Seven Steps Of Forgiveness

Not "Why?" but "Now What?" Seven Steps of Forgiveness with Josh Reeves

When something painful happens, people often say, “I’m sorry.” It’s hard to explain how the pain doesn’t stop—it keeps burning inside. What we truly need is help putting out the fire. Instead of asking why it started, the better question is how to put it out. Put out the fire by applying the seven steps of forgiveness.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

My message to you this morning is from why to now what?

Seven steps to forgiveness.

And the first step to forgiveness is feel the pain.

Doesn't sound fun,

Does it?

You got to feel the pain.

Someone broke your trust.

Someone betrayed you.

Someone didn't honor you for the light and the precious being that you are.

That someone may have been another.

It may have been yourself.

I am so sorry.

I am so very sorry that that happened to you.

I've learned this past year especially that pain is not a straight line.

It doesn't have a clear beginning,

Middle,

Or end.

It orbits in the cosmos and I come back around it again.

It changes and transforms as I change and transform.

But the essential thing I would tell you about forgiveness today is it's not a one-time act.

It's a regular practice.

Forgiveness is an ongoing practice.

We've got to feel the pain.

However,

If your pain only stays in the why,

You'll never heal it.

You'll never move past it.

And yet you have to acknowledge that it's there.

I have two shows that I put on in my mind.

The first I call Judge Joshie.

It's a wonderful show.

It's where I put certain people in my life on trial in my mind and prosecute them for their crimes against my dignity and well-being.

The other show is a kind of what if wherein I like to imagine things happening the way I would have liked them to have happened as opposed to the way that they really did.

Both of these shows are absolutely entertaining and totally useless to my well-being and healing journey.

It's not until we move from the pain and why,

Which is where we need to start,

To now what that healing can begin.

The thing that perhaps impresses me more than anything else about the human spirit is the ability to transform pain into healing,

Pain into resolve,

Pain into determination,

Pain into transformative courage,

Pain into the becoming of the profound and emphatic truth of who you are.

You have that in you.

Did you know that?

It is incredible to see how so many people can take something like pain and transform it into something beautiful.

I think we underestimate this in the arts.

Just how much beautiful art,

Be it a song or a painting,

A work of writing,

Can come from the deepest pain and create the most transformative healing.

And you,

Yes you,

In your life have taken pain and walked through it and transformed yourself into someone even more beautiful,

More powerful.

But you've got to feel it first.

You feel the pain and you move to the second step of forgiveness,

Which is you've got to tell the story.

You've got to tell the story.

And again,

This starts in why.

I have to tell the of what you did to me,

Of what I allowed to be done to me,

About what happened.

I have to be present to the pain.

But here's the trick.

When we're telling the story about why,

Know that it's never the truest story.

Not saying it's not factual,

But it's not the whole story.

The whole story doesn't happen until we move from why to now what.

If the story doesn't include your wholeness,

It's not a true story.

Many of you know that my family has walked through divorce this year.

It's been very,

Very painful for me.

Norman Lear has my favorite memoir title,

Even This I Get to Experience.

I have a rule in ministry that if you're in story about something,

Don't talk about it from the pulpit.

Therefore,

I may never talk about it.

But I want you to know that that's something that I've walked through and my family has walked through.

I'm so grateful to each and every one of you for keeping it in confidence.

And what I mean by that is it's not a secret,

But it's sacred.

Help us by keeping it sacred and knowing the highest truth and well-being for myself,

For April,

For Gavin,

And for Nancy June.

Gavin works here and my daughter is basically the mayor of Mile High Church.

So you can support them by just letting them be the incredible people that they are here and just surrounding them with love.

They don't need to talk about it or anything like that.

They just need to be uplifted in love.

So thank you for doing that.

As much as I'm not here to ever perhaps talk to you about the why of my divorce,

I can speak to you about the pain of it,

About the pain of my experience.

And I know so many of you have walked through that pain too.

Not long after the process began,

I was in the second week of Beyond Limits class,

Which it's not too late to join because week two is on Tuesday.

And I was participating in the exercise I was facilitating and I wrote,

I purged my codependent fear of rejection and I learned to speak my human truths grounded in spiritual reality.

I purged my codependent fear of rejection.

This is an affirmation,

By the way,

An act as if.

And I learned to speak my human truths grounded in spiritual reality.

Do you know how hard that is?

That's where my work is.

It's very hard to say.

I feel betrayed,

Discarded,

Disposed of.

And I know everything is working towards my highest and best good.

It's challenging to say my heart is broken and I am committed to living each day in the wholeness of who I am.

