48 - Guided Meditation for Forgiveness and Release

This Guided Meditation for Forgiveness stands alone and also supports the previous podcast on Forgiveness and Awakening.  In it you are guided to relax, picture the person that you want to forgive, feel what comes up for you, let it burn off until you are no longer affected by those bad actions of the other.  From there what is left to forgive?  You are free.  They are recognized as having the problem rather than you.  At the same time you do not condone the malign actions of the other and implement appropriate boundaries if necessary.  If you wish to continue a relationship with this person you do so from a freer and clearer place.  Do not drive and only listen when you are sitting or lying down fully attentive.  You can stop anytime if this meditation arouses too many deep feelings.  This is not psychotherapy.  If you ever feel it would be helpful to you, please consult a psychotherapist.  

These podcasts are here to support your personal path of awakening whatever that might be. I feel they are most powerful when listened to in sequence from podcast one forward because each is built on the last. Though they, also, all stand on their own. If anything does not resonate, please disregard it and follow your heart. All my podcasts and website are free. Enjoy!

Though I am a psychotherapist, and these podcasts are offered to be spiritually helpful, they are not psychotherapy. If psychotherapy is ever needed, please reach out to a psychotherapist.

www.williamecooper.wordpress.com for more support. You may, especially, enjoy the short contemplations and the resource page which gives you some supportive material.

