Hello, my graceful gals and guys!

This month, the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance held a Moment of Calm, two minutes of silence to forgive and send out vibrations of love to the world. It’s such a beautiful notion that there exists an organization dedicated to helping people cultivate the skill (and it is a skill) of forgiveness.

Part of their mission is to establish an International Forgiveness Day in every village and hamlet across the world by the year 2025, so I thought what better place to begin than in our own Plante Life community.

Almost every religion, spirituality, and faith talks about forgiveness being the root of freedom in your life. It allows you to be super present and not stuck in the past. We’ve all been there. Hell, some of us are probably there right now — dwelling on things that happened in the past, obsessing over what you should have gotten, what you’re owed, how you should have been treated, and wondering why did this or that happen to you.

It’s been scientifically proven that forgiveness improves our mental and physical health. When we hold on to negative energy, it can manifest itself as sickness. According to the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, chronic anger, anxiety and stress impairs your immune system and increases your risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes. And people who hold grudges “are more likely to experience severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder” than those who practice forgiveness. When you can let go of built up tension and resentment, you will not only feel calmer and happier but begin to show more compassion, empathy and have healthier relationships.  

Some people are naturally forgiving. Live and let live. But for others, letting it go is painfully difficult. Sometimes you just want to scream, “F–k off, Elsa! It’s just not happening!”

If you’re not quite ready to let bygones be bygones, here’s my advice for practicing forgiveness even when you don’t effing feel like it.

1) Ease in to the Shallow End

Is there someone in your life that you just can’t forgive? How many books and articles have you read on the subject, but you just can’t let it go? How hard are you being on yourself because your path to forgiveness is taking longer than you (or other people) think it should take?

The first place to look when you’re having trouble forgiving someone who’s wronged you is in the mirror. That’s right; start by sending some compassion to yourself. Especially if you have a chronic disease or you’ve been through a divorce or someone close to you has passed on. Those big events can leave you in a state of disarray. So cut yourself some slack and forgive yourself for not being ready…YET!

2) Don’t Force It

It takes a special kind of loving patience and skill to accept where you are right now in this moment. Healing happens when it’s time. It can’t be rushed. There is no magic pill or sure-fire formula to “just get over it”.

So, stop judging yourself. The more you bring that fear-based energy into the situation, it makes it so much harder to take care of yourself and move forward. Create your own Judgement Detox with these tips to clear out the criticism and structure how you want to live your life now.

3) Just the Facts, Ma’am

A technique that I find really helpful when I am having a hard time leaving the past behind is to remove the emotion out of the situation. Let’s use getting fired from your job as an example. If you’re able to take the emotion out of the event — the anger, maybe embarrassment or guilt, the fear of what comes next — the event becomes just a thing that happened to you.

It doesn’t determine the trajectory of your whole life or represent who you are as a person. We are the ones that pepper those meanings and feeling into the situation. Yes, the situation is super crappy, but we take it to mean so much more about us than is actually there like, “I’m not good enough, I not smart enough. I don’t deserve happiness. Everyone dislikes me.” Even traumatic events and terrible mistakes are not final verdicts of how your life will always be.

We have no control over what other people do, say, and think. We only control how we feel and how we choose to react. That’s the core of it all.

4) Narrow the Gap   

You know how it feels to be all wadded up inside when you can’t let something go? Well, take a few baby steps toward loving that internal place that is so tense and in need of TLC. Breath through it and tell yourself that it’s OK, that when you’re ready to move on, you will.

Then, inch a little further forward and start telling yourself that you are ready. When you bring those words into your body and out in your voice, you’ll see that compressed energy begin to unblock. The more gentle I am with myself in those tough times, when I open myself to whatever it is that will help me get back into the flow, that is when gratitude and forgiveness slide in.

Forgiveness allows up to move forward in whatever way we were stuck before and eases our fears about the future, but there are no shortcuts. Start from a place of loving yourself, and the next step will always be the right one in moving forward. Sometimes that’s all we can do.

I really want to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do you struggle with forgiveness? Have you seen the benefits of letting go of the past? Let me know in the comments below!

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LOVE + infinite love,