Forgiveness and Letting Go

Forgiveness and Letting Go

Sensational Sunday                                                   

Every Sunday the Single, Happy, and Strong Blog will have an exercise for you to do.  This is a wonderful way to start a new week; to reflect, grow, and begin a shift in your life. Today we will talk about a technique for forgiveness and letting go.

This Sunday I will give you a technique I use to forgive and let go of past relationships. Resentment, anger, and grief over past relationships hold a tremendous amount of energy. It is important to release the negative energy in order for more positive relationships to flow into your life.  It is almost like creating a “space” for something or someone new to enter. Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Freedom is cultivated by the practice of letting go”.

We are not meant to live in a vacuum so eventually I started dating and actually had relationships.  As my attorney said, ‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your Prince”. Well, I would not call the men I dated frogs they were quite nice-just not for me.

In order to release myself and my energy from a relationship, I would write a letter to them.  Sometimes it was just one letter other times six or seven. No one would ever see the letters. When I felt I wrote all I need to, I would follow the steps I list below. It provided closure and healing.  In one of my relationships, I felt I was a convenience instead of a priority. I started writing the letters before I ended the relationship for the courage to move on.

This is a powerful exercise.

1. Get a piece of paper and a pen. Sit in a comfortable chair in a quiet space. Take a few deep breaths. Write a letter to the person you need to forgive or the person you need to let go of.  Take your time. Write your feelings about them; how they hurt you, how that felt, how you may have done things differently. There is no rule as to how long the letter has to be, keep writing until you have nothing else to say to them.  When you feel you have written enough, at the bottom of the letter wish them well and sign your name.
2.  Tear the letter up into small pieces and then do one of the following: a) Put them in a pan and burn them.  Obviously, be very careful with this step.  As you watch them burn say a prayer for the person the letter is addressed to. b) Bury the pieces of paper in the ground.  As you cover them with dirt, say a prayer for the person the letter is addressed to.
3. Repeat this as often as needed, until you feel you have forgiven and released the person.