The beautiful reality about meditation involves the ability to set your intention for your practice to achieve the desired result, like with forgiveness meditation. Have you been curious about focusing in on one specific aspect of your meditation practice?
It is natural to desire peace and happiness and joy within our lives. Sometimes, the world throws curveballs at you. You may feel betrayed, hurt, or forgotten by someone in your life. Have you experienced this? It is important in these times to exercise forgiveness. Utilizing and expressing forgiveness is not for the other person, mind you. It is for you – for you to be able to release any stagnant or negative energies that you may be harboring within.
Forgive others, Forgive yourself.
Forgiveness meditation is truly meant for healing your inner Self. Through forgiveness meditation, you will literally be practicing love and forgiveness. You will learn to let go of past traumas and past aggressions. Releasing these toxic and stagnant energies from our being seems to be an important aspect of our spiritual growth and progression as individual little human entities.
Why Forgive?
It is for you. All of life is inherently selfish. It is survival, simply put. The bee does not spread the pollen of a flower to simply be nice. It is simply being…a bee! But the flower does need the bee to need the flower. Without the bee, the flower could not reproduce and thus…would die. And such – the bee would perish easily without the proper sustenance of the flower´s precious nectar to last her and her hive throughout the winter.
So. Why do we forgive? It is for yourself. When we forgive, we are playing the part of the bee taking the nectar from the flower. We take it because we need it to survive, to thrive, to grow.
We do this selfishly because we know deep in our hearts that we must be wholesome, happy, peaceful and fulfilled to benefit others positively in our life. If a bee did not take the nectar from the flower, it would die. If the bee is dead – she can not spread the life-giving pollen of the flower. We need each other.
You must focus on your Self. And if you are hating others, remaining mad at others, or hateful towards yourself – then you are harboring negative energy. You are holding this black, sludge-like, toxic energy of hate and anger within your soul. It is important to let go – for you. So you can be the best dang You that you can be!
How to Practice
When you sit to practice it will be most effective for you to understand the basic beginning techniques of meditation. These techniques include basic breathing techniques, mindfulness, and mantras.
Understanding and utilizing these beginning meditation techniques will help bring you to a calm and peaceful state of mind. Once you are in this mental state it will be easier to focus on your prayer of forgiveness. It is also expected to be more effective.
It would be best before starting in your forgiveness meditation to spend at least 5 minutes practicing mindfulness meditation or to simply focus on your breath. Mindfulness, by definition, is the act of being fully present in the moment without worry or fear of the past and future. Animals do this, naturally, as far as we can tell.
Taking the time to be present in your body, spirit, and mind will give you a stronger foundational spiritual base to work from.
What do I Need to Start My Forgiveness Meditation?
In reality, there is nothing required to begin in meditation, but if you did only acquire one item you would probably be most apt to acquire a meditation pillow to sit on. It could be beneficial for you to review our Useful Meditation Gear to build a meditation space that vibrates to your frequency.
Aside from this, it is simply important to set the intention to forgive yourself or someone else you feel has wronged you in your life. It is quite simple, once we learn.
Forgiveness Prayer
You may read through and practice this forgiveness meditation on your own. You may also follow along with this guided video of forgiveness meditation:
- 1.) To begin in forgiveness meditation you will first want to find a spot comfortable either sitting or lying down.
- 2.) Start by focusing on your breath. You will find many meditations begin this way as it helps you center the mind and find balance within yourself. Focus on your breath flowing naturally into your lungs. Then simply focus your attention as you exhale and repeat. You do not want to force any extra effort into inhaling or exhaling.
- 3.) Allow your mind to empty and visualize something that you judge yourself for. Recognize the feelings you experience from thinking about it. You may be frustrated, angry, or sad towards these feelings. You may wish to repeat these phrases or something similar: ¨I forgive myself for my lack of patience with myself and with others. I forgive myself for hurting myself and others. I forgive myself for making mistakes.¨
- 4.) Now, focus externally on instances outside of you where you feel or felt mistreated. Our mind naturally holds on to these instances and will hold on more intensely depending on the intensity of the trauma. For example; being insulted by a stranger as opposed to being insulted by your son. You may wish to follow with these phrases in your mind: ¨I forgive you for your lack of patience. I forgive you for hurting. I forgive you for making mistakes.¨ Allow yourself to let go of any negative feelings you may be holding in towards this experience.
- 5.) If at any time the feelings you are experiencing become too intense you may return to focusing on your breath until your energy settles again.
- 6.) As you finish your meditation, allow yourself time to sit with your breath. On your in-breath, feel all of your negative emotions and when you exhale allow these emotions to ride out with your breath. Do this for a few moments, until you are calm.
Remember, forgiveness is for yourself. Allow forgiveness to radiate through you and open the space in your life to tackle all the obstacles and any challenges that arise.
Let Go and Forgive.
The essential message within forgiveness meditation is to let go. You are letting go of these experiences that hurt you because as you hold on you are only causing yourself more pain. More misery. Practice in your forgiveness for some time each day. As you continue in meditation you will find your unique understanding of forgiveness and how it is relevant to your individual experience. Be happy! And meditate well.
