How to Forgive – For Your Own Sake First

Learning how to forgive is one of the most important things I’ve ever learned. Holding grudges has hurt me far more than anything anyone else has ever “done” to me. Besides that, any time we hold that kind of toxic energy inside, it has a negative effect on everyone we come in contact with.

Prerequisite for Forgiveness

In learning how to forgive, I’ve noticed that I first have to arrive at a place where my personal peace and happiness is more important to me than the desire to be right and make someone else wrong. Even though arriving at that point takes longer in some situations than others, I am far less willing to separate myself from wellbeing than ever before. The discomfort of holding someone out of my heart is just way too painful. In doing that I’m actually holding a part of myself away from my heart and there is nothing more painful than that.

We learn how to forgive for our own healing first. After years of holding some very large grudges at some key players in my life, I finally generated enough desire to forgive them because I was finally done with suffering over it. At that point my strong desire attracted the introduction of a very clear path to learn how to forgive and heal anything, finally and completely.

A Direct Path to Forgiveness – Ho’oponopono

I had the great honor to attend a weekend workshop with an amazing Hawaiian shaman named Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. He teaches an ancient Hawaiian tradition of forgiveness named Ho’oponopono. That weekend was life-changing for me. Finally, I learned how to forgive, in the most direct way possible.

Let me first give you a little background on the Ho’oponopono perspective then I’ll show you how it can be valuable in learning how to forgive.

Ho’oponopono is born out of the fact that all life is vibrationally interconnected, and is all made of the very same Essence. Further, we create every single thing that occurs in our life, big or small, by the vibrations that are dominant within our own being. We are like a human projector. The vibrations within us project out and create images and dramas that are reflections of the energies within us. If it is in our life, it came from within us, otherwise it could not be here. This includes so called “other” people as well as every single thing we experience.

For instance, 10 people could attend the same party and have 10 very unique experiences, meet different people, have different conversations, and come away from the experience with 10 different sets of perceptions. Each of those 10 people will experience parts of themselves at that party, which will be different from the other 9 people, who are all uniquely experiencing parts of themselves as well.

Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len

Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, is famous for curing a complete ward of criminally insane patients at the Hawaii State Hospital, but without ever “treating” any of them. He didn’t even meet with them, except to occasionally play tennis or other recreational activities. At the workshop I attended with him, I met the woman who was the director of the ward at the time and she verified the following facts.

Instead of the usual psychological treatments, Dr. Len practiced Ho’oponopono. Without meeting in person with the inmates, he studied each person’s chart. From the perspective that there is really only one Being and it is Us, he looked within himself to see how he created that person's mental illness. He then healed the part of himself that created their distress, by focusing love on that condition. He took total responsibility for whatever he saw that needed healing. From this perspective, he ignored the boundaries we are all conditioned to falsely believe, that there is some boundary between “me” and “you.”

As he focused on each person he said “Thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you,” to them over and over again, day after day after day. This is the essence of Ho’oponopono and this is all he did. This is really about learning how to forgive.

“Thank you” says “Thank you for bringing this part of myself into my conscious awareness so that I can take responsibility for this part of myself. You are reflecting to me a part of myself that I need to see and heal.”

Saying “I’m sorry” means “I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done to cause this situation that causes suffering within Us. I apologize for harboring the negative energy that has created this problem.”

“I love you” says “You and I are of the same Us and I love you. I am you and you are me.”

Total Responsibility

Learning how to forgive is really about taking responsibility for our life in a far deeper and broader way than most of us have ever even considered. Total responsibility means that everything in our life is our responsibility. Everything. This means every person that comes into our life experience as well as their actions, everything we see or hear or experience, is here because they are a reflection of something within us.

By the Law of Attraction, nothing could be in our life unless we resonated with it in some way. It couldn’t be in our life unless it was a vibrational match to something inside us, whether we are conscious of it or not. What we dominantly put our attention on manifests in our life. The kind of thoughts that we think create reflections of that same vibration all around us. So, in a sense, we create them. Each of us creates the world that we live in.

This means that when we see a politician or even a terrorist and we don’t like what we see, what we are actually seeing is a part of our self and it is being shown to us to give us an opportunity to heal it. These “others” don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside us. The problem isn't with them because there is no “them” that is separate from us. In order to change “them” we have to change our self. This is learning how to forgive.

