goes so far if you can’t forgive yourself.

How do you forgive? Here is a simple practice I’d like you to try:

Check in with yourself and make a mental note of the people that cause you emotional pressure. Who has hurt you or caused you pain? Against whom do you hold a grudge?

One way to recognize your feelings is by the way your heart tightens when you think of a specific person. Be aware that this can also involve yourself. Are you hard on yourself for something you have done in the past?

Once you know who you need to forgive, take responsibility and set them free. Say the words, “I forgive you for __________________ and I wish you well.”

Keep your forgiveness prayer short and simple – or take a piece of paper and write it down in detail. Sometimes it feels good to get it all off your chest. Just make sure you burn the paper and consciously let go of your resentment.

You may have to repeat this process a few times until you feel no negative emotions left towards the person(s) in question.

With practice, letting go will comes easier and more immediate. You won’t have to hold on to anger or hurt, and you will understand that being upset is a choice.

What is your experience? Do you have a hard time forgiving yourself or others? I’d love to hear your thoughts and insights in the comments below.

As always, thank you for reading,

Karin