Emotional Freedom Technique for Forgiveness

I use a number of different forgiveness processes for different situations and people.   The processes that I believe are the most effective can be found in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  I am also working to develop downloadable meditations of my favorite processes for this site to help people learn to forgive (hopefully, coming soon!)  

One process that I have worked with a little bit is EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique.  I find that it helps to lesson the pain that we experience regarding hot button issues.  I did some experimentation with this technique early on in my work with forgiveness.  I think it is a good process to start with and that it works well to help reduce fear and emotional pain caused by past events.  If you are suffering from hurt, guilt or fear and need to forgive, this is a place you can start.

Just a cautionary note, however, that some of our grievances run so deep in our subconscious and have so many aspects that they will require a lot of deep inquiry work (such as my "Feeling the Feelings" process which is included in "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness").  

In the meantime, this is an easy process to use and it will help resolve some issues entirely as well as be a good start on resolving others.  

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Workbook Lesson 78 from A Course in Miracles

Today I am presenting Lesson 78 from A Course in Miracles.  If you are struggling with learning to forgive, this is an excellent exercise to help kick-start your forgiveness practice.

If you are not a Course in Miracles student it will help you to know that when the Course refers to the Holy Spirit, it is referring to the voice for God that we hear in our own heads.  Some people refer to this voice as our Higher Self.

Lesson 78

Let miracles replace all grievances.

Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.

Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God.

He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see.

Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear. We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside and look at him. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angered you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times or hard to please, demanding, irritating or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his, according to the role you set for him.

You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to you. Through seeing him behind the grievances that you have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be savior unto you today. Such is his role in God your Father's plan.

Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. You will attempt to hold him in your mind, first as you now consider him. You will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. You will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, and you will think of his mistakes and even of his "sins."

Then let us ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask Him in the holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:

Let me behold my savior in this one You have appointed as 

the one for me to ask to lead me to the holy light in which he 

stands, that I may join with him.

The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances.

What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved.

God thanks you for these quiet times today in which you laid your images aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.

We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember from the past, allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:

Let miracles replace all grievances.

     

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What's in Your Mind?

What have you filled your mind up with?  It's important to know, because whatever it is, it is going to show up in your life.

In fact, you'll know what is in your mind just by looking at what is manifesting in your life. 

If you obsess about how the world is wronging you and hold old grudges, you will see annoyances, irritations, hurts, injuries and emotional pain showing up in your life. 

If you judge others then you will be criticized, found lacking and rejected in your own life. 

In fact, the same sorts of damaging people and painful events will repeatedly show up in your life. For example, maybe rejection is one of your hot buttons.  Perhaps you experienced profound and painful rejection as a child.  Now you are judging and rejecting other people.   And they are judging and rejecting you.  This is a vicious cycle which you yourself are creating in your own life.  Of course, it seems like the rejection is coming from the world around.  But you are it's actual source.

That's actually good news, because as the source of your own experience in life, you have the opportunity to create something that is not causing yourself pain.  You can change your mind.  In essence, you get a chance to get it right. 

As it turns out, you get many chances.  Every time you participate in wrong thinking, you will get a painful lesson.  Over and over again.  The universe is offering you a chance to see the world differently.  You can create beauty and love in your world.  You are the one in charge of your own happiness.

Clean up your thoughts, offer the world love and forgiveness, stop the habit of judging others, and you will see your life change. It will become happy. 

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You Get What You Give

This is one of the Universal laws. What you give out, you get back.  When you give out love and forgiveness, that is what comes to you.  When you live in judgment and hold grudges, you will be judged and left un-forgiven. 

 

Which world do you want to live in? 

The one where you are gifting everyone around you with your love and forgiving every trespass?  In this world everyone around you loves and supports you and overlooks your shortcoming and mistakes.

Or, do you choose to judge others and hold your grievances?  In your world you will feel alone and afraid.  Everyone around you will judge your actions and find them lacking.  There will be no approval for you.  And there will be no forgiveness when you slip up.