Yes, this seems hard to grasp at first because it is so different from how we are conditioned to believe. For me it is an ongoing process to fully accept and actually live from this perspective. Basically, it comes down to loving yourself as the You that is everything you see and experience. As you love everything you experience, your world begins to change, because your outer world is a projection of your inner world. In order to improve your own life, you have to heal your life – and your life is you and everything in your life. As we learn how to forgive, our life automatically shifts into a more loving realm.

The Results of Ho’oponopono

As Dr. Len took responsibility for everything that was happening with each of his patients, they each improved! Basically he worked on himself and they changed because they are a reflection of him. He worked on how to forgive them as himself.

Before Dr. Len joined the Hawaii State Hospital, staff turnover was outrageously high because it was such a dreary place to live, work in, or visit. The heavy pull of the negative burdens the patients carried was far too overwhelming for any of the staff to endure long term. They couldn’t even keep any potted plants on the ward because the energy was so toxic the plants all died.

However, in the four years Dr. Len was there, big changes happened. As patients that had to be shackled began to heal, gradually their shackles were removed because they were no longer a threat. Medications were gradually reduced, then eliminated. The inmates got better and better and the staff stabilized and began to enjoy their jobs. Eventually they closed the ward because all the patients were released! All of this came as a result of one man who was willing to explore how to forgive.

How to Forgive

After I began writing this article something happened that provided me an opportunity to practice what I’m “preaching” here. It demonstrates the power of forgiveness, using the Ho’oponopono technique.

A few months ago some new neighbors moved in next door. I met them early on and discovered they are really nice people. They also have two large dogs in their family. Recently there were two occasions when the dogs were outside and one of them barked for hours, only a few feet from my bedroom/office window.

Irritation developed into anger and alas, I didn’t fully take care of it energetically inside me. I did some Ho’oponopono with it, but not consistent enough or long enough so it didn’t fully clear. I was caught up in the events of my life at the time, and put aside the fact that I know how to forgive.

Then a few weeks later I was talking with the woman on the phone and all that unhealed energy in me came to the fore and I directed anger at her. She, understandably, became very defensive and we got into a shouting match. It was horrible.

I felt sick for a couple of days over it and I’m sure it was no picnic for her either. I amaze myself sometimes at how long I’ll hold onto something that causes me intense pain. Actually, the part that was the most painful was the judgment I aimed at myself for losing my temper. After the second day of feeling miserable, dysfunctional and inept, I had had enough. I knew how to forgive – it was time to finally do it!

I sat down, closed my eyes and literally blasted all the love and light I could visualize into me, my home, them, their home, their dogs, our yards, and the space around us. I repeated again and again, “Thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you.”

At first I could feel myself resisting my own words, still wanting to make them wrong. But at that point my desire for peace was much stronger than my desire to be “right.” I kept on until it was about 50% love and 50% wanting to be right. Then it was about 60% love and 40% wanting to be right. I kept at it, for about an hour, until I was so flooded with love I wanted to run over to their house and apologize.

I went to the store and bought them a package of chocolates, then wrote up a card for them, apologizing and showing my willingness to do whatever it took to achieve peace with them. Then I knocked on their door, with my peace offering. The man answered the door with so much love in his eyes and immediately began apologizing to me for the dogs, before I could even say anything.

While we talked, I saw the love in their small children’s eyes, and I even felt love for the dogs wagging their tails at me through the sliding glass door on the back porch. I felt absolutely high with joy, relief, and love.

The next day the woman called me and thanked me and then the following day she left a package of yummy chocolate chip cookies and a hand-made heart shaped card, expressing how sorry she was, and wishes for a harmonious New Year together in our beautiful neighborhood that we share.

Whew! I still feel tremendous love for them. Whenever I hear sounds coming from their house, I feel warmth and comfort just knowing they are there. And, ever since that meditation I have not heard their dogs, except for one quick bark, then silence. In learning how to forgive myself and them, I healed the place in me that held that particular pocket of chaos. I am no longer projecting that particular energy out into the world and recreating the same negative scenario.

It is really quite miraculous how this works! I just have to remember that I do know how to forgive. I just have to be willing to do it.

I have also made significant progress in forgiving my parents using this method. I’ve found that long-standing issues need to be healed in layers, at least that is how it is for me. So I do Ho’oponopono sessions with “them” – the part of me that is projected out and looks like “them” – from time to time, working on the next layer that is ready to heal.

