Steps to Forgiveness

Most people have great difficulty forgiving someone, especially if they feel wronged. It isn’t easy to forgive a person who has hurt you and made you feel pain; it’s never a quick fix or an instant happening. But here are four steps to help you learn how to forgive and remove the many layers of pain you have experienced in your life.

1. Accept it. Take responsibility for the happening but feel no guilt or self-judgment. It’s a human response oftentimes to either judge the other person or place self-judgment upon yourself. Instead, realize this experience has a lesson in it for you and your life that will help you grow.
2. Feel it. Feel the emotions of the experience. What are you feeling? Actually name them without censoring them in any way. This makes it real and realness is the only place in which you can lovingly make changes. Once it’s real to you, you can shift the energy into something positive.
3. Surrender it. Drop the need to be right. Understand there is a definite reason for this experience and there is perfection in it. It’s really a prayerful surrender in which you release all judgments and allow humility. There is no right or wrong in this place.
4. Choose peace and harmony. Everything in your life involves a choice, either one you voluntarily make or one that someone else makes for you. So you have the power to choose how you will respond. Understand that God is in the other person just as God is in you, and that they are coming from their truth. Don’t get into the dance with them so that they pull you down. This will happen if you become defensive, add blame, or feel like a victim. If you dance with them into the place of unforgiveness, you create negative experiences for yourself. You could even try putting yourself in their shoes for a brief moment; you might be surprised how you see things differently.