It's challenging to say I feel all alone,

Isolated,

And I am the most supported person I know.

And I am never alone.

We are that evolved beings that can hold these dual truths.

But all this stuff I'm saying about things working for my highest good and living in my wholeness and that I'm never alone,

They're just platitudes and cheap cliches if I can't walk into the story of my human experience.

It's the honoring of your humanity that leads you to the spiritual realization.

If you just spout out the so-called spiritual magic spell to start,

It's insincere.

It's not authentic.

It's not you.

And it will not grow in you.

We have to accept that human part of us first,

Which means we tell the story.

But in the why,

It's only part of the story.

It's not until we get to now what that the true story begins to unfold.

Because if it doesn't include your wholeness,

It's not the whole story.

When we embrace our wholeness,

It's then that that healing begins.

It's then that the forgiveness starts to take care of itself.

Step one,

Feel the pain.

Step two,

Tell the story.

Step three,

Release them from their role.

Release them from their role.

I know this may not apply to everyone's forgiveness journey,

But for so many of us,

Someone said they'd fulfill a role for us,

Or we expected them to fulfill a role for us,

And they failed and were pissed.

Right?

Or we ourselves did.

Anyone here grow up without the perfect parents?

Anybody?

I remember being in my early 20s and kind of struggling with this idea that my parents were not the perfect parents.

And I had judgments for them about that,

For not being the perfect parents.

And I don't know by what magic it occurred,

But it occurred to me that,

Josh,

You need to release them from their role.

You need to release them from their role.

And it was an amazing experience to not see mom and dad,

But to begin to see Mike and Lori.

And the first thing that happened is I became incredibly fascinated by Mike and Lori.

I wanted to know everything about them.

The second thing that began to happen is I,

And this is just me in my experience,

Was easily able to forgive them for any so-called wrong or judgment I had about how they were showing up for me in a bad time.

Because I was no longer comparing them to the perfect mom and dad that they weren't.

And I saw them for the human beings that they were,

The level of awareness they were at at the time,

And that they were doing their best.

The third thing that happened is I fell madly in love with Mike and Lori.

And the fourth thing that happened is no longer did I want the perfect parents.

I wanted my mom and my dad and was so grateful for them.

Again,

The forgiveness isn't a one-time act.

We have to continue to move through that.

But when we release someone from their role,

We can immediately encounter their humanity.

And we can restore their dignity in our own consciousness.

And we can begin to move on from our lives.

Especially in those deepest relationships,

When we expected someone to fulfill a role and they didn't,

We don't realize that we sometimes cut off anyone from giving that to us.

It's one thing to say,

My mother never loved me.

It's another thing to say,

My mother never loved me,

And so I have never received love.

Because we're so stuck in that not getting it.

But when we can open back up to the universe,

To life,

Providing for us the highest and best people to fulfill those roles,

We can let that love in.

And we can take all that love that,

Yes,

We've been too afraid to give.

Too afraid to give that it may be taken for granted or dismissed or rejected or not properly processed.

We get to give and grant that love again.

Healing,

Byproduct,

Forgiveness.

Byproduct of that,

Grace,

Well-being.

Step number four,

Articulate your needs.

Articulate your needs.

May not be true for all of us,

But I'm willing to wager just a little bit that in the blow-up that led to your need to forgive,

That you may have just forgotten a little what your needs were.

And taking the time to articulate that.

Is that resonating?

Does that sound true?

You know,

Why in my moments of greatest struggle do I so often abandon myself and not take that time to articulate my needs?

Part of the forgiveness process,

Whether it's at someone else or yourself,

Is saying,

I'm going to take time every day to articulate what my needs are.

What do I need right now?

I need to be heard.

I need to be hugged.

I need to accept myself as I am.

I need to accept that I do not accept myself the way that I am.

I need to vent.

I need to be known,

To be actually seen.

I need to be uplifted.

I just need to let my hair down and relax.

What do you need right now?

And to recognize,

And this is where the courageous part of our teaching comes in,

That the only person who's responsible for seeing that your needs are met when you are an adult is you.

When you are an adult,

It's you.

We can't wait around as grand and wonderful as the universe is,

Thinking it's going to read our minds and know what our needs are.

I love an exchange that the psychologist Harville Hendricks once had with a client named Walter.

Harville wrote the popular book,

Getting the Love You Want,

Many decades ago.

And he talks about working with this man named Walter.

And Walter is complaining that he doesn't have any friends.

He's sad and he's lonely.

And Hendricks has had about enough of it.

He's starting to get annoyed.

So he decides to take another approach with Walter.

