Develop A Forgiveness Practice

I have come to a time in life where there are likely less days ahead than there are behind me, and it has taken me quite some time to realise that forgiveness does not adapt itself to our timetables or goal setting, or expectations. I have had a very varied life and experience and, like most of you, have had a great deal to be forgiven for and to forgive. I have found that the expectations created through my journeying through personal development and self-help led me to believe that I could and should be able to process the events of my life quickly, efficiently and neatly, and that the mind can always determine outcome. It has been in the practice of forgiveness that I have been blessed with the understanding that forgiveness, like all things good, true, and beautiful, is a grace and a presence which we cannot command, but we can cooperate with. This realisation dawned slowly over many years of recurring disappointment when I would find myself angry, irritated, and dejected by the fact that something I thought I had ‘dealt with’ surfaced again, not once, but many times. So, throughout this course, our only goal is to engage with the presence and energy of forgiveness and to develop the 'heartset' and tools that will allow forgiveness to become a practice rather than a goal. When we set specific outcomes or expectations around forgiveness, we can limit its restorative, healing action. Throughout the course we will be seeking to meet forgiveness on its own terms, according to its timetable and kindness. Forgiveness lives in the landscape of the heart and has no use for reasons or objectives, or for perfection. Rather, the landscape of the heart is deep with generosity, wide with unthinkable possibility, and bathed in kindness, especially for yourself. In the endeavour of forgiveness, kindness to yourself is the most important ingredient. And to have kindness work with you, you must come with no agenda. Then, it can move and breathe and live you into what you need at this time in your life. Over the next 10 days we will look at what forgiveness means to you, what it is and is not, and how unconscious beliefs about ourselves form our attitudes to forgiveness. Finally, we will spend some time working through different levels of forgiveness and learning the basis of a daily examination practice that I hope will accompany you through your life. This course is for you if you have found yourself meeting your past over and over again in recurrent patterns, if you are angry with yourself for not being able to forgive, and if you want to meet yourself with kindness, compassion. It's also for you if you want to move from the field of your mind, intention, and goal setting to the field of your heart, intuition, and receptivity. There are 10 sessions. Each session is approximately 10 to 15 minutes long. In each session we will contemplate an aspect of forgiveness, and you will be asked to journal about the experience. You will need a pen or pencil and a notebook. I will be in the classroom each day answering any questions you may have. I hope that you will join us and invite the astonishing power and tenderness of forgiveness into your life.