Forgiveness Law # 18

...It is often the hardest thing we’ll ever do, and sometimes it is the only choice we have. Forgive with your whole heart…this Power does not come from your head.

Cynthia F. Davidson, excerpt from the Wisdom Wheel Forgiveness card

Are you ready to receive a little Forgiveness? Over the next ten days, offer some, and see what happens. Be courageous and take the first step.
Whatever has caused your heart to harden in the past, open up now, allow new growth and move on towards the light. 
Refusing to forgive keeps us locked into what cannot be changed about the past. 
Be generous to yourself when it comes to this Law. Forgiving others is only half of the story. If you can't forgive you, what example do you set for others?  

Bring up the subject of Forgiveness with family and friends this week. Ask them who they've been able to forgive and why it was hard. What made it possible? A change of heart? How long did it take? How did they feel afterwards? 

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, arrives while you are studying this Law. Explore Jewish Forgiveness concepts, and those of other religious traditions too. 

Whose Forgiveness do you most need to receive? Ask for it during the next ten days. 

Sometimes our Forgiveness work is with those who have passed on. You can still offer Forgiveness, or request it, via your dreams. Everyone has some Forgiveness needs. 

Here's some advice from those who have experience with Forgiveness. 

By forgiveness the universe is held together. Forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is quiet of mind. Forgiveness and gentleness are the qualities of the self-possessed, and represent eternal virtue.

Margo Kirtikar Ph.D. author of Flowing with Universal Laws

Four Stages of Forgiveness

1. To forgo - to leave it alone

2. To forbear - to abstain from punishing

3. To forget - to aver from memory, to refuse to dwell

4. To forgive - to abandon the debt

Clarissa Pinkola Estes from her book Women Who Run With the Wolves

On one level: forgiveness means you shouldn’t develop feelings of revenge. Because revenge harms the other person, therefore it is a form of violence. With violence, there is usually counter-violence. This generates even more violence—the problem never goes away. ...on another level: forgiveness means you should try not to develop feelings of anger toward your enemy. Anger doesn’t solve the problem. Anger only brings uncomfortable feelings to yourself. Anger destroys your own peace of mind. Your happy mood never comes, not while anger remains. I think that’s the main reason why we should forgive. With calm mind, more peaceful mind, more healthy body. An agitated mind spoils our health, very harmful for body. This is my feeling.

The Dalai Lama

Offending can lead to a real burst of understanding. You know more about how the other person sees you; you know something more about yourself.  And if that something is somewhat unpalatable, all the better. You have a chance then to transform what you are doing. Or drop it. There is vitality in that, and power in its most attractive forms.

Michael Leunig

If you don’t transform your pain, you will always transmit your pain.

Richard Rohr

Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don't want the other person to forget that we forgave.

Ivern Ball

When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free... Release is a form of forgiveness that we all need to practice often. Emotional release is one of the highest forms of love...   

Catherine Ponder

(also a cure for low self-esteem, low self worth and feelings of helplessness)

There is a hard law... that when a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.

Alan Paton

When you forgive, some deeper, divine generosity takes you over… When you cannot forgive, you are a prisoner of the hurt done to you.

John O’Donohue in Eternal Echoes

God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.

Alfred Korzyybski

The old energy of ‘an eye for an eye’ keeps the vibrations of a person very low. To forgive, to release old anger, allows the law of grace to intercede... Non-violence is the natural outgrowth of the law of forgiveness and love. All good comes from forgiveness....the continuation of the human species is due to man’s being able to forgive.

Margo Kirtikar Ph.D, Flowing with Universal Laws

We must be quite clear that forgiveness is no easy matter. If the ego has been wronged, the ego cannot forgive just because it ‘should’ not withstanding all the wider context of love and destiny.  The ego is kept vital by its amour-proper, its pride and honor. Even where one wants to forgive, one finds one simply cannot, because forgiveness does not come from the ego. I cannot directly forgive. I can only ask, or pray, that these sins be forgiven. Wanting forgiveness to come and waiting for it may be all that one can do.  

James Hillman

Forgiveness deeply offends the rational mind…it declares ’I will attempt to go on loving the life in you, the divine in you or the soul in you, even when I totally abhor what you have done or what you stand for.  What’s more I will attempt to see you as my equal, and your life as having equal value to my own, even when I despise what you do and everything you stand for.’ 

Stephanie Dowrick, Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love

Forgiveness means acceptance of those who are unacceptable. It is unconditional or it is not forgiveness at all.

Paul Tillich, American theologian, in a famous sermon

To walk as round beings, on a round planet, cognizant of being interwoven in a circular web of connection with all beings, is to understand forgiveness.

From the vantage point of circular relating, forgiveness is simply returning energy: returning and receiving energy until any warp in the circle is healed, balance restored.

              Colin Berg, quoted in Parabola magazine, XII no. 3, www.parabola.org 

In ten days, we'll take up the Law of Clarity. Until then, enjoy Forgiveness in all its forms.