FORGIVING

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

Contents

Definitions

The Physiology Of Forgiveness

What To Do If You Cannot Forgive

Are There Logical Reasons To Forgive?

Why Is Forgiveness Important?

II. HOW TO FORGIVE

Four Steps

Why Is It Sometimes Very Difficult?

What If I Am Stuck In Unforgiveness?

Locked In Unforgiveness

Forgiveness Versus Judgment

Discernment Versus Judgment

III. RELIGIOUS ASPECTS

Can Humans Forgive, Or Can Only God Forgive?

IV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

V. THE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM AND FORGIVENESS

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I. INTRODUCTION

Forgiving is one of the most important mental processes imaginable. The Bible suggests that we must forgive seventy times seven times - Matthew 18:22. We take this to mean that forgiving is a life-long process, and very important.

DEFINITIONS

To forgive means:

1. A decision to grow in faith and trust that only God, or the Creator, understands the reasons why incidents occur.

2. To let go of hating, resenting, blaming or feeling angry toward someone, or about a situation or incident.

3. A conscious decision to give up any present or future claim to victimhood.

4. To cancel a financial debt.

5. Forgiving is also an attitude. A forgiving person is one who does not tend to judge people or situation and does not hold on to grudges and resentments.

6. Forgiving is also a special physiological process. It is the process whereby a person is freed from all ill feelings about a person or situation.

Equally important is to know what forgiving does NOT mean or imply. Forgiving does not mean:

1. Excusing the incident or situation.

2. Forgetting the incident or situation.

3. Condoning the incident or situation.

4. Pretending the incident never occurred.

5. That one must remain friendly with anyone.

6. That one must stay in a relationship or other situation with anyone.

7. Allowing others to take advantage of you, either now or in the future.

8. Acceptance or tolerance of another person or situation in your life. For example, you may have to testify against the person and send the other person to jail for life or to the electric chair for the death penalty. You can still forgive, meaning release of all feelings of anger and resentment.

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF FORGIVENESS

A client of ours who experienced severe abuse has studied forgiveness extensively in herself. She reports that forgiveness is actually a rearranging of the neural pathways in the brain. She also reports that one passes through several biochemical patterns during the forgiveness process.

These may be difficult to identify using hair mineral testing because they may occur too quickly to detect. However, she reports the following:

1. First, the sodium/potassium ratio decreases. This is a pattern that we call “into your issues”.

2. The sodium/potassium ratio then stabilizes, usually at a low level. One must feel some fatigue and often frustration and fear at this stage.

3. When one has completed the previous stage, the sodium/potassium ratio rises again and may rise too high for a time. This is often a time of anger, which is associated with an elevated sodium/potassium ratio.

4. When one has processed the anger and allowed it to subside, the sodium/potassium ratio decreases to a normal range and one is complete with forgiving the incident or situation.

She reports that one may have to go through this process a number of times if one has experienced multiple rapes or other traumas.

This process or healing cycle is helpful to know about because it can explain why one’s mineral patterns change in unusual ways for a time.

ARE THERE LOGICAL REASONS TO FORGIVE?

At first glance, when one is harmed in some way, it seems only logical to react with anger and resentment. However, there are reasons to forgive that most people have not thought of. They are:

1. The law of cause and effect. This law basically states that “What goes around, comes around”. The Bible expresses the same idea: “As you sow, so shall you reap”.

One may say that this is just blaming the victim, who already feels terrible. Shame on us for suggesting it!

However, most holy books of ALL religions on earth accept the law of cause and effect. So perhaps it is not blaming the victim and perhaps there is no victim.

This law applies to the souls. Souls live for thousands of years and inhabit many bodies. It is certainly possible that in a past time, your soul engaged in unseemly behavior, so now it is being “evened out”. One cannot disprove this point of view.

It is even possible that one is not “guilty” of any wrongdoing, but is living on earth and got caught up with the fate of the planet at this time. This is a sort of collective version of the law of cause and effect.

