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To forgive is to allow Love where once we withheld Love. We enter a state of forgiveness by recognizing that we are all one Energy and that we are all doing the best we can. Therefore, we have nothing to resent. We have no reason to feel animosity toward ourselves or anyone else. Forgiveness happens effortlessly when we recognize that we are, in Truth, all one Energy. To withhold love from another or ourselves is a form of attack. When we resent another person we are attacking ourselves as well as them. Once we discover the Oneness of the Universe, we forgive ourselves, and we come to accept the rest of the universe exactly as it is. In this Eighth Step, we choose to heal our lives through forgiveness by allowing Love to replace blame. The result is Freedom.
Forgiving frees us for giving.
Anonymous
Blame is the mind’s way of avoiding responsibility for our actions and feelings. If unchecked, blame can grow to enormous proportions, locking us into the belief that we are victims. Such an attitude leads to helplessness. Other people are not responsible for our feelings. Forgiveness is the quickest and surest way out of this predicament.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then forgiveness is the father of wisdom. Through forgiveness, we reestablish Sacred Relationship with the people we blamed. The power of forgiveness frees us from the pain of the past, replacing fear of the future with a capacity to accept the present. Only forgiveness can set us free.
We have seen again and again in these pages how ego turns our world upside down, making conditional that which is limitless. Just as we tend to confuse Love with attachment and Trust with expectation, we confuse forgiveness with the act of pardoning others for hurting us. 'You are at fault,' the ego says, 'but, I am going to pardon you for your wrongs.' This traditional view of forgiveness allows us to feel pious without letting go of judgment. The problem with such a view is that it does not heal our lives. It simply does not work.
Forgive the world and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real.
A Course in Miracles
The word forgive comes from the Aramaic word meaning to cancel or let loose. In contrast, making others wrong locks us into suffering and casts us into a world of bondage. Forgiveness comes only when we release blame the way a child opens a jar and lets a trapped butterfly go free.
Forgiveness involves a fundamental change of perception. In order to escape the prison of blame, we must get beyond the worldview that sees Life as happening 'out there./'What we normally refer to as 'reality' is not real. Although we each have a concrete experience of events in our lives, we do not have the same experience of an event that someone else does. The reality we perceive has both an objective and a subjective component. We participate in its creation by the manner in which we perceive and the ways we interpret our perceptions. Reality is not independent of us; we play a part. The ability to forgive is rooted in the willingness to acknowledge the part we play.
This concept is illustrated by the classic story of the five blind men who investigate an elephant. One felt the leg and came to the conclusion that an elephant resembled a tree. Another sat on the elephant’s back and knew from his experience that an elephant was like a table. A third felt the trunk, a fourth a tusk, and a fifth, the tail. Each of these men knew that they were right about the elephant and stood by what their experience told them was true. One man became angry, thinking he was being played for a fool. Another was deeply hurt, thinking the others were ganging up on him with their ridiculous stories about tables and trees. The third man experienced self-doubt and worried if he had truly experienced what he thought he had. The fourth was sad, thinking he had nothing in common with the others. The fifth was smug, thinking he alone understood the elephant.
People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.
Joseph Fort Newton
We can see from this story how our experience leads us into judgment and blame and how futile such judgment is. Judgment and blame are never grounded in anything more than limited perception. The acknowledgment of this limitation demonstrates the wisdom in letting loose our judgments through forgiveness. To allow Love rather than to blame is common sense.
Ego will listen to the elephant story and respond with 'Yeah, but my situation is different. My husband really is. selfish, my boss really does pick on me, my clients really don’t pay their bills, my competitor really did cheat me. Who wouldn’t feel hurt and angry? I’m right about this.' Be that as it may, whose experience of Love is being blocked through blaming another? Who loses the perception of Wholeness? We do! We cannot hang onto negative judgments without experiencing the pain of our negativity. Much suffering arises from our need to be right.
Blame is one of the surest ways to stay in a problem. In blaming another, we give away our power.
Louise Hay
The alternative to blaming others is to accept responsibility for our own experience and select thoughts that empower us. In practice, the act of forgiving is simple. To forgive, we allow Love where we once withheld it.