Walter,

I said with a sigh,

Do you understand why you don't have any friends?

He perked up.

No,

Tell me.

The reason you don't have any friends is that there aren't any friends out there.

His shoulders slumped.

I was relentless.

That's right,

I told him.

There are no friends out there.

What you want does not exist.

I let him stew in this sad state of affairs for a few seconds.

Then I leaned forward in my chair and said,

Walter,

Listen to me.

All people in the world are strangers.

If you want a friend,

You're going to have to go out and make one.

In the same way,

We can't think that the universe is just going to know what our needs are.

It has imbued us with the ability to articulate what that is.

And when we can articulate our needs,

We can learn to give them ourselves by asking for support,

By taking care of ourselves,

By being willing to then engage in this creative universe to make those friends,

To make those connections,

To have that healing.

But if we're only staying in Y,

We're only staying in that past pain.

We're never moving forward.

We're hitting again and again our heads at the end of a chapter that is sad and lonely,

Missing out on turning the page into the new chapter that's ready to bring us into a greater way of being ourselves,

To articulating our needs and getting our needs met.

Step five is redefine your boundaries.

Redefine your boundaries.

I'm willing to wager a little bit as well,

Not that not having the right boundaries or there's no reason for anyone to do anything bad to you at all,

Ever.

But when things get blown up in our lives,

It's an opportunity to say,

Where do I need to redefine my boundaries here?

Boundaries aren't the walls that keep people out.

They're the guidelines that help us grow closer with people,

That help us build trust,

That help us build intimacy and closeness,

Which is how we grow and have transformational relationships.

The more boundaries you're aware of,

The more self-aware you are.

You may need to build a new boundaries about how courageous a conversation you want to have on Facebook or text messaging.

You may want to build some boundaries about how long you're willing to listen to gossip about another person.

You may want to build some boundaries about how you want to show up as a person and be seen and supported.

One bit of homework for you,

I invite you,

It only takes five minutes and it's a two-part question.

The question is this,

Is when you are in a room alone with someone,

What are the things they say and do that make you want to grow closer with them?

What are the things that they say and do that make you want to grow closer with them?

And what are the things they say and do that make you want to get up and leave the room?

They're both equally important.

Those things that draw us in,

Those things that warm our hearts,

Are the things that we are called as well to practice towards others.

Those things that they do that make us want to get up and leave the room,

Those are learning experiences.

Those things that we look at and say,

That thing you just did,

As Douglas Adams once said,

Don't do that.

Redefine your boundaries.

Step six,

Release the relationship that was.

Release the relationship that was.

Many of us choose to renew a relationship we're in or sometimes we don't have a choice.

And I'll talk more about that in a moment.

But no matter what,

When trust is broken in our relationships,

It's important to recognize that they cannot go back to the way they were before.

It's a weird cosmic law.

Things can't go back to the way they were before.

New needs need to be articulated,

New boundaries need to be set in order to renew this relationship in harmony.

So we are called in so many ways to release the relationship that was.

And for those of us who love the people that we're forgiving,

We can build a relationship that was even better than before.

You don't want to go back to the way that things were.

We want to build something new and healthy and beautiful.

Forgiveness is interesting because I would argue that it's ritualistic.

We look at the spiritual practice of meditation here often.

That's a quiet practice,

Right?

Meditation is a silent communion with spirit and with our own mindfulness.

Prayer,

Especially in our tradition,

Is a verbal process.

It's either said out loud,

You can get one from a practitioner today,

Or we use language in our own minds.

Forgiveness to me is ritualistic.

It involves a trust and a kind of magic in the creative process.

And so I recommend in releasing a relationship that was to create a forgiveness ritual around it.

I'm going to create a set of five songs that I'm going to listen to every Sunday night for a month.

And when those four Sundays are over,

I will have forgiven.

We have so many beautiful lakes here in Colorado.

I'm going to start at the beginning.

And when I get around this lake,

I will have forgiven.

If there's a real tough forgiveness situation,

I'm going to walk around this lake seven times.

And when I get to completion,

I will have forgiven.

I'm going to write a letter to this person and not send them to them.

I'm going to write a letter to myself.

Whatever it may be,

Create these rituals and just let it go.

And the byproduct of those is often that grace and forgiveness that we're seeking to create.

It's not a one-time event.

We may have to do more rituals after that.

But that process helps us release the relationship that was and step into something brand new.

It helps us move from the why to the now what.

The last step of forgiveness,

Step seven,

Is to renew the relationship.

Desmond Tutu,

Who Jackie read from,

Probably my favorite teacher of forgiveness along with Jesus,

He has four steps of forgiveness.