It Works Whether You “Mean It” Or Not

A really cool thing that I’ve discovered in learning how to forgive is that this Ho'oponopono technique works whether my heart is initially in it or not. When I first learned this technique I began using it with someone who I had a long-standing grudge against. It was very painful to continue to carry the negative energy toward them. Even so, I couldn’t seem to let go of the “I’m right and you’re wrong” energy. I began saying “thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you” to them over and over again, during my meditations, and at idle times during the day.

Gradually, over the course of a few days I noticed that even though I still felt a fair amount of negativity toward them, I was now willing to let go of the grudge. I continued on with the process and after a month or so I had a healing experience in meditation:

I was a hand on a huge body. I traveled all over the body and came upon the hand on the other side of the body and that hand was this person I had been wanting healing with. I experienced myself “globally,” as being the whole body, yet at the same time I could feel myself as the person called “Kai” as well as the person who was the other hand. We were quite literally all the same thing.

Since that time my feelings toward this person are mostly neutral. As I’m aware of new layers of resistance, I continue to work on them, as I learn and practice more about how to forgive.

Forgiveness Disengages the Ego

The first thing that I usually notice when I start a session of “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” is that my position, or my investment in being right and separating from the other person gets dismantled. Barriers seem to melt and the underlying truth of connection with the person shows itself. I think this is the reason this works. At the core, there is no separation between any of us, no matter what any of us has done. Holding back love creates the illusion of separation. Then saying “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” melts that illusion.

Releasing Negative Bonds

After my workshop on Ho’oponopono, I did some energy healing therapy with Judy Lekic, a medical intuitive and spiritual counselor. She taught me another aspect of Ho’oponopono, more about how to forgive. During a session with her I learned that there were was an energetic chord that connected me to a person I was in conflict with. In this case it was belly-to-belly because it was a power struggle.

With Judy’s help I became aware of it in my body then pulled it out using her energy cleansing technique. As I was doing this she had me say to this person: “I release you to your wholeness. I forgive you. I forgive myself. I give you permission to forgive me. I give you permission to forgive yourself.” Whew! This was powerful. I felt like it cleaned out every little bit of negativity there was between us. I realized this aspect is essential to learning how to forgive someone.

In some cases the negative bond may be stronger and you’ll need to repeat this process more than once. In other cases, there may be more than one chord to pull out. In still other situations, the person’s energy may be entwined with yours and you’ll need to roll them out of you. In all of these cases, I recommend saying the forgiveness words (in the paragraph above) as you’re doing this. It is quite powerful.

As stated before, as you begin the words, it’s okay if your heart isn’t totally into forgiving them. I guarantee you that if you stay with repeating the words anyway, it will be. If you feel moved to do the exercise at all, it means that your heart really is wanting to learn how to forgive, but since the negative energy is there, it will color your thoughts. Just keep at it and you’ll release the energy.

Self-Forgiveness Is Critical

Learning to forgive and love yourself is as important as forgiving another person, maybe even more important. Actually it ends up being the same thing. If I hold a negative judgment against myself it is like trying to live in a strait jacket. It stifles joy and love. When I remember that this Ho’oponopono tool is available to me, I say “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” directly to the thought form of self-judgment itself. It eventually releases the judgment, revealing the love that is always underneath as I learn more about how to forgive.

For me, practicing forgiveness for both myself and others is a constant, ongoing thing. Doing this is unlocking chains that used to guard and constrict my own heart, my own love.

How to Forgive and Bring Harmony to Groups

A powerful way to bring a group into harmony is to practice Ho’oponopono at a gathering. Just look around the room, focusing on each person at a time and silently say “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you,” repeating it until you feel love for that person.

If you are a group facilitator, you can also do this before your meeting. Go down your list of registered participants, focusing on them individually and saying the words until you feel love. It will clear whatever is on the surface of the group, so that by the time you meet together, you can more quickly get down to the purpose of your meeting. I’ve used this technique before potentially “sticky” meetings and have been delighted to see how smoothly things went.

I’ve also practiced this when I see a politician on TV, or anyone to whom I feel resistance. It reminds me that they are not separate from me and that my resistance is my responsibility to heal.

This is also a powerful thing to do for our planet and all of us beings on it as a whole. Just envision the planet and say “Thank you, I’m sorry, I love you.” Keep repeating it until you feel love permeating your being. I’ve noticed that after I do this I see much more evidence of love in the world. I hear reports of selfless people working for harmony. I firmly believe that this is a way to heal our planet. By healing ourselves, by learning how to forgive, we heal our world.

From "How To Forgive" continue on to
"Using Mind Power To Break Free Of Beliefs"

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