Affirmations for Forgiveness
(Secret Method for Truly Healing.)
- I’m a very forgiving person.
- I’m not perfect, so I don’t demand perfection of others.
- We’re all human beings and we’re all flawed. And that’s okay!
- Everyone makes mistakes.
- I forgive everyone who ever hurt me.
- I’ve hurt people before, and I want to be forgiven.
- I forgive my family, my friends, and everyone who’s ever caused me pain.
- I’m giving everyone a clean slate, because I want a clean slate, too.
- I don’t need to hear an apology. I forgive everyone right now, in my heart, because I want to.
- I’m not innocent. No one is. I forgive everyone, and I hope everyone forgives me.
Affirmations for Forgiveness:
Develop Your the Greatest Power!
One of the most important skills you will ever develop is the ability to forgive. This isn’t hyperbole. It’s fact.
The strongest and smartest people on earth struggle with it. The greatest sages throughout recorded history have implored us to do it.
Forgiving our supposed “enemies,” truly forgiving them to the point where we actually feel it, where we actually heal and our anger dissipates forever, is the hardest thing in the world to do.
Nonetheless, we have to do it for our health, and for our conscience. So that we can move on with our lives. So that the pain of hating someone can finally go away.
Your ability to forgive might be the truest measure of your spiritual progress.
Even good people who genuinely want to do it, and who need to do it, can’t always find a way.
They say “I forgive you.” They feel it for a moment. They want to keep feeling it.
But sooner or later, the pain and anger come flooding back in. Memories of whatever horrible offense they suffered replays in their mind constantly, and they fall right back into the old pattern of hurt, anger, and resentment.
And they suffer.
Affirmations for Forgiveness:
The Temptation to Hold a Grudge
It’s very tempting to hold a grudge. We hang on to old wounds, and use them as a convenient excuse for our own failings.
When things go right in our lives, we forget all the bad things that ever happened to us.
When things go wrong, however, even if what’s going wrong is completely unrelated to the person we’re feuding with, we turn that person into a useful scapegoat.
“This traffic sucks! I hate driving to work. I wouldn’t need to work at all if I had just pursued my dreams as a kid… I’d have pursued them, too, if not for _________!”
Holding a grudge can be a way of avoiding guilt.
Most feuds aren’t as clear cut as you being the “good guy,” and the other person being the “bad guy.” It feels like that, but few things in life are so black & white.
An honest, unbiased assessment of the situation might reveal something unpleasant, like the possibility that YOU might be to blame, at least partly. It might reveal that you overreacted, or that you misspoke, or misunderstood. It might reveal that in some way, you might owe them an apology.
Apologizing is hard. It’s awkward. It hurts. Writing the other person off forever is easier, because it means you never have to deal with them again.
Holding a grudge is the the easy way out.
Affirmatons for Forgiveness:
The Secret of Forgiveness
The secret to forgiveness is to acknowledge your own flaws.
When you admit that you, too, have a dark side, you stop seeing the other person as a horrible monster, and you start seeing them for what they truly are: another fragile human being, just like you, struggling desperately get through life.
Do you want to forgive your offender and feel better? Then stop claiming to be such a victim, so virtuous, so innocent.
No one is 100% innocent, and why would you want to be? Your innocence in this situation is actually the source of your outrage, and that outrage is what’s killing you.
Get rid of it!
We all do horrible things. We’re all flawed.
It’s okay. Everyone screws up, and everyone eventually learns.
Acknowledge Your Own Guilt
Acknowledge Your Own Guilt
If you’ve been holding a grudge against an old friend or relative, try hard to figure out some way in which you may have contributed to the problem. Try real hard. Why?
Because if you can find some way in which you were at least partially guilty, then the righteous anger that comes from being a 100% pure, innocent victim will start to fade, and you can start feeling better again.
If you’re angry about a situation in which you truly did nothing wrong, for instance, if you were robbed by a stranger, think about other situations in which you DID do something wrong.
When have you acted immorally? When have you stolen or betrayed? When have you victimized another human being in some way, big or small? The worse the infraction, the better. Why?
Because realizing that you’ve hurt people, too, enables you to relate.
When you can relate to your offenders, when you can understand and even sympathize with them, it becomes that much harder to hate them.
Affirmations for Forgiveness:
We've ALL got a dark side.
You’ve damaged people. You did it on purpose. You did it because you yourself were hurt, angry, scared, insecure, desperate, or just plain selfish.
Whoever mugged you had similar motivations.
Just as you now regret the horrible things you’ve done, one day, when that mugger has had enough time and experience to grow spiritually, he’ll regret it, too. Everyone in their own time.
Embracing your flaws takes a lot of strength. Most people can’t do it. Their self-esteem is so fragile, seeing their flaws would crush them. Don’t be like that!
Recognizing your own imperfection is how you forgive others for theirs.
Affirmations for Forgiveness:
The Method
Read these affirmations everyday for 5 minutes straight.
Do it in a place where you won’t be distracted by people or pets. Silence your phone. Set a countdown timer so your mind is free to focus on the affirmations, instead of wondering how much time has elapsed.
5 minutes.
When you sense a calmness coming over you, and the process begins to feel like meditation or like a mild form of hypnosis, you know you’re doing it right.
Read affirmations for forgiveness often enough, and you’ll break the habit of mentally rehashing old wounds every time you’re having a bad day.
Instead of cursing the people who damaged you, you’ll reflexively say, “I’ve done bad stuff, too. I can’t stay mad at them.”
Do the affirmations.
Your ability to forgive is one of the most accurate measures of how far you’ve progressed in this lifetime.
Good luck!
(If your goal is to heal family relationships, you may also benefit from reading affirmations for family.)
-Tommy