Protect Your Peace: Forgive to Stay Sane in a Chaotic World

The World Feels Upside Down

Lately, it seems like everything is upside down. Headlines are filled with trauma, conflict, and fear worldwide. Political strife, division, and polarization dominate the news, especially here in the U.S., where everyone seems angry at everyone else. Polls show that much of the population is unhappy with how things are going, and no one seems to be on the same page about anything.

Even if we aren’t living in real danger or starvation, this constant stress seeps into our daily lives, creating tension, worry, and anxiety. How can we feel better? And more importantly, how can we help bring about unity and peace in our communities and the world at large?

Forgiveness as a Personal Shield

Forgiveness is one of the most powerful tools we have to reclaim our personal peace. When we forgive, we release fear, resentment, and anger. We flip the switch from fear to love.

And here’s the beautiful part: your personal peace doesn’t just stay with you. Because we are all part of a collective, every act of forgiveness spreads love outward. Even one person’s shift from fear to love can influence many others.

All Minds are Connected

The Global Ripple of Forgiveness

A Course in Miracles tells us that switching from fear to love can affect thousands. Forgiveness is exactly that switch. When we let go of resentment, when we release judgment, we don’t just heal ourselves—we become a source of light and love for others, near and far.

The world doesn’t need more anger or division. It needs hearts that are willing to forgive, hearts that radiate peace and understanding. Your practice of forgiveness may seem small, but its ripple effect is profound.

Those Ripples Keep Spreading Outward 

Taking Action Daily

You don’t have to change the world in a single day. Start with your own mind. The next time you read scary headlines or become aware of oppositional political attitudes around you, notice your own judgment, irritation, or fear. Pause. Forgive them all.  Forgive it all. Forgive yourself. Let it go. (For practical advice on How To Forgive World Leaders, see here.  For more thoughts on Forgiving the World, see here.  Also, my book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness) offers many easy forgiveness practices and tips.)

Then notice how your energy shifts. Your calm, your clarity, your love can touch others in ways you may never even see. One heart at peace can inspire another, and then another. That’s the power of forgiveness. That’s how personal peace becomes collective peace.

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

• Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love.

• My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon →

• Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release. View the deck on Etsy →

• Browse more forgiveness tools, art, and daily reminders in our Etsy Shop →

• Want to receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails? Sign up and get insights, tools, and inspiration to deepen your practice of forgiveness → Sign up here

Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.
— Sue Pipal

You Probably Don’t Want to Hear This (and Neither Do I) — But It Has to Be Done

If we're going to have a true forgiveness practice, we're going to have to forgive the shooters.  I know. This is a really hard one.  Yes, I’m talking about the shooters, the people who commit acts that seem unforgivable. And yes, we’re going to explore why forgiveness matters even here

Forgiveness Unblocks the Divine

Forgiveness serves many purposes, but one of the most profound is that it reconnects us to the divine. When we only forgive some of the transgressors, we block ourselves from fully experiencing unity with the great Oneness. True spiritual freedom comes when our forgiveness extends without limits—even to those whose actions shock or horrify us.  And remember, forgiving them does not mean condoning or approving their actions. Forgiveness is about freeing your own heart and opening to love, even in the face of what feels unforgivable.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Stepping Into Their Shoes

When we begin the difficult work of forgiving “shooters” or anyone who commits acts of extreme violence, a helpful step is empathy. Try to imagine what could cause someone to behave this way. Often, these individuals feel alienated, unloved, or harshly judged. Many were bullied as children, had few friends, or never felt they belonged. It’s not an excuse, but understanding their suffering can soften our hearts and open the door to forgiveness. 

Society’s Role

We can’t ignore the environment that shapes these behaviors. When society normalizes games where children simulate shooting others for hours, what mindset are we cultivating? We are literally training young minds to think in terms of guns and violence, numbing them to the horror and suffering that such actions cause. This societal conditioning contributes to a cycle of pain that extends far beyond the individual.

