How To Practice Forgiveness – 6 Ways To Release Hurt & Anger

So I lost it with my 15 year old the other day. As always, I felt horrible afterwards. Of course I said, I am so sorry and she quickly said, No problem. I forgive you. But it got me thinking about forgiveness, and even more, the importance of practicing forgiveness in our lives. It really isn’t as easy as we make it out to be.

So I forgive you. Hmmm. Three simple words that are anything but simple. Forgiveness is one of the most difficult things we can ask of ourselves. But forgiveness is freedom. It is about freeing ourselves of hurtful emotions that do not serve us. Toxicity such as anger, hate, blame, shame, judgment, guilt. 

Practicing forgiveness whether it is toward ourselves or another is not about saying, I forgive you. Much like the phrases, I am sorry, thank you and I love you, they require action to back up the nice words. It requires practice.

Often when we believe to have forgiven someone (including ourselves) we haven’t. And when we do not dedicate time to the practice of forgiveness, the negative emotions build up. We grow hurt. It is impossible to heal.

So here we go. Let’s discuss the hurt, the healing, and the practice of forgiveness.

Practicing Forgiveness & Understanding Forgiveness

So what does it mean to truly forgive? What are we really asking of ourselves when we are practicing forgiveness?

Forgiveness is not about justifying or condoning what occurred or eliminating responsibility. We are not asking ourselves to be ok with what happened, especially when we are dealing with real trauma.

However, it is making the conscious choice to release ourselves from the physical, mental, and emotional suffering. Transform instead of hold on to our negativity regarding a past experience.

I like to think of forgiveness as filling the holes in our heart with love and compassion.

When we fill these holes we are able to take away something positive from the experience, even if it is simply learning to be more loving and compassionate towards ourselves.

When we fill the holes, we create a new base from which we can move forward with meaning and grace. This is the goal.

We can honestly say and feel this:

• I do not like or approve of the act, and at the same time, I release myself from the burden of my suffering.
• I am choosing to love myself by practicing forgiveness.
• I am choosing closer to healed instead of more hurt.
• And for this I am already a better version of me.

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Stored Emotions

Whatever we do not release from our mind, body, and heart builds up.

The Small, The Big & The Huge

So maybe you and your partner fight. You both feel annoyed. Hostile. The arguments are often about the small stuff. The toilet seat, disorder in the home, not listening, what to watch or where to go.

Or maybe the anger and resentment is slightly bigger. Bigger stuff – differences in opinion, differences about raising children, financial stress and disputes, feelings of not being considered or neglected.

Maybe it is really huge sources of hurt, anger, and blame. Lying. Betrayal. Manipulation. Physical or emotional violence.

All of these are reasons for emotions to build up inside of us. On a daily basis and throughout the course of a lifetime.

Whether small, medium or huge we must learn to let go. For us and for our future relationships. Because when our emotional stuff is not effectively released, it grows rampantly.

Emotions get stored inside – locked inside a closed heart – and they are unable to find their way out alone. This is why we need a practice.

Building emotional landfills leads to toxic relationships, an unhealthy way of engaging with our life, and physical and mental illness.

And even the small, seemingly insignificant stuff becomes huge. This is often the cause of those explosions you have every once in a while.

Yes, your built up and stored hurt – this is where the you completely losing it and those feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, and fear come from.

Benefits of Unstoring Emotions Through Forgiveness

Some of the benefits include:

• improved physical, mental, and emotional health
• improved self-esteem
• healthier relationships
• a more connected life

Practicing Forgiveness – So Who Are We Forgiving For?

So who are we forgiving for?

Well, if the anger or hurt is toward ourselves, it is easy. We are forgiving for ourselves.

However, the same is true when someone else has been an active participant in our emotional suffering.

We tend to believe that we forgive for another. But we are always forgiving for ourselves first. Forgiveness is really a gift for our heart. It is a process of healing what is stuck in our heart space. Practicing forgiveness allows us to release ourselves from the venom of our negativity. 

