Please Forgive Me: Guided Forgiveness Meditation

This is a guided practice for asking for forgiveness after recognizing harm caused through racial conditioning, fear, confusion, shame, rage, righteousness, or inaction. You’ll be invited to bring to mind a person, situation, or moment and notice how the memory lives in the body, heart, and mind, while staying connected to your underlying good-heartedness.
The phrases offered in this meditation—“Please forgive me, and I am learning and healing”—are not meant to be words you offer to someone in person, but rather as an inner practice of acknowledging impact, softening self-blame, and releasing the weight of regret. This contemplation honors that repair unfolds in many ways and that forgiveness can take time.
The practice closes with an invitation to rest and sense the quality of heart and mind that remains.

Transcript

Take a position that supports awareness and begin to experience the body and the breath settling. Bring awareness to the breath moving through your body. The breath moving in, Moving through, Moving out. Take a few moments to soften and rest in the presence of earth and air, The body and breath, Always with you, Always in present time. In this meditation, We practice asking for forgiveness. Now there are times when we have hurt or harmed others through racial ignorance and racial fear, Confusion, Shame, Rage or righteousness, Through our thoughts or actions or even our inactions. As we realize the harm we have caused, We may find it at times difficult to ask for forgiveness. Reflect on such a time. Bring a person or a situation to mind. Experience this recollection inside the body. The mind and heart as it moves through you. Breathing in and out, Feel your good-heartedness beneath, Behind, And in between this recollection. Imagine taking yourself into your own arms. Feel the warmth of this contact. And know that all beings, Just like you, Want warmth and kindness. As I read the following phrases, Allow them to soften, Open, And connect you to your kinship to others. Please forgive me. I ask for your forgiveness for how I have hurt and harmed you. Please forgive me. I am learning and healing and it is my deep wish. To understand my impact. And to be kind. I ask for your forgiveness. And if you cannot forgive me right now, May you forgive me at some time in the future. Continue to practice in this way. Notice the quality of heart and mind that is present moment to moment. Notice the movements between the heart opening and closing and welcome both the resistance and its release. As it is experienced in the body. Repeat these phrases slowly and quietly or create phrases of your own. And take your time. And as you release the phrases, Just savor whatever silence, Stillness, And solace that is here and now. May our past actions make us better. Not bitter.