The Align Your Purpose Program
STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
Sacred Gift
Copyright © Vladimir Kush
ALIGN YOUR PURPOSE PROGRAM - STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
“
IN THIS LESSON:
• The Four Stages of Forgiveness
To forgive is to set a prisoner
free and discover that the
prisoner was you.
Louis B. Smedes
Step 4 comes right on the heels of our lesson on
Endings, and rightfully so! In our exercise for
witnessing and honoring the endings in your life
toward the end of Lesson 3, you may have
discovered that some of those endings were made
for you—in other words, not consciously chosen by
you.
”
Forgiveness gives us permission to fully be and feel
the brunt of any ending or painful experience so
that we can then finally release it. Let it go. Be truly
done with and beyond it.
When you activate Forgiveness in your life, you
become gentler with yourself and you learn a
powerful neutrality toward those who have harmed
you. Not because they did not deserve to be
punished, but rather because holding on to the
pain, vengeance or loathing truly only punishes you.
As we touched on, such endings can produce
feelings of anger, resentment, grief, rage, betrayal,
numbness and any number of additional emotions.
And if we look at the energy or frequency of such
emotions, we see that overall they create a
restrictive or stagnant energy rather than an
expansive or flowing energy.
Through forgiveness you can become free and no
longer let the event or experience you suffered
continue to rule and limit your life. Yet what is a
tangible process for stepping into forgiveness? I
speak from experience when I say that this has
particularly been very very difficult to learn and
embody in my own life until recently.
That is why incomplete endings can cause us to get
stuck, or to repeat painful cycles.
What sets us free and liberates us from such vicious
cycles or stagnant, deadened living is the simple yet
profound (and sometimes profoundly difficult) act
of Forgiveness.
Forgiveness requires that we open our hearts – even
in the face of risk, even in the knowing that we have
been harmed or hurt before.
Forgiveness is our most powerful tool for healing. Yet
it is also greatly misunderstood. Many people
imagine forgiveness to mean letting another person
off the hook, or to turn the other cheek and
acquiesce that the wrongs done to them were
okay. Yet more than anything, forgiveness activates
the part of us that is willing to say our truth—in fact it
is the courageous part of us willing to acknowledge
our regret and pain along with the harm caused us
and even what self-punishment or self-blame we felt
as a result.
And an open heart is a path to love and to joy and
to true holistic abundance. At some point in our
journey, one way or another, we must learn to open
our hearts. Here is how to do so while also stepping
into forgiveness...
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Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
Fire Keeper
Copyright © H. Koppdelaney
ALIGN YOUR PURPOSE PROGRAM - STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
T H E F O U R S TA G E S O F F O R G I V E N E S S
Usually we are taught to step right into forgiveness, but for many of our Visionaries and others we’ve
discussed this with, it seems that forgiveness is just as likely to occur in stages over time. This allows us to fully
feel our own feelings about what requires our forgiveness, rather than to stuff them down or ignore them –
which is really just another way of holding on.
Additionally, and particularly if we have just endured a sudden ending or experience that has harmed us,
before we can forgive we must step away and allow ourselves a bit of healing and strengthening.
Forgiveness requires immense strength and we should not expect ourselves to always be able to do it when
in the midst of a traumatic or painful experience.
For this reason, I prefer to treat forgiveness as a journey through stages, rather than as a single act. As you
reflect on each of these stages, you might notice that they don’t always happen in this precise order and
we can tend to shift back and forth between different stages and sometimes more than once! That’s fine
and I simply present the following order as a recommended way to begin the process and because many
who have mastered or assist in forgiveness recommend similar stages in a similar order...
The Four Stages of Forgiveness are:
•
Step Away & Strengthen
•
Release Desire to Punish
•
Consciously Release the Story
•
Keep the Wisdom, Abandon the Debt
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Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
Tree of Life
Copyright © H. Koppdelaney
ALIGN YOUR PURPOSE PROGRAM - STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
S TA G E O N E : T O S T E P AWAY & S T R E N G T H E N
To begin the journey toward forgiveness, a
wonderful place to start is to simply step away from
the whole thing for a while. It sounds counterintuitive however it can help to take a break from
thinking about the person or event that you wish to
forgive.