Telling the story,

Naming the hurt,

Some of this sounds familiar to you already,

Granting forgiveness,

And then he says you can release or renew the relationship.

And I get why he says release the relationship because some of us need to not be in relationship with these people who are abusing us,

Right?

However,

Remember we're oneness people here.

And so what that means is that heart connections never end.

Relationships never end.

We may need to build a boundary that says I don't talk to you anymore.

We may need to build a boundary that says I love you so much,

Especially from way,

Way,

Way,

Way,

Way over here.

You do you.

But we're always one.

And even beyond the seeming fractured surface,

We are one.

So we get to make a decision about how we're going to show up,

Even in our consciousness towards this person.

And what I've learned,

And this may make this the hardest step of all,

Is that until I can want the highest and best good for that person,

I am not ready to receive that highest and best good for myself.

Until I can want and wish and pray for the highest and best good for that person,

I may want them to have a stiff punch in the nose,

Too.

That's okay.

But until I can get to that point of wanting the highest and best for them,

Then my consciousness is cluttered.

It's in a toxic place.

Until I can want that and release that and know who I am in relationship with that person,

Then I can receive.

Emerson said a prayer,

Any prayer for anything other than the highest good is vicious.

And it speaks to this idea that when we pray for ourselves,

At some level we want everyone to have the same good.

We want it to look a specific way for us,

But we want everyone to have their good.

And we can want that for others as well,

While honoring the pain of our experience.

But we have moved from why to now what,

And we are choosing for ourselves a better life.

Paul Farini said,

Yes,

Your compassion must go this deep.

There is no human being who does not deserve your forgiveness.

There is no human being who does not deserve your love.

Not easy.

None of this is easy.

But you have a life to live,

A life of wholeness,

A life of freedom,

A life of remembrance,

A life of resilience.

And by moving through these steps,

You don't have to do the forgiveness yourself.

The forgiveness is the byproduct of doing just what we've talked about today.

And it's then that we can find that grace,

The healthy relationships we're wanting to have,

And we can love ourselves in the process.

I have a little forgiveness practice as a little ritual,

A little mantra.

You may choose to participate in it today by bringing to mind someone you're ready to forgive.

If you're not ready to forgive them,

This process will drive you crazy and it will make you hate them even more.

You got to mean it and take your time.

It's okay if you're not there yet.

It goes like this.

I love you.

I forgive you.

I wish you well.

I wish me well.

I love you.

I forgive you.

I wish you well.

I wish me well.

Know that this is something you can say to someone living or who has no longer with us.

I love you.

I forgive you.

I wish you well.

I wish me well.

As we move into prayer today,

Invite our prayer practitioners to stand and join me who are available after service for prayer.

And I begin by sharing a prayer from Ernest Holmes.

I am not concerned about what happened yesterday.

I know that today everything is made new.

I let go of all sense of limitation.

I divorce my thought from any belief in lack.

I repudiate the idea that I'm poor,

Weak,

Sick,

Or unhappy.

New conditions are being created for me.

Conditions of harmony,

Happiness,

Peace,

And joy.

All circumstances and situations are being harmonized.

Wherever I go,

I shall meet peace,

Joy,

And happiness.

Whatever I do shall be done with reason and intelligence.

I shall be surrounded by friendship,

By beauty,

By right action.

My whole being responds to this conviction.

I accept my freedom.

And so in this prayerful freedom,

I know that I have the opportunity.

I have spent the time that I have needed and why.

I've gone over it again and again and learned everything I can from why.

It is time to move into now what.

And in this now what,

I know there is a greater story unfolding in my life.

A story of peace,

Of harmony,

Of love,

Of well-being,

Of connection.

Knowing for each of us that the love that we were incarnated into this being with is something that has never left us,

But it gets stuck.

It gets stuck in bad memories.

It gets stuck in missed opportunities.

It gets stuck in self-rejection and self-abandonment.

Let us just call all of that love back.

May we feel in this moment all the love that anyone has ever had for us and all that we've been able to muster for ourselves and this life along the journey.

And we allow this love through this power of forgiveness to be renewed,

To be present right here,

And to be the central creative driving force in our lives.

Allowing this to be so,

I speak a word of harmony,

Of healing,

Of rejuvenation,

And of wellness,

And of an unconditioned joy for each person who is participating in the consciousness of this prayer today.

We let it be.

We let it become.

And so it is.

Reviews

Thank you. I need to forgive my sister which is a challenge as she has transitioned but I can do six of the seven steps. I won’t be able to make a new relationship, but once I forgive, I can accept that she loves me and always has.