All spiritual traditions place great emphasis on forgiveness. Forgiveness is the means by which we disempower all that blocks our experience of Love. When we are willing to realize that nothing less than the Bliss of living in Love is at stake, petty notions of right and wrong become irrelevant.
When we see a colored, fragrant, velvety cluster atop a thin green stalk, our memory allows us to perceive it as a flower. What if we had never seen a flower and did not carry that impression within us? Would we then identify the object as a flower?
In reality, everyone loves everyone. We don’t experience our love for each other because of all our judgments. When all judgments fall away, all that is left is love.
Nagah Lord
Consider the pulse. To most of us, the pulse is merely that gentle thumping in our wrist, but to practitioners of Oriental medicine, the pulse is a diagnostic tool that can provide detailed information about our physical state. We cannot perceive what they perceive, because we don’t have the impressions that they have regarding the pulse. In the same way, we do not feel anger, rejection, insult, or fear unless those impressions are first present inside us. The person we are blaming for 'making' us feel such feelings is only showing us what is already there. They are not responsible for what we feel.
We have all noticed recurring themes in our lives. The people in our drama may change, but a remarkable consistency exists in the sorts of things we find ourselves blaming people for. We can change jobs, change partners, move halfway around the globe, and still the same types of experiences come our way. Having compassion for those who bring difficulties into our lives is a beginning, but until we release the belief that we can be harmed, the memory of past hurts brings more hurtful experiences into our present.
We all know people who exhibit tendencies they criticize in others. We all know people who are the opposite of their self-images, and we have a hard time seeing this tendency in ourselves. That which we need to heal with our parents, our children, and others has its root, not in our differences but in our similarities. Underneath superficial differences of opinion, there lies an identical anger or compulsiveness. We often find that as we age, we manifest the very qualities we detested most in our parents. That which we most wanted to avoid is frequently what we become.
What we do not truly forgive, we come up against again and again in life. This is because anything denied becomes projected and experienced 'out there'. The thought patterns and emotional energies we hold inside us are broadcast, until, sooner or later, someone with a complementary pattern shows up. Not recognizing our own part in the dance, we think the other person is doing something to us. We think if only they would change, we wouldn’t feel as we do. In truth, that person can change or not change and it won’t matter at all, because unless we change our beliefs, we will attract someone else to take their place. We may think there are times when the experience of Wholeness is taken from us by someone or something outside of us. Actually, we have attracted that person or situation to mirror some negativity contained within us.
We are never angry for the reason we think.
A Course in Miracles
Eastern religions express this idea through the doctrine of karma; Christianity says, 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap.' This is a helpful image. When a seed is sown, it is buried in the ground and is not visible until it pokes through the soil. The seeds that result in our painful experiences are buried in our unconscious minds. When lack of awareness prevents us from connecting what we reap with what we have sown, we think we are victims. As long as we look outward and seek to establish blame, we do not see what is required of us in order to bring forth a different sort of harvest.
If Love is what we are, a Loving Reality must be possible. The reason we do not experience such a Reality is that ego attempts to make Love conditional. Ego says to manifestations of Life, 'Well, I am Love, but in order to experience Love, you must meet my conditions: You cannot criticize me, be angry with me, ignore me, or tolerate anyone who does. Furthermore, you must never forget my birthday, cut me off in traffic, or make noise when I’m trying to sleep.'
Taking responsibility for emotional health means being willing to feel deeply even when one is afraid to do so.
Frances Vaughan, The Inward Arc
Clearly, if we make what appears to be outside of us responsible for our experience of Love, we experience Love in a limited and haphazard manner. We perceive the cruel, thoughtless, or aggravating actions of others as being responsible for our lack of Love. In fact, the only person who allows us the experience of Love is we, ourselves. We can accept this Truth or deny it, but we cannot change the fact that we are responsible.
Getting from blame to Love is the practice of the Eighth Step. This takes courage, willingness, and persistence, because we are conditioned to equate responsibility with blame. We need to realize that Life is purposeful, that whatever happens to us happens for a reason. We need to step back from ego’s perception of us vs. them to gain a larger perspective that acknowledges we attract the situations in our lives for our highest good.
