Guest blog by Jo Le-Rose

Why forgiveness?

“I wrote this post on forgiveness because of its ability to bring incredible freedom to the spiritual aspect of your being that animates the human body.

Most of us have heard how we must forgive ourselves and others and that this releases us from ties to the past and assists us to grow in compassion.

This is true.

How do I forgive?

However, forgiveness cannot happen by just using the intellect. It has to be the whole of you that forgives, so saying, ‘I forgive you’, won’t work, because when you rethink of that situation it will still bring up a reaction in you. This means that the mark of the experience that is seared into your mind recognises non-closure, so it will continue to falter on the memory.

The quickest route to forgiveness is to see your own ignorance first (it’s tough, I know!).

Step One

Ask yourself this question, ‘What’s it like to be on the receiving end of me?’

Now, take a memory where you have hurt another person and imagine what it was like to be in their shoes. Become them and sense what they were feeling, what they were thinking. Look at yourself from their point of view and see what your face and actions were like. As you do this, you may go through deep feelings of grief. Allow these feelings to move through you by accepting yourself in that moment. If you accept your non-loving state, without any self-judgement, just as a fact, you will feel compassion for yourself.

If you analyse it or go into feeling bad about yourself, you have fallen into self-blame, so change your perception back to grasping that it’s okay, you want to heal it and you will move back into compassion. You can now use this tool of stepping into the receiving end of you to forgive yourself for any other situation that lacked love.

Step Two

Now for part two  Pick a memory where you were the recipient of someone else’s ignorance. Go into it, immerse yourself in the thoughts, emotions and scenery. From doing the exercise above, the mind already knows how to bring the experience to a point of closure, so you will become immediately aware that they too didn’t know any better, didn’t know love, and that they were no different to your ignorance. It’s in the total seeing that you were both acting from the same ignorance, from the same non-love, which brings forward the compassion for them. This seeing has to be immersive and not just intellectual, you have to fully comprehend it and feel it.

The Result

Forgiveness is compassion. Once you release the past, you may find old aches and pains just ease away and amazing life changes start to happen!”

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