Why Forgive Anyway

It’s hard. It may feel repugnant. But forgiveness is about freeing ourselves first. Resentment, anger, and fear keep us trapped, while forgiveness releases us and opens the way to love, clarity, and peace. Extending forgiveness—even in these extreme cases—connects us to the higher truth of our shared humanity and to the divine Oneness that unites us all. 

The Simple Truth About Forgiveness

It really is simple to forgive these people. Just remember: they are all children of God, too. God created them, and He loves them. If He can love them, we can at least extend forgiveness.

God sees all of us beyond our crazy actions on this psycho planet. He knows our true goodness because He created us exactly in His own image. He is pure love, and in our ultimate truth, so are we.

All you have to do is hold that thought for these poor, misdirected souls. Feel it in your own heart for a moment or two. That’s what forgiveness truly is: a moment of seeing the higher truth.

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

• Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love.

• For a little Halloween-inspired forgiveness see What's Behind the Costume. 

• My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon →

• Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release. View the deck on Etsy 

• Browse more forgiveness tools, art, and daily reminders in our Etsy Shop 

• Want to receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails? Sign up and get insights, tools, and inspiration to deepen your practice of forgiveness → Sign up here

Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.
— Sue Pipal

What's Behind the Costume? Halloween Reflections: Drop the Ego Costume and See the Love Within

Life as a Costume: The Roles We Play

Even though I am a student of A Course in Miracles, I regularly attend a Science of Mind church. My minister, Rev. Liz Luoma, likes to refer to us all as adorable little packages of God. We’re all in different “packages,” but underneath, we are all the same essence.

Last month, during the Halloween season, she likened these packages to costumes. When we live on earth, we take on a costume (or role or character) and develop it over a lifetime. Our entire lives become a process of refining this character—often haunted by egoic fears and shadows.

Which costume have you chosen?

The Ego as a Scary Costume

Which costume have you chosen? In A Course in Miracles, these costumes are called the “ego.” The ego is our creation, not God’s. Take away the costume, the role, the character, and what is left? The part of us that God created—timeless, endless, unlimited, perfect, and One with God.

Underneath all the costumes and roles, we are not ourselves as the world sees us—we are the love and essence God created.

Lost in the Spooky Movie of Life 

But we get so busy living in our costumes that we forget who we really are. We become utterly consumed by the fantasy, convinced that our roles define us. It’s like going to a spooky movie—the lights go out, the story becomes our world, and we are completely absorbed.

Our lives on earth are similar. We get caught in the haunted illusions and forget our true selves.

Drop the costumes to forgive   

Forgiving requires that we simply drop those egoic costumes for a moment.  There is a larger part of us and it is not here in this false Halloween-like world of costumes.  We must remember that everyone is really only Love and always One in God. 

Forgiveness is the act of accepting that people come here to this 3D earth and put on a costume and do silly things.  They are deluded, they have simply forgotten who they really are.  When we forgive, we remember for them, who they really are.

Words for Haunted and Creepy Forgiveness

You can start your forgiveness practice with these words:  

You are Spirit,

Whole and Innocent,

I forgive you.

I release you.

I bless you with Love.  

I often begin with these words, then continue through a deeper process to see the higher truth for someone I am forgiving. It takes about five minutes and allows me to shift feelings from egoic fear to Love, no matter how personally scary, creepy, or even globally destructive someone’s actions may seem.

Learn the Process in My Book

The full process is detailed in my book,  Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness. It walks you through seeing through the costumes of this temporary world, focusing on higher truth, and practicing forgiveness for greater peace and joy.

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

• Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love. Read it here →

• My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon → | Barnes & Noble → | Balboa Press →

• Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release.

• Receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails and insights to deepen your practice → Sign up here

• Enjoyed this post? Follow this blog to get new forgiveness insights delivered straight to your inbox! Just click the Follow button at the top of the page.

Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.
— Sue Pipal

The Judger Always Feels Judged

 A Course in Miracles Insight on Healing Criticism

"The Judger Always Feels Judged."

I've had this statement taped to the inside of my medicine cabinet door for the past four years at least.  I'm not sure where I found it, perhaps it's from A Course in Miracles.

What We Give, We Receive

It is an important reminder each day that what we give out is returned to us.  If I mentally criticize others on a regular basis, I know that I will feel like the world around me is watching me with disapproving eyes.

 
On the other hand, if I go about my day looking for the best aspects of everyone I meet, seeing them through eyes of love and overlooking shortcomings, I will be supported, valued and cherished by the world around me.

Seeing Through Eyes of Love

I once attended a seminar with Stuart Mooney, a self acclaimed American Buddha, who says he is enlightened.  I love what he had to say about the people in his world, "I just love everyone I see.  To me they are just so lovable, even the unpleasant ones."  Isn't this a perfect way to put it?

Everyone Is on Their Own Journey

Of course, not everyone out there is making the best choices.  When I say overlooking shortcomings, it's not that we don't always see another's "unpleasantness", but that we do learn to accept it as what is.  It's our job to respect everyone's right to their own adventures in this world.  If they choose to be difficult or misled, we have to just chalk it up to the fact that they simply don't know better and they're doing whatever it is they think they need to do to make the best of this life.  As Course students, we often say that we all either living love or crying out for love.

A Course in Miracles says that "we don't know what anything is for."  Therefore it's important not to judge what we see around us.  Since we are all here to get our forgiveness lessons so that we can grow and purify ourselves--until we eventually awaken, it is quite necessary that we have forgiveness opportunities.  That means someone has to play the bad guy so that there will be something to forgive. The person that you love to hate just may be a soul who has come here in this lifetime with an agreement to be annoying so that you can have the opportunity to forgive him and grow.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that we allow murders and child molesters to roam freely harming others at will.  When people behave in a manner that is dangerous to others, we need to protect the innocents. However, even criminals are deserving of our loving forgiveness.

Forgiveness as a Spiritual Practice

Healing one's mind of the habit of judging is not something that happens over-night, at least in my experience.  I've been working on it for some years now and although I've made a lot of progress, I still find my mind thinking critical thoughts occasionally.  It really is only a habit though and if you stop and notice it, over time it will lessen.

Watch Your Mind, Even on Screen

I think it's very important that we carefully watch television, listen to the radio, read the papers or browse the internet.  And we need to make sure we’re not judging people we don’t even know (or even judging characters in TV shows or movies).  Just because we don't know someone does not give us the license to judge them.  Remember that all minds are linked and on some level, you are attacking these people.  Also, this habit of judging people and fictional characters makes it even harder to stop judging the real people in our lives. 

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

Read this posting that explains more on why forgiveness is our best pathway to peace and happiness: Unblocking our Connection to Love

My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers gentle guidance, spiritual reflections, and real-world practices to help you heal, release, and return to peace.

Explore the book on Amazon → Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness

Make forgiveness a daily practice. Let the Forgiveness Metta Cards guide you each morning with affirmations and soul-soothing reminders to help you release and bless. A beautiful companion to your journal or meditation time.

Take a look on Etsy → 

Let these tools support your journey — because forgiveness sets you free.

— Sue Pipal

We're the Ones That Feel Bad

When we don't forgive, we're only creating more suffering for ourselves.  Leaving negative emotions unresolved eats away at us.  It damages out bodies physically and it damages our minds.  When we allow grievances to accumulate in our mind, they block any chance we have of accessing our natural inner peace.

Do the words natural inner peace surprise you?  Yes, our natural state is inner peace.  However, from our earliest years, we start to harbor psychic wounds.  We allow the hurts to accumulate and clump together in our subconscious.  We start to believe ideas like these:

I am a bad person.
I am not smart.
I am not worthy.
Nobody likes me.
I am not love-able.
Life is unfair.
The world is cruel.
Bad things happen.

