SUMMARY: Granting Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a choice.
We grow through forgiving.
Forgiving is how we move from victim to hero in our story.
We know we are healing when we are able to tell a new story.
Meditation Loving Kindness
1. Close your eyes. Imagine an emotion that makes you feel good. It can be love or kindness or compassion or gratitude or all of these emotions.
2. Allow this emotion or combination of emotions to radiate out from inside you. This is what it feels like to be free of fear, anger, hatred, and resentment. This place of peace lives within you always and belongs to you. You can step into this place whenever you wish. It is yours, and no one can take it from you.
3. Now imagine the person or people you are trying to forgive. Imagine that you are their mother and they are like a tiny baby in your arms, before they hurt you, before they hurt anyone. See their goodness and humanity.
4. Can you bless them and wish them well? Can you send them compassion and kindness? Can you let them go?
Stone Ritual Washing the Stone
1. Take your stone, which has been with you through this journey along the path. You have spoken to it, you have clenched it, and now you will cleanse it.
2. Get a bowl of water or go to a body of water. Dip your stone in the water three times. Each time you dip the stone, say “I forgive you.”
Journal Exercise
1. Begin by writing down a story of the person who harmed you. What do you know about this person? If you do not know them, what can you find out about them? What do you have in common? In what ways are you similar?
2. What have you lost by not being able to forgive? Has this inability to forgive harmed you and the ones you love?
3. Now write down how this painful experience has actually made you stronger. How has it helped you grow and have empathy for others? How has it ennobled you?
4. Finally, write your story again but this time not as the victim but as the hero. How did you deal with the situation, how have you grown, and how will you prevent such harm from happening to others?
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As we continue in our book study, we encourage you to purchase Desmond and Mpho Tutu's The Book of Forgiving which is available as a hard copy, audiobook, and ebook. All of the above comes directly from the end of each chapter. If your finances are preventing you from purchasing the book, please reach out to Pastor Sarah.
Tutu, Mpho, and Tutu, Desmond. The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World. United States, HarperCollins, 2014.