2. Perhaps one needed to learn one or more lessons. Facing adversity is often a rapid way to learn lessons. Hopefully, one learns lessons from all experiences, even horrible ones.

For example, the lesson might be to learn about rape, or poverty, or lying, so that in the future you can better assist others who experience the same type of trauma. It may be a kind of training exercise.

3. Perhaps what occurred was needed to help someone else. This is certainly possible. Souls help each other. And once again, it is impossible to disprove.

4. Perhaps the event or incident saved your life. This sounds odd, but you cannot disprove it. For example, if the event or incident had not occurred, you would have been somewhere else and would have been run over by a car and killed.

This is possible. The author has been told this occurred a number of times in his life.

5. The universe is mysterious. Holding on to resentment presumes that you fully understand exactly what occurred and why. In truth, however, there is much that no one understands. So holding on to resentment is actually a form of arrogance or egomania that is best discarded.

WHY IS FORGIVING SO IMPORTANT?

1. Resentment kills. Holding on to anger and holding grudges wears out the adrenal glands and the thyroid gland. Eventually, it weakens and can destroy the entire body and mind.

2. Resentment leads to compensatory behavior that will get in the way of living your life. For example, resentment often causes overeating, living on junk food or so-called “comfort food”, smoking cigarettes or marijuana, staying up late watching television, viewing pornography, or other habits people use to “forget their pain.”

3. Resentments often lead to severe frustration, hostility, neuroses and even psychoses. Neuroses are alterations in your perception of reality. Psychoses are actual breaks with reality in which a person makes up their own reality because true perception of reality is not acceptable in some way.

4. Unforgiven incidents and situations often give rise to nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, anxiety attacks or panic attacks.

These are called breakthrough disorders. What occurs is that old grudges and resentments can break through into waking consciousness when you least expect it.

Another breakthrough disorder that can occur is regressing. Under stress, a person who holds an old grudge or resentment suddenly begins to act like an immature, enraged and sometimes violent 10-year-old or even 2-year-old child.

5. Holding on to resentment and judgments ruins families, marriages, careers, and other life achievements.

6. Failure to forgive others can block one from receiving forgiveness for one’s own transgressions.

7. Failure to forgive oneself often leads to an inability to forgive anyone else.

II. HOW TO FORGIVE

FOUR STEPS OF FORGIVING

1. Desire. One must truly desire to forgive. This is essential or forgiveness will not occur.

2. Intention. Intention means focused and ongoing desire. Otherwise, desire tends to fade away and be replaced with new desires each day, week or month.

3. Allowing. Once you have set your desire and intention to forgive, one must relax and just allow the unwinding of all judgments, grudges, anger, hatred, and resentments. This is a very difficult step for some people because the feelings that come up can be very ugly or unpleasant.

Many clients report, for example, that when they choose to forgive a rape they feel like murdering people! For some people, this feeling is totally unacceptable.

One day you may wake up furious, and the next day you may just want to cry. To get through the process of forgiving, one must allow these feelings to surface. Just observe all feelings without suppressing or wallowing in them and they will pass. Observe the feelings as though they are clouds passing by in the sky.

4. Surrender. This is a continuation of allowing on a larger level. It means to relax completely, do your best to enjoy the process of forgiving, and not to try to control it.

Practicing these four steps is not just a matter of saying “I forgive you”. It is a deep psychological process. However, anyone can do it. For more on the four steps above, please read Four Steps To Action on this website.

WHY IS GIVING UP RESENTMENT AND ANGER SOMETIMES VERY DIFFICULT?

Possible reasons include:

1. Being afraid that forgiving means I must be friends with someone who I don’t like and maybe even stay in a relationship with this person. This is not true. Reread the definitions at the beginning of this article.

2. One has unusual electronic implants in the seventh energy center area of the brain. These make forgiving more difficult. We know this sounds odd, but it is true, in some instances. If you follow a complete development program and ask us about it, we can help remove these. This makes forgiving easier.