Think about what it must be like to live in each of these two opposite worlds.  Imagine what a working life will be in each. In the first your work meets with approval and you are appreciated.  In the second you are attacked and scorned.

What about family relationships and friendships?  In the first you have friends and family that enjoy your company and have your back.  In the second world, you meet with constant criticism and nobody is there for you. 

How about romance in these two worlds?  In the first, you take your time getting to know your romantic partners.  You trust the world to bring you what's good for you so there's no rush.  Your love is mutual as you both love and respect each other. As time goes on your relationships develops into a deep caring and sharing partnership.

In the second world, early relationships might seem intense and exciting but after awhile, there is betrayal and rejection, no deep abiding love develops, there is no sense of strong partnership and ultimately there is no harmony, safety and peace in the relationship.

Forgive and accept the world around you and the people in your life.  Create a world that is safe, loving and supportive and where good things come to you.  A Course in Miracles calls this the "Happy Dream Life".   It doesn't happen overnight.  It takes a forgiveness lifestyle to create this world.  However, if you learn to practice forgiveness on every aspect of your life, it will come to pass that you will live a life in which you are surrounded by love and goodness. 

 

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So....How Did it Go?

Okay.  Many of us have just made it through a major family holiday.  As we are getting our houses back to order, placing the good china back into the cupboard, and collecting all the shreds of wrapping paper, let's clean up our minds, too.

It's time to stop and review.  Quickly, mentally wind back the clock and review the time spent with your family members.  Were there any large blow-ups or small upsets?  Was there any moment at all when you felt that someone in your family was pushing your buttons?  Did you have any quick flashes of anger or annoyances?  Were you with anyone that just bugs you...period?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you have some forgiveness work to do.



Blow Ups   Let's start with the large blow-up.  If something like this happened in your family then set aside a little time in the next few days to do some deep soul searching around this.  A big blow-up is usually triggered by memories and behaviors from the past.  Take a look at whatever triggered the blow-up and see if you can relate it to events or feelings in your past, or the group's past.  Spend some time with this and keep asking your higher self questions until you get the answers you need.  Dig deep and really do some serious contemplative thought.  If you really want to know the answers, they will come.  Maybe not immediately, but eventually, you'll have them.

Once you can pin-point the issues involved, you can do the forgiveness work.  Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness forms are great for something like this.  You can get them for free at www.colintipping.com under free stuff. 

Fill out as many forms for as many people, memories or emotions that come to mind.  It's important to forgive as many aspects of a complicated group issue as you are able to.  Be sure to forgive each individual involved separately.

Small Upsets, Annoyances, Flashes of Anger   If these situations happened more than once, be sure to forgive each episode individually as well as any person involved individually.  Even if logic tells you that it wasn't someone else's fault, if they were at all involved, just go through the motions of forgiving them.  If you're not sure how to forgive, there are many processes outlined in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  Try them all and settle in on what works best for you. 

If you see any larger issues coming to the surface in your mind as you do this forgiveness work, then either get one of the Colin Tipping Radical Forgiveness forms, or use any of the other deep forgiveness processes from my book. 

Finally, be thankful for your family and their/your issues.  With each act of forgiveness we grow immensely.  Your family members have given you a beautiful gift of this opportunity to release old hurts and wounds.  Forgiveness unblocks sub-conscious barriers our minds create that keep us separated from God.  Forgiveness is the way home.

 

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Did Santa Bring You What You Want?

Let's broaden this question a little bit.  What do you want?  What do you really want? 

Are you wishing for a beautiful new pair of boots.  Or are you hoping for new Bose speakers?  Perhaps you covet an island vacation trip.  You may think that what you really want is a new car or a flat stomach or for someone to truly cherish and appreciate you. 

However, all these things are only representational of what you really truly want...you want real love.  You want the real love of God that calls to you from your ancient memories.

