Hello Beautiful Souls,

Recently, many people have mentioned to me their desire to forgive someone.
I love this desire to lean-in and clear pain from our lives. This is a great way to evolve as a species.
So, here is a practice I find hugely powerful for doing just that.

This practice is a modified version of Hoʻoponopono, a traditional Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, combines with the simple and challenging practice of sitting with our emotions, and some elements of Parts Work (or Inner Child Work) thrown in for good measure.

Let’s start with the Hoʻoponopono part, and the rest will be folded in later.
Hoʻoponopono uses four basic statements:
Thank you.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
(Please) Forgive me.

You say those statements to the other person, in your mind and heart.
I use those, and I also turn them around and say them to myself in the situation, in my mind and heart.
I also say,
I thank myself.
I love you (to myself in the situation).
I’m sorry (to myself).
I forgive me.

Here’s how I do use this to create forgiveness and release old hurts.

• I think of the situation that I want to clear, the past hurt, and I feel the emotional charges around it that I want to release.
• Once I have the situation clearly in mind, body and heart (I’m feeling it deeply), then I start saying the phrases – with meaning – (in my head) to the other person(s) and to myself and notice how my feelings change as I say each phrase.
• Usually, strong feelings will come up around some or all of the phrases, and I sit with each phrase, one phrase at at time, allowing those feelings to open and be embraced.
• Sometimes it helps to interact with the scene in my head, à la Inner Child Work or Parts Work, and for instance I’ll have a dialogue with myself or the other person(s) around the phrase, like all of the ways that I love them or why I forgive them, or what I’m sorry for. Sometimes I’ll interact physically like hugging or holding myself or the others or recreating the scene entirely to have a different flow and outcome.
• The caveat with this last part is that it’s much more useful to work with the emotions than the mental constructs, so I focus much more on the feelings and only go into the story, the visuals, as an add-on overtop – if they’re flowing from the emotional layer and not if I’m attempting to change the emotions via the story. In other words, do this from the heart and not the mind. The mind can imagine all kinds of things without the rest of you being on board. Not useful. Always stick to feeling the feelings, accepting those, letting them be here, and letting their charge release via your willingness to feel them as the most important part of this practice. The rest is mainly fluff to help you feel, and then to help your mind let go once your body has. Yes, your mind is very important, but focusing on your emotions (in your body) is more important for releasing emotions. In other words, focus on the body, the feelings, the emotions, and then add the mental clean up afterwards like the cherry on top.

For example, if I think about the time that my mother gave away my favorite doll when I was a child, and bring that hurt to the surface… I feel it in clearly in my body. Then I say the first sentence that comes to mind and notice what I feel when I say it…

I imagine the situation, and standing next to my little self and saying, “I love you.”
Then I notice how I feel when I say that….
Ok, the little me in that situation, wants a lot of love here, so I sit with that feeling of loving her in that situation. I might pick her up and hold her. I might simply stand there next to her enveloping her with love. I do this, feeling her hurt and my love, as long as it feels like it’s wanted, as it feels right to do.
I feel the intensity of the hurt.
I feel the softness of my love for her, for myself in that situation.
At some point the hurt will subside or change significantly.
Shew.

Then, once I feel like I’ve felt as much as I can with that phrase for now, I move on, and say the next sentence that comes to mind and notice what I feel when I say it…
I imagine saying to my mother as she’s standing there having just given away my doll, “I forgive you.”
Nope, that doesn’t feel good. I’m not ready to do that yet.
At this point, I can either sit with how it feels to not want to forgive her, or move on to another phrase that may help me open up to forgiving her.
In this case, I’m moving on to the next sentence. I’ll come back. I’ve done this enough to have the sense that doing other phrases first will make this one easier later.
(Otherwise, I would sit with how terrible I feel when I say, “I forgive you,” letting that pain be here, feeling it fully, letting it bloom open and express…
and eventually subside and change.)

What comes next to say is, “I love you.” to her.
Ok, that brings up a lot of anger and sorrow. That feels good to sit with, like this is ready to be felt.
So, I’ll sit with the anger and sorrow until they subside or change significantly.
I’ll may say, “I love you.” several times before moving on, to make sure the feelings have shifted around this phrase…
Ah, much better.

Next phrase that comes is, “Thank you.” to her.
“Thank you.” feels right to say.
I feel to thank her for many things, that have nothing to do with this particular situation.
Then, can I thank her for giving away my doll? Yes, actually. I learned a lot from that situation. A lot about her, about me, about breaking trust, about agency, about what happens when I don’t stand up and say no when I really care about something, about heartbreak, etc..
Now anger and heartbreak arise when I say, “Thank you,” so I sit with that.
Eventually, this one is done, too. Great.

Next, is “I’m sorry (to me),” and so on.

And I keep going like this through all of the phrases, and see what comes up with each. This can take a while, so I may not get through all of them in one sitting. Sometimes even if I do get through them all, I will come back and do it again and see if anything new is here… some phrases will have no charge, and some might still have some or something new will have been uncovered that benefits from this practice.

Also, note that other situations that connect with this one might pop up as you move through, and it’s good to decide whether to park those for a separate sit, or if you have the time and bandwidth to do them all now. Sometimes it gets overwhelming to do many situations at once, and sometimes it’s a great relief. Feel through it.

Finally, it’s good to keep it simple, and stick to these original phrases and one situation at a time for the first few times until you get used to how it works for you. Then change it as much as you want to make it work best for you. Another caveat, notice if there’s something that you want to avoid. That’s helpful information, and likely something that has some juice for you if you allow it to stay.

Ah, and when I first started it was weird to be saying these phrases to myself, so here are some ways to think about the phrases as you’re saying them. It may help to remember that you (and the other person(s)) did the best that you could at the time.
I’m sorry (to myself, that I did these things in the situation).
I love who I was (in this situation). I love who you were (in the situation).
I forgive myself (for what I did in the situation). I forgive you (for what you did in the situation).
I thank myself (for what you and/or I got out of the situation). I thank you (for what you and/or I got out of the situation).

I hope that helps.
It’s helped me immensely over the years.
Personally, I use it for all of those pesky thoughts that come up over and over, past hurts that my mind likes to serve up periodically and say, “Hey, are you ready to let this go, yet?”
“No? You just want to ruminate on them? Ok, I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Only, now, since I created this practice for myself many years ago, I know what to do.
Painful thoughts don’t plague me anymore.
Stops them dead in their tracks.
Releases the charge, and my system doesn’t need to serve them up for me anymore.
Such a relief.
LOVE it for that.

May you get as much and more out of it than I have.

Happy Forgiveness,
Eléna