When we allow these ideas to take over, we suffer.

And the more we think thoughts like these, the more we draw events toward us that re-enforce these very ideas.  We work a theme.  Perhaps it's a belief in abandonment.  Maybe there was an incident as a very small child where we felt abandoned.  We may find that throughout our lifetime we re-experience those same feelings.  On a regular basis, events transpire in which we are "abandoned" yet one more time.

The only way to stop the cycle of hurt is to forgive and release the grievances.  We can start by working on the most recent experience of abandonment.  We can forgive the event and anyone involved in it.  That will go along way toward resolving this issue.  However, it is best to root it out fully.  We do this by searching our memories for the earliest time when we felt this emotion.  We sit with these feelings and experience them fully until they move through us.  We remember, contemplate, feel the feelings and release.

This takes time and it takes a commitment to look deep, be open to epiphanies, to keep studying ourselves, week after week and month after month.  Things will be revealed.  Aha moments will happen.  And as we understand more about what occurred in our past, as we forgive and release, we will begin the process of restoring that natural inner peace.  

We all have a choice.  We can continue to let fear run our daily lives, or we can do the work and forgive our world.  It takes a lot of inner work to create a forgiveness lifestyle and it unfolds slowly over the course of several years, if one is fully committed.  However, once we do this work, we live largely in peace.  Happiness is once again our ordinary state.

Ask yourself, are you really truly happy?  Or are you substituting a nice car, a good job, busy children and a comfortable house for true happiness.  Are you just telling yourself that this is what happiness is?  Because happiness is so much more than a busy comfortable life.  True happiness comes from a deep inner peace that only forgiveness can bring.

Forgiveness is a lot easier than you may think.  If you would like to forgive, but don't know how to start, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" outlines many easy processes to help you learn to forgive.  Amazingly, forgiveness actually becomes pleasurable and something you will look forward to.  

Available at:

amazon.com

barnesandnoble.com

It is Only Our Own Thoughts That Hurt Us

In "Out of Darkness Into the Light", Gerald Jampolsky lists this as one of his favorite principles from A Course in Miracles:

"It is only our own thoughts that hurt us.  It is only our own minds that need to be healed.  We are not victims of the world that we see."

We choose the contents of our minds.  We never HAVE to be a victim.  We can always elect to see the world differently.  We can simmer in anger and hurt or we can let it go and create peace in our minds.  As the Course says, we are always choosing between love and fear.  There is no grey in between.

If you are toying with the idea of letting it go, but like so many of us, simply don't know where to begin, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" walks you through beginning forgiveness practices and step by step teaches you how to forgive in every area of your life. It is soooooooooo much easier than you may think!  Why not trade in fear, anger, hurt, rage, sadness and upset for inner peace?  It is absolutely doable.  What in your entire world could possibly be more important than your own happiness?

Available at:

Amazon.com

Barnesandnoble.com

There's No Separation

"Many of us still believe that we have to work at being loving, but that means living in duality, because there's a giver and a receiver. Realizing that we are love transcends this. It means understanding that there's no separation between you and me, and if I'm aware that I am love, then I know that you are, too. If I care for myself, then I automatically feel the same for you!"  --Anita Moorjani in "Dying to be Me" 

This is how we forgive. We recognize that there is no separation between ourselves and our tresspasser. We are all connected. We love ourselves and we extend love to our trespasser. It's that simple. It all happens in the mind. We simply offer love in our thoughts. We flip the switch from angry, sad, hurtful thoughts to loving thoughts. That's all it takes.

The simple act of switching our thoughts from fear-based exclusion thinking to love-based inclusion thinking is the start of the creation of inner peace. Make this way of thinking a habit and happiness will become the dominant characteristic of your life.

Available at:

Barnesandnoble.com

Amazon.com

Balboapress.com

Living the Happy Dream: Finding Heaven on Earth Through Forgiveness

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.  --e. e. Cummings

The Promise of the Happy Dream

A Course of Miracles promises that the more you forgive, the happier your life will be.  In fact,  over time, as you begin to forgive everyone and every difficult event or circumstance in the world around you, you will actually begin to live what the Course calls the "happy dream". 