3. Resentment feeds your ego. It makes you feel so superior and better than that other jerky person. Look out for this hidden reason why many people hold onto resentments and grudges.

4. Resentment (the word means to feel again) has become part of your personality structure or identity. Letting go of anger can be frightening because it can leave a void or an emptiness in your personality. If you are not that “angry person” or that “victim”, then who are you? You are God’s child and you are God’s love in human form. That is who you really are.

5. Giving up resentment may take away your energy. This is more common than one might imagine! The reason this occurs is that you have been living on the energy of resentment. It is a real energy, although it is pathological. If you give up your resentment, you may not be able to get out of bed in the morning! This is an important reason why following a development program can help one forgive – it restores natural energy production.

6. You have been told by your counselor or someone else that you “should” remain angry and resentful about a situation or incident. You may have been told that you have “a right to be angry”. This is common psychobabble today, and very wrong.

WHAT IF I AM STUCK IN UNFORGIVENESS?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Read this article a number of times. This can help the ideas to sink in deeply and help you to become more committed to forgiveness. A psychological principle is: That to which you commit, you will achieve.

2. Ask daily in prayer that you be helped with forgiveness. The answers may come in unusual ways because prayer has a mysterious power.

We find that forgiving requires a healthy relationship with the Creator. At this time, we don’t understand exactly why this is true. However, we find that our clients who are having trouble forgiving do not like God or the Creator, and this appears to block forgiveness.

A way to change this is to say out loud “I willingly choose to forgive ______ and I ask God to bless ______.”

This can help correct your relationship with the Creator, who always loves you unconditionally, but who gives you free will and gives others free will, as well.

3. Follow a development program. This can restore your natural source of energy. It will also help you mentally process correctly. Most people’s brains are malnourished and toxic.

This program (not diets or just taking vitamins, or other programs) helps your mental clarity, your memory, and your ability to process traumas. Removing toxic metals has an amazing effect all by itself, and this is just one consequence of a development program.

To begin a program, contact one of the Approved Practitioners listed on this website. You can also begin with the Free Program. However, this is an introductory program only. Most of the time, it will not be effective enough just doing it yourself without supervision.

4. Change your perspective. For example, perhaps there was a reason or lesson for you in the incident or situation. Holding anger and resentment about it is thus not appropriate or helpful.

Ask what might be the lesson of the incident, rather than just look at how horrible it was.

5. Look into a program called Total Forgiveness. It is a Christian-based, tough-love program aimed primarily at women. It consists of a set of video programs and a seminar for those who need it. To find it, type Total Forgiveness into your computer search engine.

LOCKED INTO UNFORGIVENESS

Some people seem locked into an attitude of unforgiveness. If that is your situation, reread the section above about Why People Don’t Want To Forgive.

Also, the development program will usually help break the lock. It may require different procedures from the ones you are doing, or a more intense application of the program.

We are researching whether the newest procedure, the hydrogen peroxide implant procedure, can help with this problem and we believe it can. We recommend doing this procedure for half an hour daily for at least a month and perhaps longer if you find yourself locked in unforgiveness. For details, read Peroxide Implants For Women or Peroxide Implants For Men.

FORGIVENESS VERSUS JUDGMENT

An interesting fact is that forgiving is only needed if you form a judgment about a person or situation.

For example, if you are hit by another driver on the highway, but you do not take it personally and do not form a judgment about the person or situation, you will not need to forgive the other person. You will let the incident go easily.

JUDGMENT VERSUS DISCERNMENT

A topic related to the one above is the difference between judgment and discernment. Judgment has a “final” or “conclusive” quality about it that makes it stick in your brain. This is what causes the block in consciousness that is called resentment or hatred. This hatred, in turn, is what upsets and harms you, and creates a need to forgive.

Discerning means just noticing the truth without emotional attachment. This carries much less finality and condemnation. Discernment is more like just having an opinion. It need not be final, conclusive or judgmental. It is more “in the moment”. It may be compared to the way a ship slips noiselessly through the water, or a bird flies silently through the sky.

