Forgiveness as a Practice

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to explore the meaning of forgiveness and what it can offer us in our lives. So I think we've all had times where somebody has said or done something that we felt really hurt by. Maybe a friend criticizes our life choices, maybe a partner betrays our confidence in some way, or maybe a thoughtless or rude remark by someone at work. And whether or not that person meant to hurt us, the painful feelings that result from their actions or words are very real.

You know, so very often in life when this happens, when somebody says or does something that hurts us or angers us, what we tend to do is we tend to continue just carrying around this hurt inside of us by replaying the event over and over again in the mind. You can probably relate, right? As we do this, our resentment and hostility towards the person tends to build. And when we're filled with all that bitterness, all that resentment and anger there's not much space left within us for understanding, healing and for our own inner peace. So the thing is if we don't practice forgiveness, we're the ones left carrying the burden of anger and bitterness. The other person actually might've moved on already, or they might actually be completely unaware of our feelings.

Now, forgiveness is not meant at all to negate, deny or minimize what happened. Instead, it's simply a choice to let go of carrying that hostility we're hanging on to. It allows us to open the tight fist of anger, create a little bit of inner space and help us see through the eyes of understanding. When we look at the situation with understanding, we might be able to have some insight into why that person might've done the things that they did. And we might also reflect on our own lives and see that we too make mistakes.

We too have done things that have hurt others, you know, even though we may not have intended to hurt anybody. We all get caught up sometimes, we all have flaws and we all have bad days. In seeing this clearly we at least open up a little bit of inner space in which we might be able to understand the other person better, make the choice to forgive and then reclaim some inner peace. So that's the invitation for today and for the rest of this week, if you find yourself feeling hurt or angered from the actions of another person, just making forgiveness your intention. And it's not always easy, but see if you can just a little bit soften and let go of any animosity, just bit by bit, for as you forgive the other, you find peace in yourself.

So in today's meditation, we're going to focus on generating feelings of loving kindness towards others who may have hurt us. So I invite you to settle in for that now and as always thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.