Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
The wind from the east has arrived. A storm is blowing across California. San Diego has been a desert for months. Now, clouds hang low over the city. The squalls keep coming. The trees in Balboa Park are shaking at their roots. The stale hot air has gone. The healing power of rain is most welcome. “I hope it rains all weekend,” Louise tells me. “The rain is making everything new.”
It’s Friday evening, and I’ve just flown in from London. The descent to the San Diego airport was full of bumps and sudden drops. The landing was rough. Our plane bounced along the runway before it came to a stop. It feels good to be on the ground. Louise and I are sitting in front of a warm fire in her home, catching up on each other’s news. We’re happy to be together, and yet this time it feels different. We’re both aware that we are at the midpoint of our journey with Life Loves You. All along we’ve known that this chapter represents the heart of the book. The theme is forgiveness.
Writing a book is never just about writing a book. I wouldn’t write as often as I do if that were all it was. Writing is like looking into a mirror. This is especially true when you focus on big subjects like happiness, healing, and love. Writing helps you to pay attention. It helps you to see what is in front of you. When you stay with it, you experience a heightened sense of awareness—just as in meditation. This new awareness is often disturbing and liberating. It blows through you, rearranging your molecules. Writing, at its best, sets you free.
I’ve been writing for several weeks now. The words Life loves you are my mirror. They are my inquiry, and I’m taking them deep into my body, my heart, and my thoughts. These three words—Life loves you—are now firmly fixed in my awareness. They are often there to greet me upon waking. They pop into my mind throughout the day. They are always nearby, no matter what I’m doing. In bed at night, I can feel these words circling over me, ready to take me off to sleep.
I’ve also been tracking my responses to Life loves you. Each time I hear these three words, I can hear my soul saying, “Yes.” Sometimes it’s a gentle whisper, and other times it’s a joyous shout. With each Yes I feel physically strong and deeply heartened. I know life is spurring me on. That said, I’m also aware of other voices that call out from the dark corners of my mind. These voices are more cynical. They are full of hurt. Life loves you sounds like mere words to them, and the words are too good to be true.
“The first time you said Life loves you to me was probably not the first time,” I tell Louise.
“Probably not,” says Louise with a wry smile.
“It’s taken me a while to let myself hear these words,” I admit.
“Not everyone can hear them,” she says.
“Sometimes they sound like the gospel truth,” I say, “but other times, they feel like only a positive affirmation.”
“I know how that feels,” says Louise.
“Why do we find it difficult to hear these words?” I ask her.
“We don’t believe them,” says Louise.
“Why is that?”
“We don’t believe in ourselves.”
“Why not?”
“Guilt!”
Guilt is a loss of innocence. It’s what we experience when we forget the basic truth I am loveable. It comes with the basic fear I am not loveable. It’s a belief in unworthiness. When we lose sight of our innocence—which is our true nature—we believe we don’t deserve love. We long for love, but we turn away from it when it comes, because we feel unworthy. Our feeling of unworthiness is what causes us not only to feel unloveable but also to behave in unloving ways toward ourselves and others.
Guilt is a fear that once upon a time I was loveable, but I’m not anymore. Guilt always comes with a story. The story might be about what you did to someone or what someone did to you. It’s a story based on what happened in the past. The story has normally finished by now, and yet it can feel like a never-ending tale. We can become so identified with our guilty story, we’re afraid to let it go. Who would I be without this story and this unworthiness? we wonder. The answer is, you would be innocent again. You would feel wholly loveable.
The guilt story is something everyone can relate to. We each have our own special version of it. The story begins inside us, and then we project it onto the world. It’s a story told in all the major mythologies of the world. The basic fear I am not loveable is our mythology. We use it to judge ourselves, criticize ourselves, and reject ourselves. From this mythology comes superstition, which is the fear that God is judging you, the world isn’t safe, and life does not love you.
The guilt story is always based on a case of mistaken identity. The protagonist of the guilt story has forgotten who she is. She has lost sight of her innocence. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden and Sleeping Beauty, you fall asleep. Like Oedipus and the Frog Prince, you dream you are a victim of a curse. Like the Fisherman’s Daughter and Theseus, you forget about your heritage. Like the Ugly Duckling and the Beast (in Beauty and the Beast), you cannot see your true beauty. Like Odysseus and the Prodigal Son, you have to make a journey home.
