Definitions: (1) characterizes one who gives up resentment, stops anger, or pardons wrongs (or perceived wrongs); reconciliation; (2) giving up all claim to punish or exact a penalty; overlooking or abandoning vengeful feelings
Synonyms: absolving, exculpating, excusing, exonerating, releasing
Balancing Qualities: Communication, Imagination
Familial Qualities: acceptance, tolerance
Significant Date: International forgiveness week is the first week of February.
Saying: Ira furor brevis est (Latin): “Anger is a brief madness.”
Dictum: To err is human; to forgive, divine. — Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
Metaphor: Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet that clings fast to the heel that crushed it.
Proverb: Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp’s nest. — Malabar
Quotes:
• Forgiveness can purify memory. It can travel through time and history breathing life into the killing fields, into the collective soul of nations, into the lives of its brutalized citizens. — Pope John Paul II [born Karol Józef Wojtyła] (1920-2005) the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church
• If you’re harboring the slightest bitterness toward anyone, or any unkind thoughts of any sort whatsoever, you must get rid of them quickly. They aren’t hurting anyone but you. It is said that hate injures the hater not the hated. — Peace Pilgrim [born Mildred Lisette Norman] (1908-1981) Steps Toward Inner Peace {2021}
• Nature does abhor a vacuum, and when you begin moving out of your life what you do not want, you automatically are making way for what you do want. By letting go of the lesser, you automatically make room for your greater good to come in. — Catherine Ponder (1927-) The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity {1962}
1. Find your own healing ritual that makes, for you, the restoration of justice and the end of anger.
2. Articulate and express your deepest fears and thoughts in order to gain understanding and to adjust your distance from them.
3. Form or join a self-help group with other people who have been through the same thing.
4. Find ways of breaking out of your usual perspective.
5. Take action to help others who are in the same predicament.
— Dr. Carol Anne Travis (1944-) American social psychologist, Controlling Anger {1989}
Note: Dr. Travis also suggests, under the proper circumstances, to confront the person who has made you angry in order to serve justice, provide you with new insights, and restore understanding, balance, & fair play.
Affirmation: I fully and freely forgive you. So far as I am concerned, that incident between us is finished forever. I wish you no harm. I am free and you are free and all is again well between us. — Catherine Ponder (1927 -) The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity {1962}
Meditation: Begin with several deep breaths, all the way down into your solar plexus, all the way down into your being. Calm yourself. Open yourself. Visualize the divine essence of forgiveness at your crown chakra at the top of your head. Ask for this forgiveness to be a part of you. You have experienced it before, and you want to experience it more fully. See it in all its colors. Let it settle into your mind. “I will forgive every thought I’ve had that needs forgiving. I will allow myself to forgive all who need forgiving. I will forgive myself for my missteps and misdeeds.”
Breathe forgiveness into each part of your body. Linger on each area as long as the forgiveness is doing its job. Move to your eyes and forgive all the anger you have emitted from them. Forgive all of the pain you have seen. Relax them, replace the pain with forgiveness. Replace the forgiveness with harmony, symmetry, and beauty. Move the divine energy of forgiveness to your ears, saying, “I forgive everything I have heard needing forgiving.” Move to your nose, forgive all evil smells. Move to the mouth and throat. Forgive yourself for all you’ve said in a hurtful tone, purifying your communication.
Accept divine forgiveness. Move to your arms and hands. Forgive them for any negative actions they have done. The deeper your forgiveness, the more of the negative you will be removing. If your forgiveness is pure, the negative no longer exists. Especially linger in your heart where you have hurt people in your relationships, or they have hurt you. All is forgiven, all is evaporated. Make sure you forgive yourself and others for all ills, real or imagined.
Breathe into your gut and release the anger and frustration you have been holding. All hurt and anguish are gone. The power of divine forgiveness is absolute. You are clean. Space is now open for new hope, new life.
Move now to your hips and genitals. Forgive yourself for all sexual misconduct.
