What is Unforgiven is Reposited in Our Bodies

"Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache, and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life."

  - Joan Lunden

It's true.  The more we forgive, the more peaceful we feel.  And the more we forgive (which heals our minds), the more we actually heal our physical bodies, too. 

Our bodies are repositories for past pain and hurt.  Unfortunately, if we hang onto these old harmful memories, we are also holding onto the pain and, over time, that pain is likely to transform into disease.  

Using forgiveness, we can clear our bodies of the physical symptoms that are left over from old emotional hurts.

There are several ways to remove old deposited pain from our bodies. For serious past wounds, I find it helpful to use several forgiveness processes. 

First, if I can pinpoint an event in my life that caused the wound, I'll forgive all the people involved.  It only takes me a few minutes to do this and I always use the same words and thoughts.  They are simple to learn.  Most importantly, time and time again, they have helped me to switch my mind over from fear (hurt and anger) to love.  If you're not sure how to forgive people that have caused you injury, you might want to download an audio recording I've made to guide you though this process. Once you listen to it a few times, you'll be able to forgive anyone easily, too. This process helps you forgive individual people on a mental level. 

Download and transfer to your iphone.  Cost: $2.99

Next, I'll tackle the physical component of forgiveness.  I'll go to work on the places in my body those old painful memories are stored.  I do this by remembering carefully all the details of the past event.  I try to put myself back in that moment of hurt and anger and I try to jack up my memories and corresponding emotions as much as possible.  

As I re-experience this old wound, I observe my body, noticing any stress symptoms that might show up. Sometimes this is a racing heartbeat, a tightening of the chest, a feeling of warmth rising in my head or a stabbing pain in my stomach.  The physical symptoms are different for different past hurts.  

Now I just sit and observe, amplifying the emotions and memories as much as I can.  Sometimes the pain moves around and changes.  Other times, memories from similar events that occurred in other times and places come to mind.  I allow this all to flow through my mind and my body, simply observing and feeling whatever feelings come up.  It's important to let this process run its course thoroughly so that the memories will dissipate and lift from the body.  

There is a more detailed description of this in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  I've also created another guided audio meditation for this process.  It's easy to download to your computer.  You can then upload it to your phone so you can use it with your headphones whenever you have a quiet moment to yourself.  I like to do a lot of my forgiveness work in bed at night before sleep but you can do this anywhere you can find the quiet you need to concentrate. 

Easy to use, guided meditation to forgive and release physical symptoms from past hurts. $2.99

EFT, or emotional freedom technique is a process where you speak words that describe painful memories and feelings while tapping on acupressure points.  This tapping somehow disconnects and clears through the pain stored in the body from the memory.  It seems odd, but surprisingly, it works.  EFT has become a widely respected technique used by therapists around the world.  To learn more, watch this quickie video with Jessica Ortner.  

EFT is an effective technique for clearing stored and painful memories from the body and I do feel that this is a form of forgiveness.  However, the most healing work is mental.  It is important to combine EFT with some prior deep mental work such as the two guided processes above.  In this way, we are forgiving and clearing first in the mind and then following up with a clearance and healing in physical form.  

Of course, if we heal the mental, eventually the body will follow.  With EFT, we are just speeding up the process. 

How to Release Our Stories of Worry

I just got back from visiting old friends in Los Angeles.  I met separately with four of my oldest friends and had some wonderful and joyful catching up time.

I did notice, however, that underneath the surface of everyone's busy lives, there was a story of worry.  One was worrying about illness, another finances and yet another some recent back surgeries.  It seems that few of us escape the "living hell" of fearful worrying.  And it seems to me that as we age, the worry often intensifies.

One friend was describing to me the overwhelming role worry is currently playing in her life. This friend has a grown son.  Although he experienced difficulties throughout his childhood and was given much professional help, it was only recently that he was diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrone.  He is in his early twenties and is living at home.  He has great fears of living independently and, in fact, refuses to do so. He also has refused to go to college.  He has a simple job at a local supermarket where he works a few days a week.   He comes home and plays video games.  He has two or three friends that he plays with online and that occasionally will come to the house. Beyond that he has little social life.  He rarely leaves the house for anything except work.

My friend is coming to terms with the fact that her son will probably never leave home, will never have a better job than the one he has now, will never have many friends and will probably never have a girlfriend and marry.  This is not the life she had hoped for him.  This is not the life she had hoped for herself.  She is grieving.  She is worried for him.  She is afraid.  She said to me, "I need help.  I don't know how to stop feeling so emotional about this."

Sometimes our grief and worry get lodged into our minds and bodies and it begins to cycle through in an endless repeating loop which seems inescapable.

In an effort to quell the insanely repeating thoughts, we might try "changing the subject" in our minds, but the worry thoughts just keep coming back endlessly plaguing us.  Or we may try to "stuff" the worry down deep where it won't bother us, only to then find that it shows up larger than life at 3:00 in the morning in the form of paralyzing night terrors.

So what can she do to feel better?  The process I outline in "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" that would be very helpful for my friend is what I call "Feel the Feelings".  In this process, we set aside some deep introspective time to really allow ourselves to go deep into these feelings.  When we authentically sit with our fear, worry and grief and just watch it, allowing it to be whatever it is, allowing it to fully express itself, it dissipates.

If my friend does this process, she will find that she will be able to think about her son from a calmer place.  The terrible negative emotions that she currently feels will be transmuted and in the future, although she will still have the same son with the same challenges, she will feel acceptance about the situation.

What's your story of worry and how is it wreaking havoc in your life?