Innocence exists forever in the Unconditioned Self. The ego—your mistaken identity—doesn’t believe this. It feels unworthy and believes in guilt. The ego believes that if you’re guilty enough you can buy back your innocence. Unfortunately, there’s no exchange rate between guilt and love. No amount of guilt can buy any amount of love. The guilt story ends only when the protagonist gives up unworthiness. Often it takes an angel, or a prince or princess, to show you your innocence again. When you claim your innocence, it creates healing for everyone, which is a miracle to the ego.
“Helping people to heal guilt is the most important work I do,” says Louise. “As long as you believe you are unworthy and keep making yourself guilty, you stay stuck in a story that does no one any good at all.” When I ask Louise if guilt has any positive purpose, she tells me, “The only positive function of guilt is that it tells you you’ve forgotten who you really are and that it’s time to remember.” Guilt is a warning sign, an alarm that sounds when you are not in alignment with your true nature and acting with love.
“Guilt doesn’t heal anything,” says Louise.
“Explain that, please,” I ask.
“Feeling guilty about what you did, or what someone did to you, doesn’t make the past go away. Guilt doesn’t make the past better.”
“Are you saying we should never feel guilt?”
“No,” says Louise. “I’m saying that when you feel guilt or believe that you are unworthy, you should use it as a sign that you need to heal.”
“How do we heal guilt, Louise?”
“Forgiveness.”
Loving Your Inner Child
Louise and I are sitting together in front of a mirror that hangs on a wall in her living room. It’s a big mirror, about five feet long and three feet high. We are both in full view. There is nowhere to hide. It’s 9:30 A.M., and we have a full day of conversation and exploration in front of us. Louise sips her homemade green smoothie, which is full of goodness. I’m drinking my coffee, which, I maintain, is also full of goodness. Coffee is a delivery device for the Holy Spirit, I say. I press the record button on my computer. We are ready to talk about forgiveness.
“Forgiveness is such a big subject, Louise. Where do we start?”
“Loving your inner child,” Louise says in that matter-of-fact way of hers.
“Why do we start there?”
“Until you love your inner child you will have no idea how loveable you are, and you won’t see how much life loves you,” she explains.
“That’s profound,” I say, taking a sip of coffee.
“That’s because it’s true,” she says with a smile.
Louise Hay is a pioneer of inner-child therapy. She’s taught inner-child work with individuals and groups for 40 years. She’s written about loving the inner child in all her major books. She’s published meditations on healing the inner child. By contrast, I am a beginner. I’ve experienced some inner-child therapy personally, but that was a long time ago. I knew we would meet this subject eventually, so I enrolled myself in a course of inner-child counseling. I did this for myself, as part of my own journey with this book. I’d had my fourth session just before I flew out to be with Louise.
“Loving the inner child is what helps us find our innocence again,” says Louise.
“How do we love the inner child?” I ask.
“The same way you love your adult self,” she says.
“By ceasing all self-judgment,” I say.
“Babies are not bad people. No one is born guilty. No one is unworthy,” says Louise firmly, like a fierce, protective lioness.
“Do you really mean everyone?”
“Every baby is created out of goodness,” Louise says. “It’s only when we forget about our goodness that we start to feel guilty and unworthy.”
The loss of innocence causes us to lose sight of our basic goodness. This basic goodness is recognized in many spiritual and philosophical traditions. Matthew Fox, founder of Creation Spirituality, calls this basic goodness our original blessing. He draws on a lineage of basic goodness expounded by Christian mystics like Julian of Norwich, who wrote,
As the body is clothed in cloth
and the muscles in the skin
and the bones in the muscles
and the heart in the chest,
so are we, body and soul,
clothed in the Goodness of God
and enclosed.
The basic truth I am loveable is keeper of the flame. When we remember the basic truth about ourselves, we feel innocent, we feel worthy, and we extend this goodness to each other. When we doubt that we are loveable, we meet the basic fear I am not loveable. This fear causes us to feel bad about ourselves. It conjures up the myth of inadequacy: I am not good enough. The voices in the dark corners of our mind declare I am bad and There’s something wrong with me. We feel like damaged goods, and we project this guilt onto our dealings with others. The shame of our ego obscures the innocence of our soul.
