Now to answer a question of another reader, who shared an excerpt of a book she read on Forgiveness where the author stated that you don't have to know how to forgive to forgive. Maybe so. It begs the question, why then are so many people telling me that they thought they've forgiven but months or years later, there remained residues of resentment, irritation or hurt at the person they had 'forgiven'?
Dr. G. Pettitt has the answer - the forgiveness was not complete as they did not follow certain steps that would make it so. Are you shaking your head dubiously??
If you have a leaking faucet and you put strong tape on it, for a short while the faucet will stop leaking but then, the amount of water collected will cause a pressure to bust the tape and the waters would gush out causing a mini-flood. So that is how it is when the Steps of the Forgiveness Process is not followed.
Many times, when we think we've forgiven, we have just repressed the memory. While treating some physical ailment in Energy Medicine and EFT, I noticed how the lack of forgiveness was a prominent culprit. When a client during the sessions, acknowledge the forgiveness aspect, that physical ailment heals. You must have heard about the connection of gastric ulcers and anger. When we use emotional freedom technique taught by Gary Craig, we always acknowledge the negative feeling but we do not stop there. Let me give you an example.
A client with severe pain came in, barely able to walk, doubled up in pain.. After a very brief history and discovering that her predominant emotions were shame and anger, I started initially with siphoning the pain, then tapping her meridian points with her saying "Even though I am angry with my ??? for humiliating me in front of my friends, I profoundly accept, respect and love & (forgive) myself anyway."
You might ask why she was saying "forgive myself' Great question - Any feed backs. Before you can truly forgive others, you have to learn to forgive yourself, using a similar process.
The end result for this particular client - She walked out of the therapy which lasted for about an hour with zero pain. She saw me as a last resort as she had tried everything else, from tests, other therapies to medications.
So next post - will mention some of the Steps in the Forgiveness Process - Have you any ideas of what they may be??