I also invite you to place intention into your stepping
away. Let it be an active vacation whereby you
give yourself a healing through journaling or rest...
where you invite new learning and information as
well as inviting loving from your Self and others, to
strengthen and nourish you.
To stay in this stage could lead to an incomplete
ending, however it is a fine stage to step into for a
while so that you can collect yourself and gather
your personal power. This also prevents you from
being exhausted or weakened by the immensity of
the experience or ending.
Keeping yourself active in this stage allows you to
keep at bay the mental gymnastics that often
haunt us when we feel injured. By promising yourself
healing, love and growth now, your psyche can
relax and accept that you will return to deal with
the entire issue of who caused you injury later on.
This stage can also sometimes occur further on in
the forgiveness process. Allow yourself this breathing
room whenever you feel the need to step away
from the situation, memory or person—and do so
whenever you feel the need.
Keep in mind that this is a compassionate stepping
away. You cannot truly give yourself a break from a
person or experience if you’re doing so in order to
‘get back at them’ or hurt them through your
absence. This can also be simply a mental stepping
away rather than a physical stepping away, though
that is an option as well.
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Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
2012 ~ transformation of consciousness
Copyright © Alice Popkorn
ALIGN YOUR PURPOSE PROGRAM - STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
S TA G E T W O : R E L E A S E D E S I R E T O P U N I S H
Often the hardest part about forgiving is letting go
of vengeance or the need to punish—whether
ourselves or the person who injured us. This can be
a subtle desire to punish that isn’t even in our
conscious awareness, such as ways we may
accidentally cause ourselves illness or stress
because we do not want to release our sense of
injury; we feel that releasing the sense of injury
somehow might give permission and allowance to
the one who injured us.
You might even consider this stage as a powerful
cleanse. The idea is to keep the energy moving
rather than letting it stagnate and fester. Rage or
vengeance are constrictive energies that limit and
block energy flow. Yet at the same time, to go to
war with our desire for vengeance is also violent and
constricting.
Instead, I encourage you to choose a positive outlet
and practice it with awareness every day. You can
choose to practice grace in every moment that any
desire to punish might arise. Or practice patience.
Choose to funnel the emotions as they arise into art,
primal screaming, exercise or journaling. Practice
generosity and compassion, yes toward others and
most importantly toward yourself.
So what is the reverse act we make when we
release our desire to punish? If that desire harms us
more than anything else, what is the healing step
we can make instead?
I believe the power in this stage is the conscious
choice to contain our emotional experience, no
matter how devastating, so that we do not
unconsciously act it out in ways that perpetuate the
harm, both to ourselves and to others. In this stage
we can step into grace, patience and a conscious
decision to channel our emotion with integrity and
awareness.
With such conscious practice you maintain a
healthy and positive outflow of the energies and
emotions that arise in you, and thereby allow them
to literally flow out of you. And so you become
healed and cleansed steadily of any emotion or
energy that does not serve you.
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Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
Visions
Copyright © Alice Popkorn
ALIGN YOUR PURPOSE PROGRAM - STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
S TA G E T H R E E : C O N S C I O U S L Y R E L E A S E T H E S T O R Y
We’ve all heard the platitude that ‘to forgive is to
forget.’ But I think a more accurate summation is
that to forgive is to release the story. Because we
never forget. We wouldn’t want to. Forgetting truly
would mean that we learned no lesson and gained
no new insight or information and we are again
wide open to the same injuries and their repetition
throughout our lives.
You can practice conscious release of the story by
refusing to fall into that litany of fiery material the
mind loves to conjure up... “he did that and she said
this and how dare they think that I would just lie
down and take it!” Painful memories can become
like a long runaway train on endless tracks in our
head, and so this takes conscious choice and
vigilance to refuse that train to even leave its
station.
No, we do not ever want to forget. But what if you
could glean all the information, guidance and
experience from a past ending or injury... all the
wisdom that can serve you in future decisions and
actions... while at the same time releasing the grief,
constriction and meaning or story associated with
the experience?