  
Forgiveness as the Path to Peace

Forgiveness is much easier than you may think.  In fact, once you get in the habit, it actually becomes pleasurable.  There's really no reason to live a life of fear, anxiety, upset or lack when the possibility of the "happy dream" life is such an easy alternative.  It doesn't happen over night, of course, but a few years of significant forgiveness work will improve your life immeasurably.

 

Seeing the World Through Heaven’s Eyes

In A Course in Miracles, the “happy dream” is not a fantasy world or a denial of pain — it’s a state of mind where forgiveness has cleared away fear and guilt. When we forgive, we begin to see the world differently. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, we start to notice the light in others, the beauty of the moment, and the quiet joy that comes from inner peace. The “happy dream” is what life looks like when we’ve stopped defending against love. It’s a gentle, forgiving perception of everything and everyone, a world softened by grace.

So...what are you waiting for? 

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love →.

My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon →

Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release.

Want to receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails? Sign up and get insights, tools, and inspiration to deepen your practice of forgiveness. Sign up here →

Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.
— Sue Pipal

"Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" is available in both hardcover and paperback at:

amazon.com

barnesandnoble.com

For an ebook go to:

balboapress.com

Are you really, truly happy?

A Surprising Discovery in a Book Club

When I was in my early 30s, I joined a book club. One meeting, I remarked that it seemed like all the books we had been reading were filled with angst. “Where are the happy people and the happy stories?” I wondered.

I was surprised when my book club friends all looked at me blankly. “Sue, the world is not about happiness,” they said. I was shocked. This was a group of successful career women, many with corporate husbands, lovely homes, and small children cared for by nannies. On the surface, we looked happy—but not so.

The Hidden Struggles Beneath the Surface

As we went around the room, each woman confessed she didn’t feel happy much of the time. They spent most of their lives navigating monstrous “to-do” lists, keeping their households running, excelling at work, and caring for everyone around them.

Beneath their exterior success, they were disappointed in unmet expectations, struggled with feeling unconnected, and often felt distant from family and friends. Every one of them battled fear, rejection, and inadequacy.

Every one of them was secretly bitterly disappointed that their husbands did not love them in the way that they had once hoped they would be cherished and loved, that their bosses and co-workers did not see them as shining saviors for the companies they worked for, that they struggled with feeling unconnected and distant from their closest friends, and were heart-broken to find themselves physically separated from parents and families who often lived significant distances away.

Their lives were a constant state of worry, inadequacy and disappointment.  Each one battled daily with fears of rejection and abandonment.  Each one lived a surface life of success and happiness but underneath resided a deep-seated terror that the gig was about to be up.  Each lived with a terrible and secret fear that their real truth would somehow rise to the surface, and the whole structure they had worked tirelessly to create would shatter to the ground.

The truth is that when the lights go out in the middle of the night and we’re alone with our thoughts, every one of us feels achingly lonely, remorseful and terrified.

What We Really Feel Is Guilt

Much of what we call unhappiness is actually guilt. We feel guilty because we are living separately from God.  Denying that guilt drives us to chase accomplishments, possessions, and the symbols of success.  It’s the pride of self our egos cling to that separates us from knowing our true relationship with God.  And clinging to these trappings, activities, and illusions only moves us further from the peace and joy that are naturally ours. 

It’s by our own choice that we live in unhappiness. 

This is because the “world” is actually structured so that we can be happy.  There is only one thing that we need to do to attain it.  And this one thing is forgiveness.  When we forgive and see everyone else in the world as a valued loveable soul created by God, we begin to learn to chose love over fear.  Over time, continuously choosing love releases the blockages we have built that prevent us from having a relationship with our creator. Life gets easier and happiness grows. 