Go to the base of your spine. A lot of what you felt you had to do; you did because of survival. Forgive yourself and allow yourself to be whole.
Move into your thighs and your knees. Forgive your legs for every time you ran away; for every time you’ve physically or wishingly kicked someone. Relax your feet, now you have happy toes. Let all of these ills sink into the earth and out to the ether; they are replaced with divine harmony.
Move back up through your feet, your calves, your knees, your thighs, with a ball of harmonious and merciful energy. It is a cleansing glow of light; all of the molecules of your being are being replaced. Move back up through your spine. The ball of light at the base of your spine now has replaced all failure. Everything is calm. You are a new person. Move into your heart, breathing freely. It’s all okay now. Everything is in its proper place. Your arms are free, your shoulders are relaxed, you’ve got a new vitality. You can begin again with a clean slate.
You will now communicate your new hope. You will see the world with new eyes. Smell the freshness. When you hear ill, and when you see ill, you will automatically transmute it. You will do something positive about it. Your mind is a new mind: fresh, decent, willing, and open. Give thanks to the divine power of forgiveness, and the divine substance of mercy, for renewing you.
Move back up to your crown chakra and let the divine essences float there, live there, renewing your body and soul. Keep filling your blood stream, your neurons, and your cells with the divine energy. There is a pulsating, glowing light filling your whole being.
When you are ready, come out of your meditation gently. Continue your life in grace.
Note 1: Forgiveness will remove the pain of guilt, but will not lesson the compensation you may need to take care of.
Note 2: Going through the forgiveness meditation, do not push away any specific instances that come up, but don’t linger on them either. Don’t try to bring them up; there is no need for specific detail. Be generous and gentle with forgiveness.
Note 3: Adapt this meditation to fit you and any quality.
Comments:
Causes of Anger
1. Frustration, irritation, or a threat to safety
2. Unfair treatment – real or imagined
3. Offended or endangered beliefs
4. Dissatisfaction with oneself – a need for self-esteem
5. Exhaustion or chronic fatigue
6. Physical illness – unable to do what you could normally do
7. Restriction of freedoms
8. Some kinds of mental illness
Destructive Anger
1. Acting out your anger by striking out verbally or physically at others or yourself
2. Denial and repression
3. Anger turned inward results in depression. (But not all depression is the result of anger)
4. Self-administered drugs and alcohol lead to problems and don’t help deal with the root causes.
5. While driving angry you surely would not have driving safely on your mind.
Mitigating Anger
1. If you feel tired or frustrated and find yourself lashing out at a friend for what may at the time seem like a good enough reason but probably isn’t, stop, explain that you are feeling stressed out and irritable, and then do yourself a favor and take your needed rest.
2. Use words rather than physical violence. When someone is reasonable, even though that person is stressed, he or she is recognized as someone with poise.
3. Talk to a friend or give yourself a good talking to.
4. If the problem involves a relationship, first talk with the person, but if it is serious enough ask a mutual friend to arbitrate.
5. Seek psychiatric or other forms of therapy. You may have a chemical imbalance which needs to be corrected with a change of diet or prescription drugs.
6. Be objective rather than subjective. Focus on the problem and not on the person. Focus on what is of higher importance.
7. Use the anger energy to do something constructive.
8. Get a massage.
9. Give it time by compartmentalizing your anger.
10. Put a wash cloth on your face and the back of your neck.
11. Learn forgiveness. First you must forgive yourself.
12. Say a prayer, meditate.
13. Take a shower, take a walk or a run, read a book, play catch, scream, cry, dance.
The Stages of Forgiveness
1. Decide to forgive
2. Forgive yourself
3. Forgive the other
4. Believe or imagine how the other can forgive you
5. Assume the other has forgiven you
6. Assume the other is forgiving himself or herself
7. Forget it
Observation: Anger is part of the word danger.
Tip: Freedom is about clean lines of energy. Blame and grudges block freedom’s flow. Continue positively from where you are.
Symbol: hyacinth flowers