Transcript

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Hello, this is William Cooper. Welcome to Awakening Together, Relaxing Into Happiness. How are you doing this week? I trust well. Today I'd like to do a guided meditation with you, and although this guided meditation stands on its own, it actually really goes well with the podcast before this, which was Forgiveness and Awakening. So if you haven't listened to that podcast, you might want to before this one or after, either way. As we did talk about in the last podcast and really most all of the podcasts before, when you feel something inside of yourself, these are our feelings. That's your feelings. Nobody else is inside your body except for yourself. So when something happens in life, it shows you what you still need to work out. It's not so much about the other person as it is about me. What's upsetting me? How am I upsetting myself? Because I'm the one that's creating those emotions. And when I create those emotions, I often will blame the other person. Yes, I'm not saying they didn't do a horrible thing. They probably did, but nonetheless, it's my emotional reaction that I'm living with. That's upsetting me day in, day out. They've harmed me one time, two times, three times, but every day I can't let it go and I'm beating myself up, playing it over and over. Maybe I've been holding on to something for decades and I never resolve it because I'm too busy thinking about them and wanting them to change or them to apologize. When I need to let go of what I'm harming myself with, my emotions, my perspective, this doesn't mean that you're condoning what that person did. Again, it may have been a completely horrible thing they did. So you're not justifying it, but rather than beating yourself up, you can just look at them and think, wow, they are hurting inside or they've got some real problems, but that's them. They have the problems. Why suddenly have you made it your own? And now we're at a situation where we need to forgive somebody. Really, what we need to do is drop our self-harm over the situation. This also doesn't mean this forgiveness practice that you need to interact with this person. Maybe you do want to, but maybe you don't. Maybe you need to put up a boundary and stay away from this person, especially if they truly are harmful. This is simply about you healing, you letting go. And again, that last podcast that I did on forgiveness and awakening would be a good one to listen to with this podcast. So having said all that, I'd like to say this would not be the podcast or guided meditation to listen to if you're operating a car or a heavy equipment or really doing anything, because I'd like you to focus on what's going on inside. And with your eyes closed, you don't want to be driving. So also at the end of this podcast, I'm just going to let you continue for as long as you'd like. So I'll start off the podcast, guide you along in this guided meditation for forgiveness. And once you're going and once you're deepening in it, I'll step aside and let you continue as long as you like. When you finished, when you feel like that's enough for today, you can go ahead and take a moment, let go, relax, and then feeling refreshed and good. You can open your eyes and be completely aware, completely awake, and completely connected to those things that you feel and have a wonderful day knowing that you've healed. You've healed at least some. This may be a process. If this is a big one, it could take a while. You might need to do this meditation a number of times before the structures that you've built inside of yourself, the tension and on top of the tension, the emotions, and on top of the emotions, all the incessant thinking and blaming and all of these things that often go along with hurt, fear, or anger that then require me to forgive somebody about that thing. That's that I'm using to generate all those emotions. It might take a while for them to relax out of your system. So give yourself all the time that you'd like or need. Okay. Well, if you're ready, let's get started. What I'd like you to do is take a deep breath, close your eyes and begin to relax. Begin to let all the muscles in your body relax all the way from the top of your head down through the tips of your toes. Just relax and feel how good that feels. You deserve that. Letting go. That's your natural state anyway. So let go. Relaxing, relaxing into happiness, relaxing into peace, relaxing into your own awakening. Let yourself relax. And as you relax, let all the muscles in your scalp go loose and limp and very relaxed. Feel how good that feels. Relax down through your forehead. Let all the muscles in your forehead go loose and limp and very, very relaxed. Let it feel good. Just soak it in down through your eyes. Yes, your eyes work quite hard. So let them rest and relax. Feel how good it feels to let all the small muscles around your eyes, relax and let go. And how about the muscles in your jaw? This is a place where we often carry tension and stress. So let your muscles in your jaw go loose and limp and relaxed. Let all the muscles in your jaw relax. All the muscles in your face, relax down through your throat. Let the muscles in your throat go loose and limp and relaxed. Your neck down into your shoulders, deeper and deeper. Relax, feel how good that feels and soak it up. Just soak it up down through your shoulders and your upper arms, your elbows, your lower arm, down through your wrists and your hands, your fingers. Deeper and deeper. Relax. Let all the muscles in your chest relax, release. Feel how good that feels down through your solar plexus, your stomach. Relax, deeper and deeper. Relax down through your hips, the middle of your body, down through your lower body, including your thighs. Let them rest. They carry you all day long. Let them rest and relax. This is your time for healing, for resting, for relaxing. Relaxing into your deeper awakening. You're doing such a good job, step by step, down through your knees. And that feels good. Notice how your knees feel good when you relax them. That joint feels so good. Down through your calves, deeper and deeper. Relax your ankles and your feet. Let all the muscles in your feet rest. Relax and release. Your toes, deeper and deeper. Relax. Let all the muscles in your toes rest and relax. As you go deeper and deeper, relax as relaxed as you'd like to go. Deeper and deeper relaxed. And in a few moments, I'm going to count from three down to one. And when I reach one, go twice as deeply relaxed as you are now. If you'd like, twice as deeply relaxed. Three, two, one. Twice as deeply relaxed. Feel how good that feels to let everything go. You don't need that tension. You don't need that stress. There's no law that says you have to hold on to it. Feel how good it feels to let it go. Deeper and deeper relaxed. Once again, twice as deeply relaxed as you are now. Three, two, one. Deeply relaxed. And from this deeply relaxed place, you've been carrying a burden. Somebody has bothered you deeply. Somebody that it would feel good to forgive. Because it would open your heart. It would relieve you of the pain. It's not that they didn't do something that they shouldn't have done. Maybe they've been very mean to you, or bullied you, or stolen from you, or been extremely disrespectful, or they've lied, or they've cheated. They probably have done those things. Maybe you know for a fact, yes, they have. So we're not making that right. We're not justifying it. But notice you've reacted to what they did, because they're the ones that have the problem. Okay, that's true. But why are you suffering? They have the problem, yet you're beating yourself up over this. You're holding hurt, or fear, or anxiety. You're doing that, and it doesn't feel good. So, what I'd like you to do is picture that person. Be with them a bit, and notice what they do. Recall what they've done to you. Let it bring up the reactions, just naturally. If they've cheated you, feel how that feels. Or if they've harmed you, feel how that feels. You probably feel that all the time. So let yourself feel it, and notice that these are your feelings. Take a few moments with that. And what I'd like you to do, and then I'm going to step aside and let you continue as long as you'd like. I'd like you to be with this person in your mind's eye, in your heart, not trying to forgive them, not trying to condone them, not trying to do anything. Simply feel all of the feelings that you bring up in you, all of the ways you're reacting. Feel those feelings. And as we've talked about before, and I'll talk about now, as these feelings come up, as you place your awareness on these feelings, they will admit pain. They will emit hurt or fear, because that's what these structures are made of that you have built. And they're like ice cubes. And as you put your awareness on them, as you feel them without getting involved in them, simply experiencing them, you'll experience the pain and they'll start to melt. They'll start to release the energy that they're made of, that you've constructed them with. You constructed them with pain, hurt or anger, blame, whatever that feeling is, they'll start releasing it. And how will you know that it's being released? Because you'll feel it. And it doesn't feel good because you've loaded a lot of pain into these emotions, perhaps. So feel them, let them release, let them melt, let them burn away. And you'll see them melt. They'll melt like a snowball on a warm skillet, just melting away. It'll happen naturally. Let them expend themselves like a knotted up rubber band. When you let go of one end, it just spins and spins and spins, releasing all of its energy until it's loose and limp and relaxed. Let your emotions heal like that. If any of this is too intense, and you're not ready for it, then you simply open your eyes and you'll be relaxed, refreshed, and you'll feel good and you just stop. Simple as that. But if you can be with your feelings, be with them. If you can, if it's safe, be with them. If it's not, just open your eyes and you're you're out. You're safe. Look around the room and you'll see you're safe. Otherwise, stay with your feelings. Let them expend their energy. Let them melt. And as they melt, you're free. You're free when they've released, they melt away. And you'll notice the deep sense of peace and calm comes upon you because strangely enough, as we've discussed before, that's what these feelings are made of. They're peace and calm that have been twisted into anger or hurt or fear or blame or shame or whatever you've done. So let them melt away. And once they have, you look at this person that has harmed you. And there's nothing to forgive because you're not holding anything. It's gone. It's melted. It doesn't make them a good person. It just means you're not carrying a grudge. It doesn't mean that you'll want to be with this person because they've revealed themselves possibly as harmful. So you stay away. But if it's a relationship that you'd like to foster, now you can come back to it with an open heart. And you can look at this person without all the filters of hate or fear or anger. You just look at them as a hurting person. What do they need? They're striking out at you because they're hurting. It's not about you. You're fine. You're whole. You're healed. What do they need? And you be with them. Look at them. Even if they lash out, sure. Step to one side. Get out of the way. Don't let them hurt you. But emotionally, they can't land any punches because it's about them. And you're fine. You're relaxed and peaceful. So I'd like you to take some time with this. Take some time with the old hurts. Picture what they've done. Be with that person. And let all the old hurts burn away. And then be with that person without the hurts once they have burned away. This may be a multi-part process for you. And perhaps you'll do this a number of times until you get to the last part where you're with the person free and happy. On your side, they may not be free and happy, but you will be. Take all the time you want. And take all the time you want today with this guided meditation. And when you're finished, you'll be able to open your eyes. Feel rested. Very rested. Relaxed. Feeling so good for the healing that has happened inside of you. Rested, refreshed, relaxed, and healed. So, enjoy the rest of this meditation for as long as you like. I look forward to talking to you next time. Take care.