The bird makes decisions in each moment where to go. However, it leaves little or no trace and has little or no emotional attachment to these decisions.

This is the same as saying there is no judgment. One just keeps moving forward.

III. RELIGIOUS ASPECTS

Forgiveness is an important topic in most religions. Here are a few comments about this aspect of forgiveness.

CAN HUMAN BEINGS REALLY FORGIVE, OR CAN ONLY GOD FORGIVE?

It appears that this is not clear from reading the Bible. Here is why:

- The Lord’s Prayer states “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass upon us” – Matthew 23-24. This implies that human beings can and should forgive.

- The New Testament also contains the famous statement of Jesus, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”- Luke 23:34. This statement might imply that Jesus was not able to forgive and that only the Father can forgive.

However, it is also possible Jesus had forgiven them, but asked that they also be forgiven by the Father in Heaven.

IV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT FORGIVING

1. If I forgive, must I avoid this person, or must I remain friendly with this person? This depends upon the situation.

For example, if the one you have forgiven is an ex-marriage partner and you have a child together, you may need to stay in touch with the person for at least 15 or 20 years, and perhaps longer.

If you forgive your boss at work for some incident, and you decide to continue working at the same job, then you may need to smile a little and be polite. However, in other situations, there is no reason to keep in touch at all.

2. Must I never speak of the incident ever again? You can speak about it again, and often much more easily. However, if you have forgiven it, you will no longer dwell upon the incident.

Forgiveness is an internal letting go process. Speech is outward expression. What matters is to forgive internally. Then the words will come out properly.

If you don’t forgive, the words or lack thereof will always be incorrect, and tinged with anger and resentment.

3. Should I feel sorry for the person, or for myself, and do I need to let that go, also? Forgiveness means letting go of the person, incident or situation completely, so there is no room to feel sorry for the person, or for yourself.

In fact, if you indulge in feeling sorry for the person or situation, you will likely be drawn back into it. It usually means that you never really forgave perfectly in the first place.

Many people say, “I forgave the person or situation, but then I slipped back into anger or fear.” This usually means the person never forgave fully.

4. Is there a relationship between forgiving others and forgiving oneself? Yes. Forgiving oneself helps one forgive others. Forgiving others helps you forgive yourself.

5. Don’t I have a right to be angry if someone wrongs me? The answer may depend upon what you mean by a right. If by a right you mean a special legal privilege given by God, or by the government, then there is no right.

If, by a right, you simply mean permission, then yes, you may be as judgmental as you wish for as long as you wish. However, this does not make holding grudges and resentments a wise idea.

6. Does “following the rules” ever force us to judge? For example, when a child disobeys the rules, should not the parent judge the child and take action. Otherwise, won’t the child grow up to be a spoiled brat?

The answer is that one can teach and punish a child without judging or holding resentment. One can simply say that a rule was broken (without saying that the behavior was “bad”) and therefore a time-out or punishment is warranted. This is punishment without judging.

If a parent holds a grudge against the child for the child’s behavior or words, this is not correct and the parent needs to practice forgiveness to release the judgment about the child’s action or words.

7. Is there some act or sin so horrendous that it cannot be forgiven? Some religions say there are unforgivable sins. However, we believe that all sins can and are forgiven by God.

8. Is holding on to dislike about a crime or incident different from being unforgiving? Yes. It is perfectly okay to dislike certain behaviors. However, this should not cause an emotional and a glandular reaction in the body. If it does cause an emotional feeling or response, then one is holding on to anger or resentment about it that one needs to release.

THE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM AND FORGIVING

We consistently find that people who cannot forgive become stuck when the follow the development program. They get to a point where if they follow the diet, take certain supplements or do the procedures it brings up terrific anger or resentment.

At other times, the program brings up terrible fear and anxiety. Whatever the emotions or thoughts, they often can only be resolved by forgiveness, and nothing else. This is how important forgiving is for development.

For more details, read, Forgiving Your Parents.

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