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.

Nelson Mandela

Be Courageous For Yourself

Gandhi said, the weak cannot forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. And so it is a true act of courage. Courage to reexpose our heart so we can release it.

Exposing our heart. This does not mean you have to seek out or speak to those who caused you harm. You may choose never to see them again.

The fate of the person who harmed you, whether they be alive or dead, does not matter nearly as much as what you carry in your heart. This is where our focus of courage goes. Freeing up your heart.

And if the forgiveness is for yourself, the process is the same.

You need to be courageous enough to face for your own guilt, for the harm you’ve done to yourself or to another. You need to practice letting it go.

Forgiveness Takes Time

You may never be able to fully forgive sometimes. Forgiveness takes time. Some emotions have been building up for a long time. Anger. Hatred. Resentment. We chip at it little by little, mending our heart with the compassion and love we are made of. 

Have patience. Remember forgiveness is a practice so be gentle with yourself.

6 Ways Of Practicing Forgiveness

Practicing Forgiveness #1 – Pay Attention To Your Suffering

Our pain, hurt, and suffering is often hidden. We tend to bypass it with the phrases, I forgive you. I forgive myself. I have forgiven. There is nothing to forgive.

However, we all have these emotional landfills inside of us, often caused by all the things that we need to forgive ourselves or others for.

The first practice involves acknowleging this and paying attention.

This may be extremely emotional. We may be truly acknowleging our inner turmoil for the first time – Turmoil caused by emotions that have been unassumingly living within you for a long time.

It’s important to give yourself permission to acknowledge and honor the pain. Your suffering is real and deserves to be heard, seen, and deeply felt.

The Practice Of Paying Attention

Notice where you feel the emotional hurt in your body and ask yourself, What do I need the most right now so that I can let go?

Maybe you need to slow down and stop distracting yourself, feel supported, or practice self-love.

Paying attention to the pain is the process of feeling all that you are feeling in order to prepare your mind and heart for a gradual release.

This is a practice of nonjudgmental curiosity. You notice that something is there even though you may not know exactly what it is yet.

And you sit with it so that you understand it and yourself better.

Practicing Forgiveness #2 – Name it To Tame It

Whether you’ve hurt yourself or have been hurt by another, you need to be honest. What are you actually feeling?

Is it anger or frustration? Or is it guilt or blame? Is it hate or disillusion?

Often we believe to be experiencing one emotion when we are actually experiencing another. Sometimes we are even mistaken about whom we need to forgive.

The Practice Of Naming It To Tame It

Find a quiet moment and bring your attention back to your body and mind. Sit with the recognition that you are experiencing negative emotions that are not serving you. Then get curious and be honest with yourself.

Who are you angry at? What emotions are dominating you?

Simply name the feelings that are present inside of you. This practice is called Name It To Tame It.

We must see the opponent or opposing force before we can deal with it.

Once you have pinpointed the opponent and the underlying emotion you can begin to move towards forgiveness.

Forgiveness Practice #3 – Shared Experience

We all want to appear so perfect, don’t we?

Wearing our negative emotions out in the open is like going to a fancy party in a holey tee, stained bermudas, and with filthy feet in flip flops. Unflattering. We feel completely exposed and we might as well have gone buck naked.

However, this need to appear perfect, even emotionally, is often in our mind. We do not serve ourselves or anyone else with our fake perfection.

Keeping hurt feelings bottled up only causes additional stress to your mind and body. There is no possibiltiy of forgiveness or letting them go.

As far as other people go, most people are experiencing emotions similar to yours. Different story. Same inner kinda struggle. There is nothing to hide.

Sharing our experience of anger and hurt is just as much a gift as forgiveness.

By sharing our emotions we help both ourselves and anyone else that is feeling alone. Sharing our experiences is extremely therapeutic for all.

The Practice of Shared Experience

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: “Who has earned the right to hear my story?“

Brené Brown

Even if it is extremley difficult, try to share how you’re feeling with someone you trust. Someone who is loving, compassionate. and nonjudgmental.