“Since I’ve become a parent, I notice how much pressure children are put under to be good,” I tell Louise.
“I notice that, too,” she says.
“Most modern parenting manuals focus on instilling good behavior in children. We don’t trust that children have any innate goodness,” I say.
“If the pressure to be a good girl and a good boy is too great, it can cause us to feel unloveable,” says Louise.
“All those good-behavior messages can make you want to have a Bad Tuesday,” I say.
“What’s a Bad Tuesday?” Louise asks.
“It’s a chapter in Mary Poppins. The little boy, Michael, is so fed up with having to be good that he behaves badly all day,” I explain.
“We all know what that’s like,” says Louise with a smile.
“Too many shoulds and musts block the flow of innate goodness,” I say.
“When a parent has lost touch with their own goodness, it’s impossible for them to trust the goodness that lives in their children,” says Louise.
One Saturday morning not so long ago, my children and I set out on an adventure. We had the whole day to ourselves, as Hollie was attending a program on Biographical Counseling, which maps the phases of your life, including early childhood. Bo, Christopher, and I went in search of the golden pheasant that lives in the Royal Botanic Gardens, also known as Kew Gardens. Most members of the Kew Friends have never seen the golden pheasant, but we have. We’ve seen it many times.
On our way we stopped off at our favorite health food shop in Kew called Oliver’s Wholefoods. Bo and I picked delicious snacks from the shelves and dropped them into a basket that Christopher was wheeling around. The basket was as big as he was, and it soon became quite heavy with lots of healthy treats. Christopher manfully pulled the basket toward the counter. He insisted on doing this by himself, and he had to heave it with all his might.
While we were standing in line, ready to pay for our goodies, a friendly-looking lady we did not know engaged us in conversation. “What’s your name?” she asked, looking at Bo. Bo told her. “Are you a good little girl?” she asked. Bo didn’t answer. The friendly-looking lady turned to Christopher. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Bisterfer,” he said, which is nearly Christopher, especially when you are only a toddler. “Oh,” she said. “And are you a good little boy?”
The friendly-looking lady looked into the basket that Christopher was holding. “My goodness!” she exclaimed. “You must have been a good girl and a good boy for Daddy to get you all these treats.” She smiled at me as she said this. Bo wasn’t smiling. I knew what she was thinking. I wasn’t sure what Christopher was making of all this. I hoped it was flying over his head. “Well, I’m sure you are very good children. Only very good children get treats,” she said.
We packed our treats into my rucksack and walked out of the shop. After just a few paces, Bo gave a firm tug on my coat.
“Daddy, we need to talk,” she told me.
“I thought we might,” I said.
“You see, I don’t want to be a good girl,” she said most adamantly.
“What would you like to be?”
“I’d like to be a lovely girl.”
“What’s a lovely girl like?”
“It’s like this,” she told me. “When I go out people say to me ‘You’re a lovely girl,’ and all I have to say is ‘Thank you.’”
“Bo, you are a lovely girl,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said with a big smile.
One of the themes I’ve been exploring in my inner-child counseling is the pressure I put on myself when I was young to be “a good little boy.” Early on, I worked out that good little boys didn’t get shouted at, didn’t get hit, and didn’t get into trouble. I hoped that if I was always good and never bad, my parents would never say to me, “We are so disappointed in you.” I hated it when they said that. However, being good full-time is hard work. You have to suppress a lot of feelings. You can’t always speak the truth. Sometimes you have to lie. And that feels bad.
Trying to be a good little boy is difficult for lots of reasons. For starters, adults have different versions of what good is. Your mum and your dad might not agree on what good is. Your grandparents probably don’t agree with what your parents think. Your teachers have their own ideas, and so too do your friends. And everyone changes his or her mind all the time anyway, and that just makes you mad. You can’t win. It’s so unfair. But you tell yourself that you mustn’t say anything because that’s not good.
