5 Reasons Why Forgiveness Is The Doorway To Freedom

Posted On February 23, 2022March 10, 2022

Guest post by Jess X Goh: Jess X Goh is the founder of Life In Confidence. She’s a trauma coach in childhood abuse,  regenerative detoxification specialist, and galactic facilitator. Jess empowers burnt-out professionals and highly successful entrepreneurs across the globe to upgrade their identity and transform their life. Learn more from Jess X Goh and her incredible work, visit her website lifeinconfidence.

She offers free resources and healing activations on her YouTube channel.

Forgive but can’t forget. When someone breaks your trust, do you let them off the hook? Or do you hold onto what they did to you? 

Forgiveness is an experience for you to let go of blame for what the other person did to you in order for you to set yourself free from your own suffering. It requires you to engage with courage, trust, and ownership to accept the invitation.

Each invitation is an opportunity to heal what needs to be released from your mind, body, and spirit to progress in your soul’s evolution in this human experience. 

So how can you approach forgiveness when you’re ready to accept the invitation? 

This step-by-step intuitive yet practical guide is a simple summary of how you can move forward with your life and meltdown your walls to unconditional love and connection with the people around you and most importantly yourself. It’s time to start living your best life.

Forgiveness Practice 

1. Let Your Inner Victim Out

Before you have a conversation with the person who has hurt you, give yourself the time and space to vent out your inner victim. You can grab a photo or an object that best resembles that person and start telling them how you feel to your core. Give yourself permission to really blame the other person by yelling, screaming, swearing, and crying. This will allow the healing process to occur as your bottled emotions are being purged out of your system. You will feel lighter, calmer, and relieved afterward.

2. Practice Forgiveness

Now that you’re in a different frame of mind and emotional state from step 1, this is where you need to embrace humility and acceptance of the other person and the situation. Use the photo or the same object that reminds you of that person, imagine you are looking them in the eye, and start saying what you can forgive them for. Let the words come naturally from your heart as you mean what you say. 

Start your statements with ‘I forgive’ and keep continuing your list of statements until you feel you are done. You will notice you start to see the person from a place of compassion and acceptance as you keep feeling more at ease with them and the situation.

3. Find Gratitude In This Experience

Let’s move on to step 3 as you’re in a much more receptive and open state to shift your consciousness around this person and situation. This is where the magic starts to happen as you raise your energy to a higher state through gratitude. As Dr Joe Dispenza says that gratitude is a state of receivership. Use the photo or the same object that reminds you of that person, imagine you are looking them in the eye, and start saying what you can be grateful for through the lessons and insights you have gained about yourself moving forward. 

Start your statements with ‘I am grateful for you’ and keep continuing your list of statements until you feel you are done. You will notice you start to neutralize your feelings of resentment towards the person and review the person and the situation from a higher perspective.

4. Apply Yourself 

Once you have completed the first 3 steps of internal work of forgiveness, it’s time to put it to the test and approach the person who has hurt you to have an adult conversation from a place of love and consciousness. You can choose to call them or meet them face to face depending on your relationship with them and allocate some time aside to give you enough time to share how you felt about them in terms how of their behavior impacted you without pointing the finger at them and asking them questions to understand their behavior towards you so you receive closure from this experience in order to move on.

5. Self-Reflection

After the conversation, have plenty of time and space to process further insights and clarification that you received. Journal them and ask yourself these questions, “How can I do things differently?” “How can I be a bigger person if this situation comes up again?” This will prepare you for future scenarios and triggers so you’re well equipped in handling them without getting caught up in the war of blame. Learn to be an observer rather than the victim so you can strengthen your discernment to choose your words, actions and behaviors wisely.

You can apply this exercise with anyone in your life whether they are alive or deceased and you can use this with yourself. We all have a tendency to beat ourselves up and self-sabotage our success or hold us back from being true to ourselves. So why not forgive yourself and restore integrity with yourself?

Forgiveness is not a weakness, it is indeed a strength. The conditioning from the patriarchal society, our social circles, and family dynamics that are passed down from our ancestors are not systems and role models to demonstrate harmony within our relationships. They taught us to toughen up and ‘deal’ with it, just let it go and ‘forget’ about it by turning to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, food, sex, gambling, and other addictive behaviors, being emotional or sensitive is a flaw and self-expression isn’t acceptable.  Give yourself permission to surrender to a higher level of consciousness for you to come back home. That is the light that’s in your heart. Freedom is here if you choose it. 

Harvard Medical School: The power of forgiveness

University of California, Berkeley: Eight Keys to Forgiveness

Hopkins Medicine: Forgiveness: Your Health Depends on It

Mayo Clinic: Forgiveness, Letting go of grudges and bitterness

Positive Psychology: What is Forgiveness and What Are the Benefits?