Maybe it is someone who you know is going through or has had similar feelings. Just the act of speaking about it begins the process of letting go.

Also, sharing helps you expand your perspective, and perhaps even see what happened through a different lens.

Practicing Forgiveness # 4 – Journaling Forgiveness

Write hard and clear about what hurts.

Ernest HeminGway

Journaling allows you to process what happened. It is extremely useful in the letting go process. You can feel the release as you write.

The Practice Of Journaling Forgiveness

Free Style Journaling

Make a list. Write down the sources of your hurtful emotions. You can write something like: [Name of the other person] I forgive you. Get specific.

Be honest. Leave the idea that there is a right or wrong way to do this behind. Just let it flow out. Everything that comes to mind.

Here are some examples of phrases to fill in.

• Mr. Smith, I forgive you for not…
• Mary, I forgive you for making me feel…
• Dad, I forgive you for…
• I forgive myself for…

Using Prompts

Guided journal prompts help you increase clarity of your inner world, including your thoughts and feelings. I like to think of journal prompts as a self-study cheatsheet.

It guides your to self-reflection and personal growth and in this case, forgiveness.

Journal prompts provide mental organization – a starting point – and help you figure out what you need to move towards emotional well-being.

Some Forgiveness Prompt Starters

Adapt these prompts so you can apply them for forgiveness towards another person or yourself.

• Who do you want to forgive? Is it another person, yourself or both?
• Why is forgiving this person important to you?
• Write about the situation that you want to forgive.
• What emotions are you experiencing? Have these emotions changed from the time of the experience?
• Is the person you want to forgive important to you? Do you want to reestablish a healthy relationship with this person? Are you able to accept this person no longer being a part of your life?
• What would forgiving this person require you to let go of? Resentment, judgment, expectations, limiting beliefs, a story in your mind?
• How is holding onto your hurt affecting you? How does it feel in your body? How is it affecting how you show up to other people and experiences? How is it affecting your life?
• How do you think you will feel after you are able to forgive?
• Does forgiving this person require you to be forgiven in return?
• Write a letter telling someone that you forgive them (you don’t have to send it).
• What will you do to start focusing on the present, instead of obsessing over the past?
• List 5 ways you can move forward from this experience (you can include some of the suggestions offered in this blog post).

Practing Forgiveness #5 – Focus On Compassion

If possible, see if you can redirect your focus from being the victim to putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.

It can help to envision them as a young child. Consider the life the person lived that led them to this hurtful action.

This is difficult to do, but remember, you’re not condoning any action.

This practice is about remembering that as humans, we are deeply impacted by our own traumas and life experiences. Our past experiences greatly impact how we show up and act in the world. This type of compassion naturally leads us to a state of forgiveness.

As you practice working with compassion to reduce the negativity stored up within you, you strengthen fundamental qualities of self-compassion, courage, and empathy.

With time, patience, and self-compassion, you may even be able to forgive the most horrific and painful experiences. And this heals you and sets you free to create a more meaningful life.

I have heard stories of mothers forgiving the person who murdered their child. When hearing this many of us may instinctively think, Never. Never, ever.

And yet, when we practice forgiveness through increased compassion we understand how this is possible.

We profoundly understand that we all have inner children, wounded children. And we all began as pure love until it was taken away or denied to us on some level.

We may begin to wonder, what happens when we offfer this wounded, inner child our unconditional love?

The Practice of Compassion – Two Letters

As with journaling, writing a letter of forgiveness is a powerful way of freeing ourselves from our built up anger, hate, blame, guilt, etc.

So try writing two letters.

THE FIRST LETTER is from the perspective of the person who caused your suffering. This person is writing the letter. Use compassion to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, including yourself if you are the person you are forgiving. Include any emotions regarding the cause of your actions, your feelings when performing the hurtful act, and how you feel now, after the act.