The more you try to be a good little boy or a good little girl, the more you have to put on an act. Putting on an act is not innocent. It’s a calculated attempt to win love and approval, or, simply to stay out of trouble. Being good is just one act. Other acts include being strong (“brave little soldier”), being helpful (“my little helper”), being nice (“my little angel”), and being a little adult (“a big girl”). More acts include being an invisible child, the family hero, a scapegoat, a problem child, and the entertainer.
“I tried to be a good little girl at first,” Louise tells me. “But that got me unwanted attention from my stepfather. In the end, I tried to be an invisible child in order to make myself safe.” Whatever act we choose, it causes us to feel estranged from our basic goodness. The basic fear I am not loveable morphs into a belief that I must deserve love. When we identify with this erroneous belief, love ceases to feel natural and unconditional. Instead, we fear that love is a prize that must be earned, deserved, and achieved somehow, but only if we are worthy.
We take our childhood acts into adulthood with us. These acts turn into roles we play out in relationships. Without our basic goodness, we are lost. We search outside of ourselves for love. We look for a prince or princess who can save us from our basic fear of being unloveable. We are trapped in a dungeon of unworthiness, hoping someone will rescue us.
In the movie Shrek the Third, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Doris the Ugly Stepsister, and Princess Fiona and her mother, Queen Lillian, are imprisoned in a tower by Prince Charming. Fiona wants the ladies to plot their own escape. “Ladies, assume the position!” says Snow White. Instantly, Sleeping Beauty falls asleep, Snow White lies down in a coffin pose, and Cinderella gazes dreamily into space. “What are you doing?” shouts Princess Fiona. Sleeping Beauty snaps awake and says, “Waiting to be rescued,” and then falls back asleep again. “You have got to be kidding me!” says Princess Fiona.
In Pretty Woman, a modern-day fairy tale, Julia Roberts plays Vivian Ward, a Hollywood prostitute hired by a wealthy businessman, Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere, to be his escort for some social engagements. Business soon turns to love. Lewis thinks he is rescuing Ward, but Ward has other ideas. In the final scene, Prince Edward arrives in a white limo calling out to Princess Vivian. He climbs the fire escape to her top-floor apartment. When he finally reaches her, he asks, “So what happened after he climbed up the tower and rescued her?” Vivian replies, “She rescues him right back.”
The victim and the rescuer are both playing a role in an effort to win love. The point is, there can be no happily-ever-after in any of these stories—or in any of our relationships—until we claim our basic goodness for ourselves. Everyone can help us with our quest. Indeed, we will need help along the way. Ultimately, however, it must be our decision to reclaim our basic goodness. This decision is a journey in itself. It is a journey of forgiveness, a journey that takes us back to love again.
“Loving the inner child is about forgiving ourselves for our loss of innocence and loss of goodness,” says Louise. “The truth is, we all did the best we could with what we knew at every stage of our childhood. And yet, we may still be judging ourselves and punishing ourselves for not having done it better, for making mistakes, for abandoning ourselves, for upsetting others, and for not being a good enough boy or girl. Until we forgive ourselves, we will be trapped in a prison of righteous resentment. Forgiveness is the only way out of this prison. Forgiveness sets us free.”
Louise and I close our conversation about forgiveness and loving the inner child with a meditation in front of the mirror. This meditation happened spontaneously, but I’ve reconstructed it here. You might like to follow it for your own inner-child meditation. “Encourage everyone to do this meditation in front of the mirror,” Louise tells me. I assure her I will put it in writing!
We recommend that you do this meditation sitting in front of a mirror. Place your hands over your heart. Take a deep breath. See yourself through the eyes of love. And speak to yourself with love.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for all the times I’ve been
afraid I am not loveable.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for judging myself and
for not believing in my goodness.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for feeling unworthy and
for believing I don’t deserve love.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for all the times I’ve
criticized and attacked myself.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for rejecting and
giving up on myself.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for doubting myself and
for not trusting in me.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I forgive myself for my mistakes.
I am loveable and life loves me.
I ask for forgiveness so that I can learn.
I accept forgiveness so that I can grow.
I am loveable and life loves me.
Forgiving Your Parents
“Who’s been the hardest person for you to forgive?” I ask Louise.
“That would have to be my mother and my stepfather, but mostly my stepfather,” she replies.
“What’s been the greatest gift of forgiving them?”
