“The practice of forgiveness creates new space for positive energy to return to you, and opens more space in your heart for you to love yourself.” ~ Dr. Debra Reble
Forgiveness is a powerful practice that promotes healing and peace. It’s the willingness to let go of any resentment, judgment, or grievance toward someone who has injured us. It has two essential parts: a release of negative feelings previously held toward the person who has hurt us, and a shift in positive feelings toward that person.
Since we all engage in human interactions on a daily basis, relationship injuries are unavoidable. Forgiveness is a powerful way to heal such injuries. Even though this practice has been encouraged in religious tradition for years, today it is increasingly discussed in the mainstream global media as a means for facilitating healing and peace. Forgiving a person for harm they caused us―and, likewise, making amends for hurting someone―are positive acts that can sustain loving relationships and deter alienation and loneliness.
Research on forgiveness suggests that, because it helps us sustain our connectedness with others, it has considerable physical and mental health benefits. Forgiveness also promotes our well-being because it encourages the release of negative emotions, such as anger, resentment, or the desire for revenge. The act of blessing and releasing a person or situation assists us in letting go of our past and appreciating the present more fully.
The more we forgive, the more we open our hearts in loving compassion. In forgiving anyone or anything, we sever any negative energy to the person or process. Forgiveness allows us to let go of the emotional attachment we have and with the positive energy that returns to us, we create space in our heart to love.
This idea hit home for me recently when I was celebrating my mom on her transition day to spirit. Since discovering a little over seven years ago that my mom was no longer living, I’ve been relieved of that burden of “what if.” When I imagine her sitting here next to me, I no longer feel any anger or hurt toward her—only love, and a sense of peace. Through loving and letting her go, I forgave her for making me a motherless daughter at such a young age. I no longer feel any disappointment in my mother’s choices or the limitations of her love, because I have compassion for her traumatic life and the love she never received. Seeing her in a more positive light has brought me into a state of grace, where I am able to accept what is and forgive what wasn’t.
Embracing and releasing my vulnerable pain made it possible for me to love myself, allow love in, and feel whole for the first time. The heart-based practice of forgiveness is one that I continue to use every day and in every aspect of my life. I know now that my relationship with my mother served a purpose in my life—and in that knowledge, I am able to finally find closure.
Even today, I continue to unearth layers of emotional pain. In instances where my hurt, disappointment, or sadness resurfaces, it becomes necessary to repeat the practice to clear these subtle layers. I know I have finally forgiven someone when I could think of them without experiencing any negative reaction.
Forgiveness as a spiritual practice is an act of love in which we focus energy through our heart center, and bless and release anything that does not align with who we truly are. The heart becomes an energetic clearinghouse that transforms grievance and resentment into love and compassion, and dissolves any emotional injury attached to the person or situation. By forgiving, and truly letting go, we make the past powerless over our lives.
Ultimately, there is no resentment, grievance or hurt that cannot be transformed by forgiveness. And the more we forgive ourselves the easier it is to forgive others. To forgive takes an open heart, loving-compassion, and a detachment from specific outcomes. The greater outcome is widely recognized: acts of forgiveness free us from the past and sever the flow of negative energy toward others so that positive energy is returned to us, creating space in our hearts to love and be loved.