If you have a need for the "Feel the Feelings" process,  I have created a guided meditation that you can use in the quiet of your own home, Forgive Your Past Now  which can be downloaded to your computer or iphone for $2.99.  Using the download will teach you the process which you can then apply whenever you find that you have circumstances in your life that are causing your to feel fear.

The "Feel the Feelings" process is also explained in depth in my book. 

Available at:

Amazon.com

Barnesandnoble.com

Sometimes We Dread Forgiving Certain People

Forgiveness is actually very easy, once you get the hang of it.  However, forgiveness does take getting past one hurdle and that is letting go of the pleasure we feel in our victim-hood.  Does that idea surprise you?  Well, it's true that we enjoy being victims and the evidence of that is simply that we choose to be victims.  We stubbornly hang on to our victim-hood.  We love to savor our anger and outrage.  We love to get into our pain and we love to feel put upon and abused.  Our hurt feeds the fire of our indignation.

It can sometimes be a big step to let all that go.

But like any big step, if you want to make progress, you just have to do it.

Remember what it was like, learning to put your head underwater for the first time?  You just held your nose and dunked.  You just did it, even though you may not have known what it would be like.  You just trusted that it would be good.

Sometimes, when we are thinking about forgiving someone that we believe is particularly heinous, the idea of forgiving feels very distasteful.  Now that I am in the habit of forgiving everything, I don't feel that way anymore, but I do clearly remember how unpleasant it once was to offer forgiveness to the few people in my life that I believed were villainous.  I don't know why we sometimes resist forgiving so strongly.  Maybe we just want to hang onto our feelings of superiority.  "He's a horrible person and that makes me a good person."  Perhaps that kind of thinking just makes us feel better.  It's hard to give it up.

My best advice, if you're feeling that way, is to just do it.  Just hold your nose and dive into the forgiveness.  It will be over before you know it and you'll feel totally different about it afterward. You just will.  Forgiveness makes everything better.

In my meditation class today, we did a simple meditation from the book "Aging as a Spiritual Practice" by Lewis Richmond.  I'd like to share it with you, because I think it might be a good little exercise to ease into forgiveness, especially if you have some unpleasant people that you're feeling reluctant to forgive.  Here it is:

Find a quiet place and spend a few minutes calming your mind and listening to your breath.  When you are ready, imagine a small intense orb of white light in your heart center.  "On each in-breath feel the breath coming in from the world and refreshing the sphere of light.  On each out-breath, feel the breath going back out into the world with that light's generous energy."  Continue with this for a minute or two, feeling the flow of white light out into the world around you, healing, cleansing, offering love. 

Now, imagine that there is a mirror image of yourself sitting opposite you.  Let the cleansed out-breaths of white light surround and permeate the image of yourself.  Then as you breathe in, imagine that all the troubles, problems, pains and emotional hurts float out from the image of yourself and into your real self, down into the white light in your heart center where they can be cleansed and consumed in the light.  You are purifying and healing all the troubles away. Then breath pure white loving light out and into the image of yourself.  Let your breath circle generosity to and from yourself.  Continue on with this for a short time until you feel that all the problems and pains have been transformed. 

Next, imagine that there is someone you love sitting opposite you and continue the healing and loving breathing with them until they are cleansed (this should happen in five or six breaths or so).  Then switch to another person you love. Do this for three or four people. 

Now...here comes the good part, and it should be fairly easy to do because you are now in a very loving place.  Switch the person sitting opposite you into someone you need to forgive.  Continue to breathe out the loving white light, flooding their image with kindness and healing.  Then breathe in all their pain and difficulties to your heart center where the white light can transform them into pure loving energy.  Do this until you feel you have cleansed and healed them.   

This is another good example of the action of "flipping the switch" in our minds from fear to love.  At first it can seems almost inconceivable that we could look on someone that we loathe with love.  However, once we teach our minds how to do it, it becomes very easy.  In some ways the mind is very trainable.

So if you're feeling fear, reluctance or righteousness about forgiving someone unpleasant in your life, take the plunge.  Have a forgiveness baptism.  The water's fine!

Available at:

Amazon.com

Barnesandnoble.com

Easy Guided Meditations to Help You Forgive

Yes, we all agree...forgiveness is important.  But how do we do it?

If you would like to forgive, but you're not sure how to get started, here are three easy processes that you can download and listen to.  All three are easy, relaxing and simple.

  Forgive Someone NOW  $2.99   In this 13 minute meditation you will forgive someone from your present whom you feel is hurtful, annoying, or damaging to you in any way.

  Forgive Your Past NOW  $2.99  In this 18 minute meditation you will forgive a person or event from your past that caused you harm.  Often times, we suppress old hurts and are unaware of how much damage their subconscious memories are causing to our present day lives.  

  Forgive the World NOW  $2.99  Part of being human is creating a story, the story of our life.  Once we create it, we get attached to it.  Forgive the World NOW is an 18 minute meditation to help you release, accept and forgive the story you have created.   

Abundance Affirmations--Pair them With Forgiveness

Reverend Liz Luoma*, recommends the following affirmation:  "I am open to perceive and receive all the gifts God has for me today and everyday."  This is an excellent affirmation, but if you want to really see it work, pair it with the habit of forgiving everything. 

Another great affirmation which I use frequently is a simple meditation.  Breathe in and say "I accept".  Then breathe out and say "the love of God".**  Repeat this over and over.  I use this often before going to bed at night and find I sleep beautifully.  Again, this is another great tool, but if you want lasting happiness, forgive first and then meditate.  Make forgiveness a permanent part of your bedtime ritual and watch your life change.

*Center for Spiritual Living Tahoe-Truckee
**From The Way of Mastery

Sweet Dreams!

Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness is available at:

amazon.com

barnesandnoble.com

balboapress.com