“Forgiveness set me free,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I ran away from a home full of physical violence and sexual abuse. I had to run away in order to survive. But I soon ran into more trouble, including more abuse,” says Louise.
“Running away only gets you so far.”
“Yes. And no matter how much distance I put between me and my childhood, and me and my stepfather, I couldn’t escape,” she says.
“Escape from what?”
“I carried enormous guilt. I did what all children do: I blamed myself for what happened. I took this guilt into my adult relationships. I bumbled along. I was a dutiful wife. I lived my life as best I could, but I wasn’t fully alive,” she says.
“You were functioning but not flourishing.”
“Exactly. And after my husband asked for a divorce, I couldn’t even function. Then I was diagnosed with vaginal cancer. This was when I decided to stop running,” says Louise.
“Were you tired of running by then?”
“Yes. And I knew that the cancer was caused by my guilt and by my anger and resentment at being physically, mentally, and sexually abused as a child,” she says.
“How did you know that?”
“My inner ding,” she says, pointing to her heart. “For the first time in my life I really paid attention to my inner voice, and it led me to the Church of Religious Science and to metaphysics and to forgiveness.”
“And forgiveness set you free.”
“I felt like I’d been wearing one of those prison release tags that prisoners get when they’re released on parole for good behavior, and forgiveness was the key that meant I could take the tag off and be free,” she says.
“What was your first step to freedom?”
“Well, first I had to stop running. Then I had to look in the mirror and confront my past. What happened with my stepfather was not okay, but it was also not okay that I was still punishing myself for it,” says Louise.
“Eventually, we have to choose between holding on to resentments and being free.”
“Yes. And at first I didn’t want to forgive, but I also didn’t want to have cancer, and I wanted to be free from my past,” says Louise.
“So, how did you get out of jail?”
“I read in A Course in Miracles that all disease comes from a state of nonforgiveness and that forgiveness can heal every guilt and every fear. I asked my inner ding if this was true, and it said, ‘Yes!’” she shouts joyously.
“And the truth will set you free!”
“The willingness to forgive opened the prison door. Stepping out of the prison took courage, and I got a lot of support from some excellent teachers and therapists. They showed me that forgiveness is an act of self-love. I was doing this for me,” she says.
“A Course in Miracles states, ‘All forgiveness is a gift to yourself.’”
“I had to forgive in order to set myself free. So I forgave myself for allowing guilt and resentment to harm my body. I forgave myself for feeling unloveable. I forgave myself for the guilt I carried. I forgave my parents. I forgave my past. And in return, I was given this life, the one I’ve been living for 40 years now. Forgiveness gave me a chance to be Louise Hay and to be the real me. That is the real gift of forgiveness.”
“Amen.”
Your relationship with your parents was your first mirror in this lifetime. Your parents’ capacity to mirror love to you was influenced by how loveable they felt and by how much they let life love them. What you saw in your parents’ mirroring was what you believed to be true. Since this was your first mirror, it influences what you see in every other mirror, and in all your other relationships. In the healing journey, you return to the first mirror. Here you have to be willing to look again with new eyes that are not clouded by judgment, guilt, and resentment. With new eyes what you see in the mirror changes, and these changes are reflected in every other mirror, too.
You must not underestimate the influence your parents have had on your life. Your body was created from their bodies. They gave you your name, the one you believe is yours. Their language is your mother tongue, most likely. Their nationality is your nationality, most commonly. Their religion is yours by birth, most probably. Your politics might also be theirs. Your prejudices might also be theirs. Your fears might also be theirs. As huge as this parental influence is, you also must not underestimate the holy power within you that spurs you on to live your own life.
A beautiful teaching on parenting comes from Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese poet: In his book The Prophet, he encourages us to “know the secrets of your heart” and to “love one another, but not make a bond of love.” He reminded parents:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
With only a few changes to the words, this sage advice can be extended to children to help them live their own life. My rewrite says:
Your parents are not your parents.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
You come through them but not from them,
And though they are with you yet you belong not to them.
