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Healing through Forgiveness: In this meditation, you’ll work on healing through forgiveness, letting go of the struggle with the pain that naturally shows up when someone hurts you, and doing more of what matters most to you.

Forgiveness is a process. It’s okay if it doesn’t happen right away, and you continue practicing this meditation. You may want to focus your forgiving first on someone a little easier to forgive. This way, you build your forgiveness muscle to forgive someone who hurt you a lot. Forgiving others also paves the way to forgiving yourself, which might be the hardest.

Forgiving Myself: In this meditation, you’ll work on freeing yourself from struggling with the thoughts and feelings you’ve experienced from the hurt you’ve caused others and letting go of holding tightly onto the past, keeping it alive in the present moment. Forgiving yourself can free you from the prison of guilt, shame, and regret so you can learn and grow from your mistakes and transgressions.

As with forgiving others who have hurt you, forgiving yourself is a process. Self-forgiveness might not happen immediately, and it’s okay. You may continue practicing this meditation on your journey. Be patient and gentle with yourself as you continue to practice self-forgiveness and cultivate a deeper sense of compassion toward yourself.

Before you start the meditation, you may want to choose an unintentional mistake to forgive yourself for before choosing a situation in which you hurt someone intentionally. Take time to find the right situation to forgive yourself for today.

Self-Compassion involves responding kindly and understandingly to yourself in situations you perceive as having failed, being inadequate, or experiencing personal hurt or suffering. Treating yourself with kindness and understanding leads to greater ease and well-being.

When you treat yourself with self-compassion, you activate emotional pathways in the brain that lead to feeling calm, peaceful, and content. Activating these emotional pathways is essential to finding balance in a stressful life, especially when a past hurt, like a mistake, failure, or bad incident, shows up and you feel angry.

In this exercise, you’ll keep a daily self-compassion journal for one week or longer if you want. To start, at the end of your day, find a quiet place to review the day’s events. In a journal, write down any situations you felt angry. Maybe you judged yourself or others that brought up anger. For example, “I got angry at a waitress at lunch because she took a long time to bring the check, and I made a rude comment and walked out without leaving a tip. Later, I felt terrible and ashamed.” For each day’s angry situation, use mindfulness, a sense of common humanity, and self-kindness to process any anger in a self-compassionate way.

Mindfulness. Bring awareness to any painful thoughts and feelings that arose during the angry situation and write them down. As you write, accept your experience and write it without being judgmental or dramatic. For example, “I was frustrated because it took a long time to get the check, and I got angry, was aggressive, and felt ashamed later.”

Common Humanity. Write down how your experience is connected to the larger human experience. This might include acknowledging that being human means being imperfect and that all people have these experiences. For example, “Everyone overreacts sometimes; it’s only human.”

Self-Kindness. Write yourself some kind and understanding words. Tell yourself that you care about yourself, writing gently and reassuringly. For example, “It’s okay. You messed up, but it isn’t the end of the world. I understand how frustrated you were, and you just lost it. I know how much you value being kind to others and how badly you feel right now. I forgive you. Maybe you can try being extra patient and generous to any waitstaff this week.”

Key points to remember when you’re feeling angry:

  • Hold your thoughts and feelings in mindful awareness. (Mindfulness)
  • Remind yourself that feeling angry is part of being human. (Common Humanity)
  • Give yourself kindness and understanding when you notice something about yourself you don’t like or when something goes wrong in life. (Self-Kindness)
  • Close your eyes and repeat the following phrases silently and gently five times:

This is a moment of pain.
Pain is a part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion and forgiveness I need.

Remember an interaction with someone that made you feel bad, hurt, or angry so you can feel the stress in your body but not get overwhelmed by it. Visualize the situation until it makes you a little uncomfortable.

Now, say to yourself:

  • This is a moment of pain. (Mindfulness)
  • Pain is a normal part of life. (Common Humanity)

Put your hands over your heart, feel the warmth of your hands, the gentle pressure of your hands, and notice your chest rising and falling beneath your hands as you breathe.

Now, say to yourself:

  • May I be kind to myself. (Self-kindness)
  • May I accept myself just as I am.