Every one of us knows down deep what this love feels like, but we've forgotten it.  Our egos have blocked out the memory.   Our egos have created football and presents and pancakes and twinkly lights.  Christmas music and airports and eggnog are all distractions the ego has created to keep us from our true knowing of God's love. The ego wants to keep us away from real love.  That's why his distractions can be so attractive and alluring.  Of course we want eggnog and a roaring fire.   The ego knows these things will keep our minds on the busy-ness of our days and away from real love. 

We've all seen that the ego has other tricks to play.  He has disease, disappointment, hardship and death.  These keep us distracted, too.  The ego plays dirty and he'll do whatever it takes to keep our minds from truth.

Today he plays his happy tricks.  That's fine.  Enjoy the Christmas pleasures.  Have a beautiful day.  I fully intend to enjoy my Christmas dinner.  Just keep in mind, along with me, that truth is not all about a fine Christmas ham.

It's about the love of God, the love that enfolds you in peace, perfection, safety and happiness.  A love that is infinite and never ends.  It's always there for us.  In order to have it, all we need to do is to see the false world the ego has set up around us.  When we do that, we can forgive this false world. 

The act of forgiveness brings us closer to thinking like God and when we do that we are entitled to accepts his gifts of love. 

Forgiveness is a Lifestyle

Most people, if they bother at all with forgiveness, use it only on occasion.  They save it for those times when something comes up in life that smacks them in the face.  In those kinds of moments, there is just no peace without forgiving a particular person or situation...and so they forgive.

There's no doubt that this kind of forgiveness is helpful.  Anytime we forgive, we feel happier about our lives. 

However, if we want to be truly happy, we need to live a forgiveness lifestyle.  We need to develop daily forgiveness habits and we need to do the deep introspective work that allows us to delve into our pasts and root out all the hurt, anger and guilt that lurks deep in our sub-conscious.

Daily Affronts   Let's start with the daily forgiveness habit.  Each day many things transpire that push our buttons.  Create a habit of reviewing your day each night before you go to bed.  Gather together all the memories from your day of hurts, upsets and annoyances and methodically forgive and release each one.  This only takes a few minutes to do and it will make a big difference in your life. 

Forgive Your Past  It's also important to forgive people and events from your past that hurt or angered you.  At the beginning of this process it helps to keep an ongoing list.  Every time you remember somebody or something that damaged you in your past, add it to your list.  Then each morning when you take your daily time to pray and meditate, try to tackle an item on your list.  (I recommend using Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness forms for this.  You can get them on his website, www.colintipping.com under free stuff.)  If you devote ten or twenty minutes to this process  each day you'll find that in six months or a year, you'll have released a big chunk of the surface pain in your subconscious mind. 

Go Deep   Once you forgive and release much of the obvious stuff from your past, it's time to start the really deep work.  So many of our responses to and perspectives on the world around us have roots in painful moments in our past.  Many of these moments have been forgotten, cloaked or suppressed  by us.  Even if we do remember them, we may have forgotten the depth of the hurt they created. This hurt is often the key to much of the crazy, irrational behavior we exhibit in our lives today.  It is also the source of much of our unconscious guilt.  Forgiving this guilt and pain  requires some deep introspection and releasing techniques.  There are several processes outlined in my book which will help to root out memories and forgive and release them. 

This may seem like a lot of work, but it is actually fascinating to do (of course, what's more fascinating than our favorite subjects; ourselves!)  More importantly, this work leads to inner peace. Each act of forgiveness releases fear.  Over time, the forgiveness you do begins to accumulate into something magnificent.

Not only that, but in time the actual forgiveness work becomes pleasurable to do and searching our pasts for little scraps of intel that shed light on the pain that runs our lives today becomes like a treasure hunt.  Each scrap is cause for celebration, because releasing it leads to greater awareness and greater peace. 

Create a forgiveness lifestyle and live a life of peace and happiness.  It all starts with baby steps and you can begin right now by simply scanning your day and forgiving what bugs you.  What have you got to lose...except your pain?  Just get started.  Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

 

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