I'm helping lead a 3 session workshop on Forgiveness for the Mastery Foundation. All the participants are in Ireland, so the virtual sessions begin at 12:30 for me and 5:30 in Ireland. Two handouts for Saturday's session might be helpful for you.
Forgiving Oneself What makes it difficult to forgive ourselves is our resistance to being forgiven. Those things we want to forgive ourselves for are often things we relate to as unforgiveable, not necessarily because they are so big, but rather because they occur for us as some violation of who we are or some shortfall in who we want to be in life. The moment we are willing to be forgiven, a healing begins. We will have begun the process of authentically forgiving ourselves. Since the first difficulty is being willing to be forgiven, we rephrase the questions to start there: 1. Are you willing to be forgiven? If yes, then, are you willing to forgive yourself? Can you have compassion for yourself and your own suffering; transcending any feelings you are experiencing of disappointment, diminishment, shame, guilt, or humiliation? 2. Are you willing to be forgiven totally? If yes, then, are you willing to forgive yourself totally? Not for everything you have ever done, but for everything associated with the specific incident? 3. Are you willing to be forgiven absolutely? If yes, then, are you willing to forgive yourself absolutely? Can you take a stand for your own power and dignity? 4. Are you willing to be forgiven unconditionally? If yes, then, are you willing to forgive yourself unconditionally? Can you forgive yourself even if you fall short the same way in the future?
❑ Over the next two weeks, identify an opportunity to forgive yourself for something. Then take yourself through the four steps of forgiving, using the Forgiving Oneself handout. You will not be asked to share with anyone else what it is you forgive yourself for. On the Zoom conference, however, we will ask what the results were for you and what questions you have about applying the process to forgive oneself. ❑ Keep a daily forgiveness journal that covers each of three general areas: • What came up on today that was an opportunity for me to forgive myself or others? Did I forgive? What did I learn from that? • Did I support someone else in forgiving today? What happened? What did I learn from that? • Where did I notice that forgiveness is missing? ❑ Practice Centering or a period of intentional silence each day for 10 to 20 minutes. In addition, please write down any questions you have about the forgiveness process or anything you notice that might be useful in our development of this program.