THE SECOND LETTER is from you written to the person you are forgiving (including yourself). Again, allow compassion to guide your words. Include everything you experienced, are presently feeling, why you want to forgive, and how you will feel once you are able to release the burden or your negative emotions.

When we become aware that we’ve forgotten the wounded child in ourselves, we feel great compassion for that child.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Practicing Forgiveness #6 – Meditation

The practice of forgiveness is very much a practice of mindfulness. The more you strengthen your capacity of being fully present, the easier it is to understand why it is so important to release the burden and forgive.

Meditation is an excellent place to begin.

Anger, resentment, hurt, guilt, and regret all fuel our negative mental chatterbox.

It can be difficult to ignore our thoughts and stories. And the more we listen to them, the worse we tend to feel about the experience.

Hurt, not released, grows.

Forgiveness meditation helps us remember that we’re all human, and the price of being human means that we are incredibly imperfect. We are inevitably going to make mistakes – small, medium and huge.

If we can cultivate this type of understanding and awareness through a regular meditation practice, then we can learn to free ourselves. We return to the present and release the past. We can forgive and heal.

The Practice of Forgiveness Meditation

How To Practice A Forgiveness Meditation

1. Sit comfortably.
2. Close your eyes and breathe easily.
3. Take a moment for your body and mind to relax.
4. Breathing gently into the area of your heart, let yourself feel all the hurtful emotions that you are carrying because you have not forgiven yourself or another.
5. Let yourself feel the pain of your closed heart.
6. Then, breathing slowly, begin to ask for and offer forgiveness by repeating phrases that bring up images and feelings that represent your suffering. The idea is that we go deeper into the hurtful emotions so that we can release them. Some phrases could be:
   • I ask for your forgiveness,
   • For the ways I have hurt myself, I now offer myself forgiveness. I forgive myself,
   • To the extent that I am ready, I offer you forgiveness. To those who have caused me harm, I offer my forgiveness, I forgive you.

THOUGHTS & SUGGESTIONS about your forgiveness meditation practice

• Be forgiving of yourself for not being ready to let go and move on. Forgiveness cannot be forced or faked.
• Simply continue the practice and let the words and images work gradually in their own way and at their own time. There is no right or wrong way to feel.
• Healing requires us to get emotional.
• Make your practice of forgiveness a regular part of your living practice. Practice your preferred forgiveness meditations on a daily or weekly basis.
• We all carry around so much hurt. The people who deny this, need this practice the most.

Guided Meditations That Support The Release Of Hurtful Emotions

• CULITVATE FORGIVENESS Guided Meditation To Forgive Yourself, Forgive Others and Heal, 22 Minutes
• TRUSTING YOURSELF Guided Meditation, 13 Minutes
• DAILY RECHARGE for Love & Energy Guided Meditation, 16 Minutes

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Start Practing Forgiveness – Start With Yourself

All of us are imperfect and act imperfectly. We will suffer and we will make other people suffer. Including the people we love. Can we accept this?

The best way to begin a practice of forgiveness is to learn how to ask for forgiveness. From the other person, and first and foremost, from ourselves.

So back to the other day when I ‘lost it’ with my 15 year old daughter.

My Self-Forgiveness Story

I was getting ready to leave. Andri was already waiting and doing it impatiently. The truth being, I was running late as usual. 

Kenia came in to speak about something troubling her. I listened, unable to multi-task. Second truth being, I didn’t know what I was going to wear. It was one of those moments when even choosing a top required my full attention. 

(Let’s blame it on the general exhaustion of the period.) 🙄 

So when Kenia left and Bianca Jade took her place only a few minutes later, I was there trying to speed it up with a mind that was crying for me to slow it down. 

It was one of those moments when I felt pulled by everyone else’s emotions and requests. When there is no apparent reason to feel overwhelmed, but you feel justified that you are.

I felt vulnerability coming on and I knew that I was about to expose an unflattering version of myself. It didn’t help that I was pretty much naked at the time. 

