Here's a meditation for forgiveness.
This is a meditation that includes a lot of visuals.
And so I invite us just to close our eyes and just begin to breathe deeply,
Breathing in and breathing out and just feeling ourselves relaxed into this moment.
Our intention today is to forgive,
Maybe not everything or everyone.
It might be that our intention is to forgive just a little bit or to forgive one person or to let go of a small amount of resentment,
But we're going to do that together in a visual experience that invites us to feel the release and relief of just letting go,
Of just letting go.
Now if seeing things is not our strong point,
That's not a problem.
In this meditation,
As I invite us to imagine a scene or an object,
We each get to do that whatever way works best for us.
So we might see a visually very detailed scene or we might just sense it or we might just feel ourselves in that scene.
Whatever works best is just right for each one of us.
And so we get about doing that now.
So as we continue to breathe and feel ourselves relaxing,
We feel the intention rising up in us to forgive,
To let go,
Whatever it might be.
To let go of resentment for something long ago or just recent or maybe even a few moments ago.
We allow that intention to be with us.
We imagine the person or persons who were involved,
The feeling within our body about this resentment that we have,
This unforgiveness.
We imagine where it is in our body.
Is it in our heart space?
Is it in our belly?
Is that where we're feeling it most?
If it had a color,
What would that color be?
It might be a collection of words that someone said or actions that took place.
Whatever they might be,
Let us just imagine it all very clearly.
And with each breath now,
Let's begin to see the events,
The words,
The activities,
Just going into a little white bag that is in our imagination.
A little sack that's open at the top and receiving all of the resentment,
All of the negative energy,
All of the ideas and thoughts that we know are filled with anger and disconnect.
And with every breath we breathe,
We're seeing these images,
Words,
Actions,
Energies going into this sack.
And eventually that sack is full and we can feel a bit of a relief possibly from the letting go of this resentment.
And we noticed that there's a tie at the top of the sack and we tie it closed with a knot or a bow,
Whatever serves.
We tie it up and upon looking up,
We see that we are suddenly standing in a big field with a huge grassy area.
Maybe there's other scenes around it,
But the grassy area is big enough that there is a ginormous hot air balloon and the hot air balloon is deflated and it's sitting there on the ground.
And we can feel the invitation to pick up our bag of resentment and walk over to the balloon and just put the bag in the uninflated balloon.
This is another act of continuing to let go and so we feel a relief and a release as we place our bag in that hot air balloon and step away.
We step away from the balloon and from the basket and the minute that we step away,
We see the balloon begin to inflate.
But our bag of resentment has somehow managed to stay inside this big balloon and so it is in there just floating around and we can sense that it stayed in there.
It clearly hasn't fallen out and we step away and we see that the hot air balloon is inflating and inflating and inflating,
But it's hanging to the ground.
It's stuck to the ground at four corners where the basket is.
There are big ropes that are anchored to the ground and the hot air balloon is filling up and filling up and filling up and wants to float away,
But it can't float away because it's anchored to the ground.
And so we take a deep breath and we feel our willingness to set it free.
And as that willingness kicks in,
That willingness to let go,
To set it free,
To release our resentment,
We notice that suddenly on the ground next to us,
There is just the perfect right tool for us to cut the ropes that have found that hot air balloon.
So whether it's an ax because the ropes are really thick or a pair of scissors that can easily cut,
They're right there and we pick them up and walk over to one of the ropes and feel ourselves with great joy,
Cut,
Chop,
Or disconnect that rope from that anchored point.
And we feel even more relief and release pouring through our being,
Pouring through our body,
Pouring through our mind.
And we take a deep breath and we wander over to another rope,
The second rope and using our handy dandy tool,
We once again,
Chop or cut or sever the tie.
And suddenly the second rope is no longer anchored to the ground.
And the hot air balloon is,
Is wanting to let go.
It's wanting to rise up,
But there are two more ropes.
And so we continue around the balloon,
Around the basket to the yet the third rope and we chop or cut or sever that rope and feel the relief of that.
And now there's just one rope holding this balloon,
Walking up to that last rope,
Feeling our willingness to really totally let go of this resentment of this unforgiveness of this that no longer serves us.
We chop,
Cut,
Or sever that final rope and feel the relief just pouring through us and out of us.
As we sense that hot air balloon,
Just beginning to rise,
Rise and rise.
And we watch it,
Watch it rising into the sky,
Floating away in whatever direction feels best to us.
It floats away and continues to float and float and float.
And as it gets farther and farther away from us,
We can feel even greater relief within our being,
Knowing we are done.
We are complete and we are letting this go.
We surrender it up into the universe,
Into the sky,
Into the eternality and with it finally disappearing from our sight,
We say,
Yes,
We are complete.
We let it be.
Amen.
You