Your parents are your first mirrors, and they are also your first teachers. “We learn a lot about how to forgive or not forgive from our parents,” says Louise. Typically, children adopt their parents’ attitudes as their own at first. Children learn mostly by imitation in the early years. Your parents’ teachings are your first “bible,” so to speak. Some of their teachings will be helpful to you, but not all of them. No doubt, you will need to unlearn some teachings in order to hear your own holy voice.
While Louise and I have been writing this book, we’ve also been designing a public program called Life Loves You. One of the modules is on family attitudes and forgiveness. In this module, you explore what your mother and father taught you about forgiveness as you were growing up. We designed a questionnaire to help you with your inquiry. Here’s a sample of the questions:
Was your mother a forgiving person?
What did your mother teach you about forgiveness?
How did your mother handle conflict?
How did your mother heal her grievances?
How did your mother let you know all was forgiven?
How did your mother ask for forgiveness?
Was your father a forgiving person?
What did your father teach you about forgiveness?
How did your father handle conflict?
How did your father heal his grievances?
How did your father let you know all was forgiven?
How did your father ask for forgiveness?
Our parents give us our first opportunity to practice forgiveness. This is true, no matter how loving your parents were. The class on forgiveness begins at birth for both parent and child. This class is 24/7 with only a few short breaks, mostly for sleep. Parent and child are both student and teacher. The syllabus is full of new learning. There are good days and bad days. And every day there’s another opportunity to practice forgiveness.
Where there is love, there is forgiveness. With love, forgiveness is so natural it doesn’t even need a name. Love is forgiving. Love dissolves grievances before they turn to poison. Love heals you quicker than a wound appears. Love makes amends so you don’t have to take a wrong turn. And yet, we all fall out of love, both with ourselves and with each other. We forget the basic truths that we are loveable and that life loves us. This forgetfulness obscures our vision and distorts our mirror. This is when the need for forgiveness arises.
Every family has a forgiveness story. This story is part of the human drama and our personal drama. Parents never fully live up to their ideal self, and so they must learn self-forgiveness if they are to grow into truly loving men and women. Children have to learn to forgive their parents for being exactly how they were and not some other ideal; otherwise, children won’t grow up to be healthy adults who are free to be their true self. Remember: Your relationship with your parents is your first mirror. Therefore:
What you don’t forgive your parents for
you do to yourself.
What you don’t forgive your parents for
you accuse others of doing to you.
What you don’t forgive your parents for
you do to others.
What you don’t forgive your parents for
your children will accuse you of
doing to them.
Letting Go of Grievances
Louise and I are well into our second day of conversations on forgiveness. The rain is still falling in San Diego. Strong gusts of wind blow against the windows. The low-flying clouds move fast through the air. Periodically, small patches of blue break through the ceiling of gray. The sun is up there somewhere. We’ve been indoors most of the time, doing our inner work, save for one trip to Whole Foods, to stock up for dinner. Our conversations have been intense, full of insight, and healing. There’s always something new to learn about forgiveness. A little willingness goes a long way.
“Louise, what is real forgiveness?” I ask, digging for more insights.
“Forgiveness is letting go,” she says.
“Letting go of what?”
“The past, guilt, resentment, fear, anger, anything that is not love,” she says.
“That feels good,” I tell her.
“Real forgiveness feels good,” says Louise, smiling.
“So, what helps us to let go?”
“Well, in my case, what helped me was understanding my parents’ childhoods,” she says.
“What did you learn?”
“My stepfather had a very troubled childhood. Both parents physically abused him. He was punished repeatedly for not doing well at school. He had a twin brother who went to an insane asylum. He never mentioned his mother. He fled from Switzerland to the United States at an early age. He ran away, like I had to.”
“How did this understanding help you?”
“Understanding doesn’t condone what happened,” she says emphatically. “Crucially, it gave me perspective. It helped me to have compassion for myself and, later on, for him as well. Most of all, it helped me to let go of the belief that it was all my fault.”
“Forgiveness really is letting go,” I say as I let this sink in.
“Yes, it is,” she agrees.
Healing is a release from the past. Everyone’s past includes some disaster and pain. There is only one way to survive your past, and that is to practice forgiveness. Without forgiveness, you can’t get past your history. You feel stuck. Your life isn’t moving on, because you haven’t moved on. The present can’t comfort you because you’re not really here. The future looks like more of the same because you see only your past. In reality, the past is over, but it isn’t over in your mind. That’s why you’re still in pain.
