Forgiveness (36 page)
Authors: Iyanla Vanzant
– I FORGIVE MY MIND FOR THINKING –
EXAMPLE
I forgive my mind for thinking I have somehow failed my children because they have not lived up to my expectations.
I forgive my mind for thinking
about my son/daughter.
I forgive my mind for thinking
about my son/daughter.
I forgive my mind for thinking
about my son/daughter.
I forgive my mind for thinking
about my son/daughter.
– I F
ORGIVE
M
YSELF FOR
J
UDGING
–
EXAMPLE
I forgive myself for judging my son/daughter for not finishing school and working in dead-end jobs.
I forgive myself for judging my son/daughter for
I forgive myself for judging my son/daughter for not
I forgive myself for judging my son/daughter when
I forgive myself for judging my son/daughter because
– I F
ORGIVE
M
YSELF FOR
B
ELIEVING
–
EXAMPLE
I forgive myself for believing my son/daughter has dishonored me as a parent.
I forgive myself for believing
about my son/daughter.
I forgive myself for believing
about my son/daughter.
I forgive myself for believing
about my son/daughter.
I forgive myself for believing
about my son/daughter.
– T
APPING
S
EQUENCE
–
Review Basic
Tapping Sequence
Guidelines.
- Review each of the day’s 12 Forgiveness Statements out loud. This will help you identify the specific aspects of the issue that you want to tap on.
- Rate the intensity level of any unforgiveness you hold about today’s topic on a scale of 1 to 10. Write the number down.
- Neutralize all subconscious resistance. Repeat a Reversal Statement 3 times while tapping continuously on the Karate Chop point.
- Focus on the issue you’ll be tapping on. Repeat a Set-Up Statement 3 times while tapping continuously on the Karate Chop point.
- Tap 7 times on each of the 10 meridian points while repeating out loud the key details from the 12 Forgiveness Statements. This process can be modeled on the bonus Tapping Scripts.
- Recheck the intensity level of any unforgiveness you hold about today’s topic. Write the number down. If the level is at 8 or higher, repeat the entire sequence. If the level is less than 8, tap on a Modified Set-Up Statement, then perform the 10-point Tapping Sequence on your 12 Forgiveness Statements until you are at a 0 level of intensity.
– R
EFLECTIONS
–
Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.
—D
ESMOND
T
UTU
(F
RIENDS OR
F
RENEMIES
, F
AMILY
, C
O
-W
ORKERS
, B
OSSES
, A
CQUAINTANCES, AND
E
VEN
S
TRANGERS
)
I offer only miracles today, for I would have them be returned to me.
God’s gift is love. Love can only create itself. Today I choose to give only love because love is all that I want to receive.
—P
RAYER FOR
A C
OURSE IN
M
IRACLES
W
ORKBOOK
L
ESSON
335
– Forgiveness Friend Story by Rev. Matthew Cartwright –
I
now know that nothing in my life will change until I change the way I see my life and myself. I saw myself as a victim for most of my life. The hurt of my perceived childhood abandonment and social ridicule for being gay led to a life of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Rather than deal with my feelings, I chose to escape all the pain of what “they did to me.” I was trapped in a world of hurt, resentment, fear, and pain that left me feeling desperate in a life that didn’t make sense. It was this feeling of desperation and loneliness that led me deep into a drug addiction and a series of unhealthy choices from which I contracted HIV.
When I tested positive, I felt shattered and even more broken. After all I had already been through, this was like being hit in the face for no good reason. How could I have let this happen? I knew better! I knew how to protect myself, but I hadn’t. In the 1990s, I was a volunteer for several AIDS organizations. I had instructed people about what to do and not to do to avoid the life-altering possibilities of this once-deadly disease. Now I was “one of them.” I could no longer pretend that I was better than or less than anyone else. I had to fight for my life. For me, that meant doing the work—the deep, hard work to clean up my mind and my heart as well as my life.
F
ORGIVENESS REQUIRES SURRENDER
.
When you are a gay man, people judge you. More powerful than the judgments others hurled at me were the resentments I held and directed toward others. It was the depth of my own self-generated pain that led me into the practice of forgiveness. I wanted to be healed not only of the pain I had caused myself but of the perceived pain I thought others had visited upon me. I wonder if people realized the pain they cause with their mean speaking and judgments? I wonder if I realized it? With a life-threatening diagnosis hanging over my head, I decided that it didn’t matter. Forgiveness, I believed, would wipe the slate clean, giving me a new lease on life. As my forgiveness practice deepened, I found the courage to forgive my mother, my father, and everyone I believed had harmed me. I began to feel better and hopeful until I realized that I had not or could not forgive myself.
I
WONDER IF PEOPLE REALIZED THE PAIN THEY CAUSE WITH THEIR MEAN SPEAKING AND JUDGMENTS
?
It was amazing for me to realize that many of the judgments made about me were the same judgments I held about myself. At the same time I had this underlying well of judgment about others that I could not seem to shake loose. I covered those things well. I was great at acting as if everything was okay and I was no longer hurting. As the voices and images of shame and wrongness, anger and resentment swirled in my mind, I felt defeated and unlovable. I eventually convinced myself that my wounds were too powerful for any forgiveness or journal exercise.
Although frustrated and angry, I was determined not to give up on forgiveness or myself. It was then that I discovered a little-known secret about any real forgiveness practice: forgiveness requires surrender. Surrender is a state of mind and being that opens the mind and heart to divine revelation. Deeper than changing the mind or healing the heart, surrender eradicates the thoughts, the emotions, and the energies that keep frustration and anger in place. It was not until I surrendered to God, trusting that no matter what happened or did not happen, God would still love me, that I felt a shift. I let go of thinking that I had done something wrong. I asked to be healed of my shame. I prayed for forgiveness for what I had done, and I forgave myself for believing anyone had done anything to me. Surrender freed me from the prison of shoulda, coulda, and woulda and ushered me into the realization that there are no victims. Our lives are about choices. The greatest gift of surrender was that it helped me to realize that it is arrogant of me not to forgive myself when God forgives me. It is also harmful not to forgive others when God forgives them.
I
T IS ARROGANT OF ME NOT TO FORGIVE MYSELF WHEN GOD FORGIVES ME
.
Surrender and forgiveness make it so much easier to forgive myself when I make a mistake. I now forgive others quickly as well. With each report of my health improving, I recognize the healing power of forgiveness. I see how God has empowered me to live fully. The experience with HIV has changed my relationship with God and the world. It has set me free from the prison of my mind that caused me to judge others and myself.
S
URRENDER AND FORGIVENESS MAKE IT SO MUCH EASIER TO FORGIVE MYSELF WHEN I MAKE A MISTAKE. I NOW FORGIVE OTHERS QUICKLY AS WELL
.