Whatever occurs isn’t considered an interruption or an obstacle, but a way to wake up.
Pema Chodron
Without Trust in a larger purpose, accepting our cocreative role only turns blame inward. We do not know how or why we attract a given experience. We accept that the experience is, in some way, drawn to us by a resonance we carry within us, but we are not 'at fault', anymore than we are at fault for the weakness that allows a virus to lodge in our intestines and give us the flu. Furthermore, we can acknowledge that a situation shows us we are blocking Love, but cannot know what further purpose it may have in our lives.
We take responsibility, not to shift blame, but empower ourselves to respond creatively. To do otherwise drives what we have denied deeper, adding energy to the resonance that attracts what we do not want. Accepting that something great is at work allows us to be responsible for what blocks our Love, without blaming ourselves for blocking it. Accepting that no detail of Life is without purpose replaces a consciousness of blame with a consciousness of growth, permitting us to create spiritual gold from situations that might otherwise have led to fear. The essence of forgiveness is release, and only that which is false need be released.
To become free, we need to lose the illusory barriers that separate us from each other. In order to allow Love to replace blame, we must own our feelings and thoughts about whatever it is that has happened and must be willing to release them. To forgive, we must accept that the source of a problem is not the person or situation that appears to us to be culpable, but rather, the source is always our own egos, which persistently cling to an unloving inner reality.
Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings made in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.
Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D.
In order to let go of an unloving reality, our yearning for Wholeness must be stronger than our desire to be right. Rigorous honesty exposes buried beliefs about Life’s unfairness and our own lack of worth. We may be secretly motivated by a desire for sympathy or attention or may have attachments to pain, punishment, or negativity. We may resist the idea that a certain person is Perfect because he or she reflects something we resist seeing in ourselves.
As in the Fourth Step, we write so we can remember. Forgiveness is not accomplished by allowing time to drive destructive thoughts and feelings underground where we are no longer aware of them. This sort of forgetfulness only succeeds at holding in place the confusing patterns that repeatedly plague our lives.
Instead, we courageously make a list of all people against whom we hold resentment. We write the name of any person we blame and what we blame them for. Our lists include people we dislike, since such judgment is a form of blame. Our lists also include parents, children, and others whom we love, as well as the issues that cloud these relationships. Anything for which we blame ourselves is also included. We may not be comfortable confronting a list of the secret grudges and judgments we carry, but we must if we wish to clear our lives of their effects.
The tragedy of life is not death; rather it is what we allow to die within us while we live.
Norman Cousins
We list not only current anger and hurt feelings, but also issues from the past. We should pay special attention to events from early childhood and issues we have with parents, even if our adult minds tell us 'that’s all water under the bridge.' Quite often, these early hurts are part of ongoing patterns.
Once we complete our lists, we work the process of forgiveness on each item of the list. We note the feeling we have about the incident, own the feeling, and get in touch with the belief behind it. We state the person’s name and the incident, the feeling within us that the incident put us in touch with, and the belief this feeling affirmed.
Then we acknowledge that the negative belief is an expression of fear (false evidence appearing real) based on a limited perspective. We negate that belief with the Truth: 'The idea that I don’t matter is a false belief, and I can let it go.' We then note the effect releasing the belief has on our feeling. 'When I let go of the belief that I don’t matter, self- pity is replaced by peace.'
He who forgives first, wins.
Anonymous
We then accept responsibility by acknowledging that blaming the other person was a choice that made fear more important than Love. By blaming anyone else for anything, we make self-pity more important than peace.
Finally, we affirm that by forgiving the person in question, we claim a positive and contented feeling for ourselves and restore the Sacredness of our Relationships. Forgiveness ultimately lets loose all negative beliefs, allowing us to choose positive, loving responses to Life.
At first, we may find this step challenging. All we need is willingness to recognize the Oneness of the universe. Anything that helps us to taste Wholeness makes forgiveness easier. Going to Benestrophe meetings, reading uplifting literature, spending time in Nature, listening to inspiring music, getting bodywork, and meditating increase our awareness of the Oneness of Life.