For the last one or two phrases, use whatever words speak to your particular situation, such as:

  • May I be safe.
  • May I forgive myself.
  • May I be happy and free from suffering.
  • May I safely endure this pain.
  • May I find peace in my heart.
  • May I be strong.
  • May I protect myself.
  • May I learn to live with ease and well-being.
  • May I accept the circumstances of my life.
  • May we learn to live together in peace.

Some people find writing in a journal helpful to work on their inner critic. Others are more comfortable doing it through internal dialogue. Journaling can be an excellent tool if you like writing things down and revisiting them later. The following exercise might work better if you find it difficult to write things down consistently. Doing it over several weeks can change how you relate to yourself in the long run.

Notice when you’re being self-critical. Like many of us, it may be that your self-critical voice is so familiar to you that you don’t even notice when it’s present. Whenever you’re feeling bad about something, think about what you just said to yourself. Try to be as accurate as possible, noting your inner speech verbatim. What words do you actually use when you’re self-critical? Are there key phrases that come up over and over again? What is the tone of your voice? Is it harsh, cold, or angry? Does the voice remind you of anyone critical of you in the past? You want to know your inner self-critic very well and become aware of when your inner judge is active. For instance, if you’ve just eaten half a box of Oreos, does your inner voice say something like “You’re disgusting, you make me sick,” and so on? Really try to get a clear sense of how you talk to yourself.

Make an active effort to soften the self-critical voice. Do it with compassion instead of self-judgment, such as don’t say, “You’re such a bitch” to your inner critic. Say, “I know you’re trying to keep me safe and point out ways that I can improve, but your harsh criticism and judgment are not helping. Please stop being so critical. You are causing me unnecessary pain.”

Reframe the observations made by your inner critic in a friendly, positive way. Suppose you’re having trouble thinking of what words to use. In that case, you might want to imagine what a very compassionate friend would say to you. It might help to use a term of endearment that strengthens expressed feelings of warmth and care, but only if it feels natural. For instance, you can say, “Darling, I know you drank that six-pack because you’re feeling down right now, and you thought it would cheer you up. But you feel even worse now. I want you to feel better, so why don’t you do something that matters to you, like take a long walk?” While engaging in this supportive self-talk, you might want to gently stroke your arm or hold your face tenderly in your hands. Physical gestures of warmth can activate the caregiving system when you’re having trouble feeling kindness. Which releases oxytocin to help change your body chemistry. The important thing is that you start acting kindly toward yourself, and feelings of warmth and caring will show up.

One easy way to soothe and comfort yourself when you’re feeling bad is to give yourself a gentle hug or caress or put your hand on your heart and feel the warmth of your hand. Initially, it might feel awkward or embarrassing, but your body doesn’t know that. It just responds to the physical gesture of warmth and care, just as a baby responds to being cuddled in its mother’s arms.

Our skin is a sensitive organ. Research shows that physical touch releases oxytocin, provides a sense of security, soothes distressing feelings, and calms cardiovascular stress. So why not try it?

If you’re feeling tense, upset, sad, or self-critical, try stroking your arm or face or gently rocking your body. What’s important is that you make a gesture that conveys feelings of love, care, and tenderness. If other people are around, you may want to fold your arms in a non-obvious way, gently squeezing yourself in a comforting manner. You may also imagine hugging or caressing yourself if you can’t make a physical gesture.

During difficult periods, try stroking your skin or putting your hand over your heart several times a day for at least a week.

Hand-on-Heart

  • When you notice you’re under stress, take 2-3 breaths slowly, smoothly, and lowly.
  • Gently place your hand over your heart, feeling your hand’s gentle pressure and warmth.
  • If you wish, place both hands over your heart, noticing the difference between one and two hands.
  • Feel the touch of your hand on your chest. You may make small circles with your hand.
  • Feel your belly’s natural rise and fall as you breathe in and out.
  • Stay with the feeling for as long as you like.

With practice, you’ll develop the habit of physically comforting yourself when needed, taking advantage of this simple way to be kind to yourself.

References

  1. Gilbert, P. (2010). Compassion focused therapy. New York, NY: Routledge.
  2. Neff. K. (2015). Self-compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself. New York, NY: William Morrow.