Why Forgiveness Is Essential and the Forgiveness Manadala

Why Forgiveness is Essential & The Forgiveness Mandala: A Healing Exercise
Brought to You by Rae Luskin Nearly everyone has been hurt by actions or words of another person. These wounds can leave you with lasting feelings of anger, betrayal, bitterness or even vengeance. If you don’t practice forgiveness you may be the one who pays the price. The act, the words can remain part of you forever, but with forgiveness work, the grip on your heart will lessen and help you focus on other positive parts of your life. It does not mean that you deny their responsibility or minimize that it was wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I had to do a lot of work on forgiveness. I looked at forgiveness in three stages: First, how do I forgive myself? Second, how do I forgive those who should have protected me? Third, do I forgive my perpetrator? I want to be clear that forgiving yourself is imperative to recovery. The rest is optional. No one has lived your experience. No one is in a position to tell you what to do or think about your abuse. What you do need to do is forgive yourself. The guilt, the shame, the feelings of worthlessness all belong with the person who hurt you. Now is the time to forgive yourself. Make a conscious decision to forgive yourself for the limitations you have put on your life. If you are not leading your best life now, give forgiveness a chance. The medical community is starting to recognize the role that anger and resentment play in creating disease and addictions. Between 1997 and 2003, the Campaign for Forgiveness research funded 46 different projects on the effects of forgiveness. Dr. Larry Bergstrom, the director of the Integrative Medicine program at the Mayo clinic in Scottsdale Arizona found that the stress of being a victim may lead to physical illness. His research showed 75% of his patients with fibromyalgia were sexually abused. Dr. Fred Luskin of Stanford University, author of...