A great way to do this is whenever that story gets
triggered, or the memory overtakes you, including
any negative emotions associated with it... conjure
up a neutral image for yourself. Something comforting or beautiful, but not associated with any person
or experience in your life. Many people use the
image of a rose or a skyscape or perhaps a forest.
Maybe a box or a single flame. Choose a neutral
image that is comfortable and then see it out in
front of you, surrounded by a simple and
comfortable void.
What causes us ongoing pain and suffering is never
the event itself once that event has passed – but
rather the meaning it has for us, and the emotions
that arise as a result. We often feel wounded for
years and even decades after such experiences
because we somehow believed those experiences
proved our unworthiness, or unlovableness. We
decided things about ourselves and the world:
perhaps that it couldn’t be trusted and we couldn’t
be happy.
Next, simply allow the memory and story – whether
it manifests as thoughts or images or emotional
sensations – to funnel into that image until you feel
their clutch on you fade away.
Then you can decide to wink out that image; to let
it simply vanish. Or you can toss it up and far away
from you and explode it. The visualization isn’t so
important as the intention behind it. You’re letting
the energy go. You’re discharging the event of all
the painful emotions, energy and meaning that was
attached to it, and simply letting it all go.
The story is very real to us, but the beauty is that the
story can change. It is in our power and our choice.
At the same time though, such stories won’t easily
be thrown out as though they were never significant
for us. Because they were.
However to consciously let go of the story surrounding an injury frees us to move it off the stage of our
life so that we can act out a new chapter with new
surroundings and new players (not just new faces on
the same characters like in some Shakespearean
tragedy!).
What will be left is the neutral information you
learned from the event, ending or injury, which will
become valuable wisdom separate from any grief
or pain.
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Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
Impossible?
Copyright © H. Koppdelaney
ALIGN YOUR PURPOSE PROGRAM - STEP FOUR: FORGIVENESS
S TA G E F O U R : K E E P T H E W I S D O M , A B A N D O N T H E D E B T
It is within this stage that we truly step into forgiveness. And it is useful to remember that there are
many ways and portions to forgiving a person,
community, nation or anything else for its offense.
It can be a simple letter you write, say aloud and
then burn. Or perhaps you feel called to wade
through a local river or stream or pool honoring that
the waters have washed away all negative feelings
and residue as you cross over, and on the other side
you step fully into a new life creation that is no
longer limited or impeded by your past injury.
At its essence, forgiveness is a conscious choice to
release resentment and any need to maintain the
‘debt’ created by the injury whereby the offender
owes us something. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, who we
mentioned in the previous lesson, rightfully states
that forgiveness is truly about ‘abandoning or
forgiving the debt.’ She says, “It does not mean
giving up one’s protection, but one’s coldness.”
Forgiveness is your creation and your choice, and
so you may step into it in any way you wish—fully or
in parts... ceremonialized or simply done... privately
within yourself or verbally to those who caused you
grief.
What is beautiful about seeing it this way is that we
get to choose what debt we clear or forgive, and
when. Forgiveness can happen in portions. We can
forgive a word or particular conversation, then
revisit previous stages to clear another layer of rage
or grief, and finally return to forgive the larger
offense and the totality of the experience or ending
we endured with that person or persons.
The key is that afterward you are no longer waiting
for anything or wanting a certain redress or action
from the other person(s). Those would be like
binding chains or chords tying you back to the pain
or person.
With forgiveness, you are free to go. Free to
live and to create something new and
better and beautiful. Even if that previous
Most importantly, in this way forgiveness is an act of
creation. It is one of the most pivotal kinds of Choice
Points that we experience in life. For some, the act
itself can be enough. For others, myself included, we
like to mark the forgiveness and honor it with some
kind of ritual or ceremony. As a creative, I like to give
this extra life and breath to my decision, to mark it
with something sacred and beautiful.
ending was not a Happily Ever After, it can
still be your new Once Upon a Time from
this moment forward.
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Copyright © 2013 Choice Point with Jaime Mintun - www.choicepointmovement.com
NOTES
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