As Bianca Jade spoke, not doing anything wrong, my inner voice was on replay:

I need to be alone in this minute. I am late. I’m sorry, but I need to get ready in silence. Danni, please don’t say it.

“Can you please leave?” I finally said outloud.

“I am not doing anything to bother you,” she said. And she wasn’t. But that need for only me persisted. 

“Please, I need you to leave right now,” I responded in a calm, not calm tone. 

The Bad Mom Guilt

Maybe I wasn’t justified. And I didn’t express myself well. Maybe I was acting like a bad mom. Lots of bad and wrong tends to pour out when we feel vulnerable, exhausted, stressed, and rushed. 

Bianca Jade was offended. She walked out huffing and puffing, tears welling up.

I felt even worse. Wanting to push her out the door and pull her back in for a hug at the same time. 

Conflicted. In between. Guilt. Guilt. guilt.

So of course, I took a breath. 

And another. 

Threw on the same Jean shorts and top I wore the day before.

And then went to clarify as I repeated the mantra: Guilt serves nothing. (I know this!) ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. 

And so I did.

She understood my need in that moment to be treated as a human being and not just an always there for you mom. My need for compassion and space. My craziness. 

I felt better. She felt better. 

And still, my bad mom inner voice would remain. 

• You need to do and be better. 
• You need to step it up. Deal with more. 
• You are not good enough. 

With the skyscaper tall pile of laundry waiting for me on floor of the laundry room coming to mind to turn the knife of this not enoughness just a little bit more. 

I can’t even get the laundry done!

Self-Forgiveness

So yes, the person I needed to ask forgiveness from was myself. 

And this is the reality of our mind, our emotions, and our relationship with forgiveness.

Self-forgiveness is a must in the forgiveness process.

Forgive yourself for your imperfections, and most of all, forgive yourself for all those distorted expectations, perceptions and stories.

Self-forgiveness asks us to shoo away our mind and embrace our opened heart.

Repeat after me: Guilt serves nothing!!!

We must free ourselves from the belief that we will ever arrive at this impeccable human being. This is not what being fully human is about.

Fully human beings hurt others, make mistakes, and do things they swore they would never do.

And then they practice forgiving themselves.

The Self-Forgiveness Practice

So we continue to practice. Focusing on the question: Can we build more compassion starting with ourselves first?

We pay attention, share our experiences, journal, use affirmations, and meditate. We do whatever we need to do to arrive closer to healed – knowing that we most probably will never be healed. And yet, we need not be 100 percent healed to be whole again.

We remember to embrace all the parts of ourselves as we continue to be hurt and cause hurt. Over and over again.

True forgiveness is when you can say thank you to that experience.

Oprah Winfrey

And we learn. We learn how to thank, release, rise up, and move on. Better and better. More loving and forgiving. Filling the holes with our wholeness as we heal and remembering that a healed soul is a fuller soul – our ultimate goal darling friend.

So what is your relationship with forgiveness? Which forgiveness practice resonates with you? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. This is how we learn, support, and connect with one another.

ALSO IF YOU FIND THESE POST HELPFUL, PLEASE SHARE THE GOODNESS. Share on social media and/or email or message this post to a family member or friend. ❤❤❤

My heart reaching out to yours,

Resources

BLOG POSTS

• YOU ARE DOING YOUR LIFE RIGHT – HOW TO EMBRACE OUR VULNERABILITY & FEAR
• 10 DAILY REMINDERS YOU NEED TO USE TO LOVE YOURSELF, BE GRATEFUL AND FEEL EMPOWERED
• 35 PERSONAL MANTRAS TO LOVE YOUR SELF AND YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW
• PERSONAL GROWTH READING + 6 of the best books to inspire you to love better, feel more & live fully

MEDITATIONS

• THE FORGIVENESS MEDITATION To Forgive Yourself, Forgive Others and Heal, 22 Minutes
• TRUSTING YOURSELF Guided Meditation, 13 Minutes
• DAILY RECHARGE for Love & Energy Guided Meditation, 16 Minutes

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