Finding Forgiveness And Honouring Our Own Heart

Forgive everyone,

Everything.

I'm going to say it again.

Forgive everyone,

Everything.

Not because you should,

Or you have to,

Or it's the right thing to do,

But because holding resentment hardens your own heart.

It reinforces a sense of self that has been wronged,

And it keeps us separate from life.

In this session on forgiveness,

We're going to start with empathy for ourself with what happened,

With caring for ourselves before we move on to this practice of forgiving those around us.

In this process of forgiveness,

I think we have to start out with empathy for ourselves,

For what hurt us,

For what is still hurting us,

And for all the tenderness of having a human heart.

So come and sit and settle.

Rest down and enter into this practice period.

Take a deep breath.

Sigh.

Turn your attention gently inwards.

Come to be here with your own body breathing.

Cultivate care for yourself.

We begin the process of forgiving another with empathy for ourselves.

I invite you to place a hand on your heart,

Or anywhere else on your body that feels soothing.

Cultivate a feeling of kindness towards yourself in this moment of care towards your own self.

It shouldn't have happened,

Whatever it was.

It hurt you,

And it was hard,

And it wasn't right,

And it shouldn't have gone that way.

Hold your own heart tenderly with the truth of all of these statements.

Something happened that was hard for you.

Life lifed on you.

Bring some care to yourself,

This dear human being that's sitting here listening.

It's a totally natural response for the human ego and mind to get frustrated,

Fearful,

Angry,

And resentful.

When something happens to us that harms us,

And yet it doesn't serve us to hold onto those states.

They will arise,

And they are natural.

And yet it is our care that will make way for forgiveness.

Call in empathy for what you went through.

See if you can create some self-compassion here as we sit for the part of you that's still struggling with it.

Apply loving attention as a balm to your own heart.

Forgiveness without having healed the impact is just bypassing or whitewashing what happened.

We have tender hearts.

They get hurt sometimes.

It is up to us to tend to those wounds,

To cultivate self-care,

To turn towards ourselves,

To gift ourselves our own healing attention.

Forgiveness is a process that comes from within us,

That arises out of us as a way to make things good.

Hold care for yourself as the starting point for forgiveness.

Value this one who is sitting here practicing.

Stay close to yourself and do not self-abandon here.

If we're not careful there can be this sense of someone else's impact on us can lead us to live in our thoughts over there with them,

With what they did,

With what they said,

With how they should have done it better,

How they should have and could have cared for us more.

All of those things may be true.

Yet when we live over there with them in our thoughts,

We've left ourselves.

We've left our own hearts.

We've abandoned ourselves and gone to live in our minds with them and their actions,

With our mental energy.

Bring the attention back to you.

Bring the care here.

Tend to your human heart.

Sit with empathy,

With self-compassion,

With care for this human here.

In this process of forgiving,

We need this self-care before we can begin the work of forgiving another.

And we forgive to soften,

To come back into a sense of relating with the world around us that's kind so that we're not defending against it or perceiving it will always be mean to us.

We forgive so that we don't have to walk through the world with a sense of us against them.

We forgive so that we can come back into community with the life around us.

We forgive so that we can open our own hearts and therefore come back into being in relationship with the world around us.

When we block out perceived harm,

We also block out the sweetness in life,

Our ability to be touched by the tender beauty of life.

And so we gently switch towards cultivating forgiveness for another.

Take a deep breath.

Notice if you've tensed up,

If you've tightened up,

If fear has come into your heart.

Keep sighing out and softening.

Keep resting down.

Keep feeling your hand on your own body and the warmth of your own care.

Stay with yourself as you practice developing forgiveness.

Know that forgiveness is a muscle.

We can work on it and work it out.

We can build strength with it.

Forgiveness is a quality we can cultivate.

At first we might only be able to do a short stint of it,

A small amount,

But we can work our way up.

Our hearts can become heavyweights at forgiving people.

So bring the person you perceived has harmed you to mind here and wish them well as best you can.

You may not get a flood of immediate love.

If your heart hardens,

Notice that,

But be willing to forgive them.

See if you can apply a little bit of forgiveness towards them.

Call a little bit in.

And if you can't find that,

See if you can find the willingness to forgive.

That can be an amazing first step.

I don't know how to do this,

I'm not there yet,

But I'm willing for forgiveness to come into this situation.

That is a beautiful act to do.

Wish this person well.

Understand that they hurt too.

That they have their own suffering,

Their own struggles.

That life is complex.

That it doesn't make what happened okay.

But that they are a human with a heart.

See if you can expand your heart to extend forgiveness.

As you do this practice,

Know that we're not doing this as an exercise of the mind.

We're not thinking about what was right and what was wrong.

We're cultivating a feeling of care in our heart.

Extend forgiveness as best you can.

With your hand on your own heart.

With care for yourself firmly in place.

It could even be said that we're not so much forgiving them,

We're finding forgiveness within ourselves so that we might be free.

We're forgiving them to free up our own life energy.

And as well,

To come into right relationship with the world and those around us.

We're finding forgiveness as when our heart is open,

We can be way more supportive and caring to those around us.

We forgive because life on this planet in this time is hard.

And we're building our muscles at being spiritual warriors at showing up in good ways.

At growing ourselves and not getting lost in the mind but at coming home to the heart.

We're forgiving to make space within us.

We're forgiving as we cultivate our own capacity to care.

We're forgiving to open the heart.

To free ourselves up from the weight of the past to open ourselves to a future of freedom.

We practice forgiving so that we can grow.

We practice forgiving so we might love more.

We might live more.

So as this practice draws to a close,

Notice how your heart feels now.

Notice if you have empathy for yourself.

And perhaps an increased amount for someone else too.

Or something else that happened to you.

Know that this is a complex topic.

That we won't change all in one session.

But that as we practice good habits of the mind,

Good habits of the heart,

Our life will change.

Things do get cleared up.

Things get clearer.

We become more open,

More loving.

More willing to live in a world that can be kind to us.

Where we don't have to hold onto our hearts.

Forgiving is an act of finding freedom for ourselves.

And of coming home to our own hearts.

To our own presence.

So thank you for doing this work.

For doing this practice.

For being willing to be a whole hearted human.

Grateful to have you as part of this community.

And I wish you a day of open heartedness and deep kindness.