TUESDAY: ASK FOR FORGIVENESS

Ask for forgiveness—whether you did anything wrong or not!

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Philippians 4:8

There is a problem-solving, healing process called Ho’oponopono (http://www.hooponopono.org) which originated in Hawaii and has had miraculous results.

This process works through love. Practitioners speak of love, and connecting with the original source of love that is love, to heal the erroneous thoughts within a person that create problems for themselves and others.

The healer connects his or her heart to the source (for me it would be God) and then sincerely apologizes for any harmful, erroneous thoughts that are within him or her. They apologize to their clients, saying something like, “I am truly sorry for the erroneous thoughts I have had that have caused this problem in you and in me. Please forgive me. These thoughts that need to be forgiven are out of alignment with the principle of Oneness and Love.”

This is a stretch, I know—but I was fascinated and tried it. Well golly, it works! But—you have to really enter into the “field” of love to do it. It has to really come from deep inside your heart and you have to believe that we are all connected at many levels and that what I am thinking does affect you.

Soon after learning about this process, my husband Ken and I were driving and having a fight over navigation (as men and women in cars do!). I remembered this process and for two hours, I repeated the above phrases. But I did it with an angry heart. I was snarling the words inside my head initially. (I was doing it to avoid killing him!) Needless to say, that didn’t work—but it was a great lesson.

Once I realized what I was doing, I dropped to my heart. I could feel the difference between saying the words from a place of real love and as opposed to saying them with negative emotions.

Think about the people you believe have wronged you in the past. Now ask for their forgiveness! (I KNOW…you have not done anything wrong—but were you really totally innocent? Were you pure in all your thoughts and actions with them? Did you do nothing that could do with a little forgiveness? Hmmm? Be honest now.) And even if you were completely innocent, still ask for their forgiveness. It is part of the healing process. You don’t have to ask for it out loud or in person. You can ask at a heart level as they do in Ho’oponopono.

It may help to sit quietly somewhere and maybe have a picture of the person in front of you.

First, connect with God. Do nothing else until you feel the presence of love. Once you are in your heart and can really feel love, then think of the person and say,

“I am truly sorry for the erroneous (or wrong or negative) thoughts I have had that have caused or contributed to this problem in you and between us. Please forgive me.” (If you really wanted to make this super-powerful—you would finish with a sincere, “I love you!”)

This only works, as I learned, if you really come from love and are sincere.

The other obvious alternative for forgiveness here is to gather up your courage and character, and go up to the person and ask them to forgive you. Be sincere! Or write them a note. This is also a very effective technique in most cases, but I gave you the easy way first!

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