Forgiveness: The Key to True Happiness

In my book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, I provide many easy-to-use processes that help you forgive anybody and any event in your life—past or present. Develop a daily habit of forgiveness, and watch your life transform from fear to love.

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

• Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love. Read it here →

• My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon → | Barnes & Noble → 

• Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release.

• Receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails and insights to deepen your practice → Sign up here

Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.
— Sue Pipal

Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness is available at:

Amazon.com

Barnesandnoble.com

Balboapress.com

Abundance Affirmations--Pair them With Forgiveness

The Power of Affirmations

Affirmations are a simple but powerful way to invite abundance into your life. They help reprogram the mind, shift perspective, and open your awareness to opportunities, blessings, and joy that might otherwise go unnoticed. But affirmations work even better when paired with forgiveness.

Why Forgiveness Enhances Abundance

Unforgiveness blocks energy. Holding onto resentment, guilt, or anger can create invisible barriers to abundance—whether that’s peace, love, joy, or even material prosperity. When we forgive, we clear the space in our hearts and minds, making room for the positive energies of life to flow freely.

Daily Affirmations to Pair with Forgiveness

Here are some affirmations to repeat daily, ideally after a moment of self-forgiveness or forgiving someone else:

• I release all that no longer serves me and open to the abundance of love and joy.

• I forgive myself and others, and I am free to receive all good things.

• Every day I attract opportunities, love, and blessings in perfect timing.

• I am worthy of abundance in all areas of my life.

• My heart is open, my mind is clear, and I trust the flow of life.

Bringing It Into Your Daily Life

Pairing affirmations with forgiveness is more than a practice—it’s a lifestyle. Each time you notice resentment, guilt, or judgment creeping in, pause, forgive, and then repeat your affirmations. Over time, this habit transforms not just your mindset, but the energy you project into the world, attracting more of the goodness and abundance you seek.

And Before Bed

Another great affirmation which I use frequently to help me wind down for bed and sleep deeply is a simple meditation.  Breathe in and say "I accept".  Then breathe out and say "the love of God".*  Repeat this over and over.  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.

*From The Way of Mastery

Sweet Dreams!

Want to go deeper into forgiveness and abundance?

• Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love.

• My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon →

• Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release. View the deck on Etsy →

• Browse more forgiveness tools, art, and daily reminders in our Etsy Shop →

• Want to receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails? Sign up and get insights, tools, and inspiration to deepen your practice of forgiveness → Sign up here

Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness is available at:

amazon.com

barnesandnoble.com

balboapress.com

Made by God.

Recognizing Our Holiness Heals Guilt and Fear

I am made by God.  He created me exactly in His own image.  Therefore I am holy.  I am beloved.  I am perfect in every way.  

"My holiness is my salvation."

"Since my holiness saves me from all guilt, recognizing my holiness is recognizing my salvation.  It is also recognizing the salvation of the world.  Once I have accepted my holiness, nothing can make me afraid.  And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world." --A Course in Miracles  From the review materials for Workbook lesson 39 (see page 97)

When I practice self-forgiveness, I remind myself: I am made by God. I am cherished, precious, and wholly loved. I am only love. There is nothing evil, sinful, or wrong about me. I am perfect in every way. I am part of God.

Guilt is self attack and it is always insane. --Living A Course in Miracles, Jon Mundy

A practice that helps me release guilt and fear is to create an altar to God in my mind. I visualize it as shining white marble, vast and beautiful. I place anything I feel guilty, hurt, or angry about onto this altar and hand it over to the Holy Spirit. He will handle it, wash me clean, and remove my fear.

Want to go deeper into forgiveness?

• Explore how forgiveness reconnects us to divine compassion in Unblocking our Connection to Love.

• My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon →

• Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release. View the deck on Etsy →

• Receive free weekly forgiveness coaching emails and insights to deepen your practice → Sign up here

Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.

— Sue Pipal

Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness is available at:

barnesandnoble.com

amazon.com

balboapress.com