Forgiveness Meditation

Welcome to meditation.

In this meditation,

We're going to explore the power of forgiveness.

Like any meditation practice,

You want to start off by getting your body really comfortable.

So whether you're sitting or you're lying down,

Just make sure that your body feels good at rest.

But alert enough to stay with this process.

This meditation requires you to be a little active.

The activity is in the heart,

But it's activity nonetheless,

So you don't want to just drift off with this one.

When your body is ready,

Let your eyes close and bring your attention inward.

You can take a few rounds of breath in and out through your nose that are a little bit deeper than normal.

And as you feel those breaths,

You anchor into the sensation of your body,

Wherever you are.

Scan through and notice if there's anything that needs to relax,

Anything that's especially tense or gripped.

Let your breath just be natural and you want to really feel the quality of your heart.

And I mean heart in the spiritual sense,

In the emotional sense.

It's like that middle part of you where you feel love.

And it's also where you feel that which is not love.

It's where you feel care,

Generosity,

Warmth towards others.

But it's also where you feel coldness towards others and the restraint of generosity.

It's where you feel the energy of resentment.

Just tune into that part of you.

We're going to call the opposite of forgiveness,

Resentment for this meditation.

And to feel what we're working with,

I want you to consider a resentment that you have,

Or maybe it's one that you used to have.

But bring it to mind and see if you can make it so vivid that you can feel it.

And can you feel how when you have that resentment,

There's a gripping,

A clutching.

We use the expression,

We hold on to a resentment.

And if you're sensitive in this meditative space,

I know it doesn't feel good,

But just bear with me for a moment.

If we're sensitive to it in this meditative space,

We can feel this sense,

How we hold it.

We hold on to the resentment.

Not with our arms,

But with the arms of our heart,

With the hands of our guts,

We hold on to these resentments.

That's what we're working with.

Let's begin with people.

Let yourself be brave for this meditation and approach it with a sense of self-love,

Self-care and gentleness.

But let yourself consider the resentments that you have towards people,

Ways that you've been wronged or harmed,

Slighted,

Disrespected,

Injured.

And this meditation,

You know,

It's a meditation,

So it's not meant to be done in the mind.

We use the mind to recall the situations just enough so that we can feel them in our heart,

In our guts,

Down deeper inside.

I want to make this clear that the forgiveness practice that we're doing is not about condoning,

Excusing anything that anyone has done or failed to do.

This is all about you,

In your heart,

In your guts,

And what you carry and what you don't.

So without excusing,

Without condoning,

See what it feels like to forgive.

Some of these resentments,

Some of these people that have slighted you or hurt you in big ways and small ways.

It's like you feel for that clutch in your guts,

That clutch in your heart,

And you just release it and just let the love flow,

And maybe that's too much to love them or like them.

Again,

We're not approving of them necessarily,

But can you just release that clutch in your heart,

Can you release that grip in your guts,

And just let that resentment energy release.

You don't have to hold it.

You can release it and just let it expand into the environment,

Let it expand into the universe.

Let it go.

Maybe it drains into the earth.

Keep going.

I mean,

There's so many.

Most of us as adults carry a lot of resentments.

They might be little ones,

But it's worthwhile to let go of all of them,

Or at least let go of our clutching of them.

Some of them don't go in one meditation.

That's okay.

You may want to take a deeper breath or a stronger breath.

They might get emotional.

Tears might come.

Sounds might come.

Anger,

Hot anger might arise.

Sadness,

Grief.

Just keep breathing into all of it and just keep releasing.

We're going to do this in stages.

Right now we're focusing on people,

Resentments towards people and people that we need to forgive,

Not because they deserve it necessarily,

But because we need to not hold these grips,

These clutches in our own beings.

Breathe into your belly,

Breathe down into your pelvis,

Breathe into this emotional center and just keep releasing.

Keep forgiving.

Set them free.

Not excusing,

Not condoning,

But not holding on to the bitterness,

The toxic weight of resentment.

Sometimes people appear in our meditations,

Their faces.

Sometimes we relive the hurtful moments.

Breathe into them,

Release them,

Forgive them.

Let go.

Let go.

You can come back to this meditation if it doesn't feel complete,

But we're going to move to the next section,

Which sometimes naturally happens when we're working with people's resentments,

Which are situational resentments,

Situations that we've been in,

That we resent.

The seasons of our life or moments of our life that hurt us,

Harmed us,

Slighted us,

Traumatized us,

Were other than loving to us.

And we hold those resentments too.

They're like boot prints on our hearts.

There's impressions there.

There's times that we've lived through that we didn't emerge out of,

Complete.

They took a bite out of us,

Or sometimes a whole chunk.

Again,

We're not condoning,

We're not excusing,

We're not approving or explaining.

We don't have to see it from their point of view.

We don't have to understand why or see the silver lining or any of that.

In this meditation,

You're just excavating what you're holding in your heart,

In your guts about those situations,

About those times,

Those memories,

Those seasons of our life.

They're like tight ropes tied around our midsection.

They're like clamps,

Clamping off our flow of love,

Our life itself,

Our ability to laugh and dance.

We forgive those situations,

We forgive those times,

We forgive those groups.

Not condoning,

Not approving,

Not excusing.

But we're also not carrying that in us,

That anger,

That resentment.

They may be situations that need to change.

They may be historical,

Societal,

Political situations that need to be remedied.

We don't let go of our commitment in this meditation.

We don't let go of our vision in this meditation.

We don't let go of our clarity,

Our service.

But we let go of the poison.

We don't carry the poison of those poisonous moments.

We don't carry the ugliness of those ugly situations.

Our hearts,

Our guts,

Our beings deserve to be pristine.

Then we serve,

Then we shine,

Then we sing.

Get this weight off of your heart,

Out of your guts.

Forgive the situations,

Forgive the people,

Forgive those seasons,

Forgive those times in our life.

And again,

It might not feel complete in one meditation,

You can come back to it.

But we're going to move on to the tender one.

What do you need to forgive yourself for?

What do you hold against yourself?

What resentments?

What about you?

What about your past?

What about your choices?

Have caused you to clutch off your love for yourself?

Did you make mistakes like we all do?

Did you cause harm?

We're not excusing,

We're not condoning,

We're not approving.

But can you love yourself,

Can you forgive yourself,

Can you release yourself from that punishment?

Breathe into this,

This is tender.

Sometimes there are things about us that we have to forgive that aren't even choices,

That aren't even mistakes that we've made.

It's just something about us that we don't love.

We don't love our face,

We don't love our body,

We don't love some way that we are or some way that we've always been.

Come on.

Feel those clutches,

Feel those grips and breathe into them and breathe out and let that love for yourself flow.

You don't have to explain anything,

You don't have to learn a lesson,

You don't have to make an amend.

In this meditation you just have to soften your heart again,

You just have to love yourself again,

You just have to release the resentment and forgive yourself.

Breath by breath,

Tear by tear in some cases.

You forgive yourself,

Forgive your life,

You forgive this world and all the people in it so that your heart can flow,

So that your guts can be free,

So that you can sing,

So that you can live,

So that you can love.

This is the power of forgiveness.

Take a couple more breaths and just bathe in this energy.

See if there's anything else that needs to be released and you can keep coming back to this meditation.

You probably need to keep coming back to this meditation.

With great care and gentleness for yourself when you're ready,

Let your body move,

Let your breath deepen,

Let your eyes come open,

Thank you for going there,

Thank you for being brave,

Thank you for joining me in this meditation.