Until you forgive, you will keep giving your future to the past. However, forgiveness teaches you that, who you truly are has nothing to do with what happened in your past. Your experiences are not your identity. They can have a big effect on you, but they do not define you. What you did to another person or what they did to you is not the end of your story. When you can say, “I am not my past,” and “I am willing to forgive my past,” you can create a new future. With forgiveness, a new chapter begins.
Healing is a release from guilt. We tell ourselves, “If only I’d done it differently”—or “If they had acted differently”—“I’d be okay now.” At one point or another, we’ve all wished for a different past. Guilt is a somber lesson, but it isn’t a solution. When you keep on punishing yourself and attacking others, it changes nothing. Forgiveness can’t change what happened in the past, but it can change the meaning you give it. For example, instead of punishing yourself, you can use the past to make amends and be who you really are. Henceforth, the past is no longer a prison; it’s an open door.
“Forgiveness taught me that as much as I wanted my past to be different, it was over now,” Louise tells me. “Through forgiveness, I was able to use my past to learn, to heal, to grow, and to take responsibility for my life now.” What really makes a difference in your life is not what happened in the past but what you do with your past in the present. “The present moment is your point of power,” says Louise. “You can create only in this moment now.” With forgiveness, you change your relationship to the past, and this changes your relationship to the present and the future.
Healing is a release from fear. A Course in Miracles paints a most graphic and disturbing picture of the unforgiving mind. A passage in Lesson 121, “Forgiveness is the key to happiness,” states:
The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace and soar above the turmoil of the world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the danger lurking there.
Without forgiveness, there is no end to fear.
“When people say ‘I can’t forgive,’ they usually mean ‘I won’t forgive,’” says Louise. “And the reason they won’t forgive is because they’re afraid of forgiveness.”
Most fears of forgiveness are what I call theoretical fears. These fears arise before you practice forgiveness, but they disappear once you have forgiven. For example, the fear that forgiveness makes you weak or vulnerable couldn’t be further from the truth. Forgiveness sets you free. Similarly, forgiveness doesn’t mean you forget what happened in the past; it means you don’t forget to live in the present.
Ultimately, the fear of forgiveness is not as frightening as the fear of not forgiving. It’s more frightening to hold onto grievances than it is to let them go. It’s more frightening to keep punishing yourself than it is to heal and awaken. Carrying grievances is painful. Of course, you have to grieve your past. Without proper grieving, there will be no end to your suffering. At some point, however, not letting go of grievances is really a decision to keep on suffering. Suffering doesn’t, by itself, make things better for you or anyone else. Suffering is a wake-up call.
“The present is forgiveness,” states A Course in Miracles. In the present moment, we let go of the past. In the present moment, we fear nothing. In the present moment, there is no guilt. In the present moment, the meaning of the past can be undone. In the present moment, a new future is born. With forgiveness, we remember the basic truth I am loveable. With forgiveness, we let life love us. With forgiveness, we can be a loving presence to the people in our life.
Forgiveness offers us a beautiful vision for the future. With forgiveness, we can spread love from the inside out, to family, friends, strangers, enemies, and the whole world. This is how we end the cycle of fear and pain, judgment and guilt, revenge and attack. This is how we create a better future for our children. William Martin, in his book The Parent’s Tao Te Ching, gives a wonderful demonstration of how our self-acceptance and our healing helps to heal the future. He writes,
How do children learn
to correct their mistakes?
By watching how you correct yours.
How do children learn
to overcome their failures?
By watching how you overcome yours.
How do children learn
to treat themselves with forgiveness?
By watching you forgive yourself.
Therefore your mistakes,
and your failures
are blessings,
opportunities for the best
in parenting.
And those who point out your mistakes
are not your enemies,
but the most valuable of friends.
PRACTICE 4: THE FORGIVENESS SCALE
It’s Monday morning, and Louise and I are wrapping up our conversation on forgiveness. The storm has passed. San Diego is enjoying clear blue skies and sunshine again. The air feels brand-new, as if it has never been breathed before. It’s been a big weekend for us, and we both feel like today is a new beginning.