Forgiveness is about healing our lives by letting go of our negative beliefs, not about shifting blame to ourselves or letting another off the hook. Medical research has documented the connection between forgiveness and health. Studies show that people who forgive have less anxiety and depression along with greater self-esteem. In addition to improving our mental and emotional outlook, forgiveness lowers the blood pressure, releases tension held in our muscles, and strengthens our immune system. Forgiveness is physically and emotionally healing.
Traditionally, we think of forgiveness as something we are to do when we see guilt in someone. But there is no guilt in anyone, because only love is real. It is our function to see through the illusion of guilt, to the innocence that lies beyond. To forgive is to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given to you.
Marianne Williamson
We should abandon the notion that forgiveness is doing anyone other than ourselves a favor. Through forgiveness, we stop being emotional prisoners and free ourselves to live a peaceful life. When we acknowledge the Wholeness of Love as Reality and welcome it into our lives, Love heals us one thought at a time.
Fear exiles hope to the mind’s dark, stuffy attic. Forgiveness clears a space in the Heart and sends a healing message much further than we could ever imagine. Forgiveness unifies our awareness and frees us to live creatively in the present, rather than as prisoners of the past. As we develop the habit of forgiveness and discover the Bliss of the present moment, we change others, not by words, but by example. The only way we bruised and tattered human beings can return to a world of Unity, Freedom, and Bliss is to pass through the gate of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is like magic. It has the power to transform greed, anger, resentment, and general misery into peace and contentment. No situation, no matter how hopeless it may seem, lies beyond the power of forgiveness to heal. Through the practice of forgiveness, absolutely nothing is impossible.
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of Life: that word is Love.
Sophocles
Those of us who accept Life’s pain as a learning experience instead of blaming the pain on others are relieved of a greater pain: The pain of bitterness and hostility. Until we forgive, we place our anger, hurt feelings, and resentment upon an altar and proceed to worship them day and night. We make sacrificial offerings of what we cherish most: our joy, our serenity, our time, and our attention. We may blame another, but we do the suffering.
Forgiveness purifies the Heart to again receive Love. Only after forgiveness has cleansed our inner temple can we truly appreciate how much our lives were overshadowed by the blame we held. Once we experience the Bliss that comes from releasing our negative beliefs, we wonder why we held onto them for so long. Once we let loose the emotional baggage stemming from those beliefs, we are able to see how we victimized ourselves with poisonous thoughts long after the triggering incident had become ancient history. Only forgiving eyes are eyes that are truly open.
We cannot know the Perfection of the moment when our minds are seething with resentment or the desire to even a score. What is un-forgiven in our lives acts as a force that pulls us out of the present moment and into the past or future. By opening our Hearts to Love we gain the Bliss of the present moment for ourselves while offering others a true opportunity to experience their own Perfection.
Choosing to heal our lives through forgiveness, we allow Love to replace blame.
Describe something you are bitter about. How does this feeling block your experience of Love?
Have your parents ever done anything that has irritated you or hurt your feelings? Have you let your irritation or hurt feelings adversely affect the relationship?
Share about an experience you have had with being forgiven. What did it feel like?
Share an experience where letting go of the need to be right led to happiness.
Share how forgiving someone allowed you to see that person differently.
Tell about a time you allowed the actions of others to make you feel anger or resentment. How could you have experienced Love instead?
Is there anything for which you still blame yourself or others? Are you ready to release blame through forgiveness?
Cite an example in which you released resentment as a result of forgiveness.
Tell about a time when you thought someone hurt you. What did you learn from that experience?
Tell how forgiveness has reduced your level of stress.
Describe an instance when you wanted to be forgiven. Have you forgiven yourself?
How has forgiving others enhanced your own self-esteem?
How has forgiveness brought you more fully into the present moment?
Tell about a situation in which you are unwilling to forgive someone. How does this hurt you?
Coming from your own experience, how would you define forgiveness?
Share about how taking the Eighth Step has changed your life.
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