Forgiveness is a new beginning. It plugs you into the totality of possibilities that exists in love. Its effects can be miraculous. Forgiveness helps you to get clear about your past. It encourages you to be honest about what really happened and to honor the lessons, accept the healing, and receive the blessings. Forgiveness teaches you that staying in pain doesn’t make pain go away. Guilt and resentment cannot make amends. Dying doesn’t help the living. Forgiveness is the way back to love. Love is what helps you to live again.
“We don’t need to know how to forgive. All we need is to be willing to forgive,” says Louise. Saying yes to forgiveness is the first step. When you affirm I say yes to forgiveness, it activates something in you, and healing begins. Your willingness orchestrates the healing and arranges for you to meet the right people and find the necessary help along the way. As you keep on saying yes to forgiveness, every step of the way, your healing journey takes you from the past into the present and to an entirely new future.
Our spiritual practice for you in this chapter is called The Forgiveness Scale. This practice helps you to cultivate the necessary willingness to experience the blessings of total forgiveness. The Forgiveness Scale is based on a scale of 0 to 100 percent. You begin by choosing a person to focus on. You can choose yourself, which is always a good idea. Or you can choose anyone else, even someone with whom you have only a slight grievance. You’ll notice there isn’t anyone in your life that you don’t have a bit of a grievance with.
Prepare yourself as you would for meditation. Ground yourself, breathe fully, and let your body relax. Bring your focus person into your awareness. When you are ready, ask yourself, “From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven this person?” Record your first answer to this question. Be honest with yourself. The goal here is not to be good, or to get it right, or to be spiritual, or to be nice. You are not trying to play a role. You want to set yourself free. Every answer is a good answer, because it gives you something to work with.
Let’s imagine you have chosen yourself as the focus person. And let’s say your score is 72 percent. First, notice what it’s like to be at 72 percent. How does being at 72 percent affect the way you live your life? How does it affect your happiness, your health, and your success? How does being at 72 percent affect your relationships with others—your capacity to be intimate, to trust, and to forgive? How does being at 72 percent affect your relationship to food, abundance, money, creativity, and your spirituality?
Now here’s the next step. In your mind, take the number up from 72 to 80 percent. You can do this one percentage point at a time, if you like. Once you reach 80 percent, affirm I am willing to forgive myself 80 percent. Say this a few times and monitor your responses. Notice any physical sensations, any feelings, and any thoughts. Stay here until it feels comfortable. And then keep going further along the scale, to 85 percent and 90 percent and 95 percent.
Every step you take on the Forgiveness Scale helps you to let go of the basic fear I am not loveable and to experience the basic truth I am loveable. Every step helps you to see that life loves you and that life wants you to be free of guilt, pain, and fear. Every step helps you to experience healing, grace, and inspiration that will benefit you and others.
Imagine being at 100 percent and saying “I am willing to forgive myself 100 percent.” The Forgiveness Scale is all about your willingness to release the blocks to forgiveness and to experience love. In a way, you are rehearsing forgiveness. It’s an act of imagination. However, imagination is very powerful. “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions,” said Albert Einstein. And so it is.
We recommend that you use the Forgiveness Scale to assess your level of self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others. Ask yourself:
From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven myself?
From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven my mother?
From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven my father?
From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven my sibling?
From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven my friend, ex-partner, neighbor?
From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven everyone?
Always begin with the question “From 0 to 100 percent, how much have I forgiven [myself or name of person]?” Start with the first percentage you thought of and begin your journey along the scale from there. Even a shift of one percent on the Forgiveness Scale will help you let go of the past and create a better future.
We encourage you to do this exercise once a day for seven days. During those seven days, notice what happens in your life. Notice how you show up. Notice how people respond to you. Notice the little miracles. One reason why people often describe forgiveness as a miracle is that when you forgive one person or one thing, it seems to change your relationship to everyone and everything.
Louise and I believe that the Forgiveness Scale is a powerful exercise. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you do not do this exercise alone if you have experienced trauma in your past. Make sure you get the support of a trusted friend, therapist, or coach. Always be gentle with yourself. Forgiveness is an expression of love, and it should be a loving process. Love is the healing power that takes us back to our innocence. Love is the journey home.
