Today’s Mandala Message: Working Towards Forgiveness
This week I’m working through Principle #29 from Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles” entitled “Complete your Past to Embrace the Future”. I set my intention today to ponder the idea of working towards forgiveness. In this principle, Canfield shares a forgiveness affirmation, which I will share in a moment.
I tend to struggle with affirmations, mainly because they have me “affirm” something that I have trouble believing. I get the “fake it ‘til you make it” or “act as if” sayings, however they tend to trigger my fear of lying to myself. Then awhile back I discovered a different approach to affirmations whereby instead of saying something like “I am making healthy choices”, it’s modified to “I am working towards making healthy choices”. Making that change, at least for me, felt more honest, believable, and doable.
Here is Canfield’s “The Forgiveness Affirmation”
“I release myself from all the demands and judgements that have kept me limited. I allow myself to go free—to live in joy and love and peace. I allow myself to create fulfilling relationships, to have success in my life, to experience pleasure, to know that I am worthy and deserve to have what I want. I now go free. In that process I release all others from any demands and expectations I have placed on them. I choose to be free. I allow others to be free. I forgive myself and I forgive them. And so it is.”
I do appreciate his use of the “I allow” statements; another term I discovered for myself about 10 years ago. In a trivial example, I actually used it last night when I was doing a particularly challenging speed exercise on Duolingo. I noticed how I kept sabotaging myself thus failing to succeed; hearing myself saying things like “it’s impossible to get this in that time frame.” When I caught myself, I changed it up to “I allow myself to finish this exercise in the time allotted.” It took about two or three tries and repeating my allow statement…and then… I! got! it!
All that being said, use affirmations that help you; and modify them as needed. Within the context of this principle, if saying “I forgive you” or “I forgive myself” feels false or unhelpful; try modifying it to something like “I’m working towards forgiving you” or “I’m working towards forgiving myself”.
A good mindfulness practice is to affirm your willingness to work towards forgiveness.
So how about you? Are you willing to work towards letting go? Are you open to working towards forgiveness? Do you allow yourself to work towards forgiving?
“No one can or will ever
— K.J. Kilton
feel your pain as much as you.
Forgive yourself for the past,
seize the gift of the present moment.”
Blessings,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
All Things Mandalas
An Invitation
I invite you to color along with me this year as part of what I’m calling “The Year of Self-Exploration and Expansion” with all of my “Mandalas of the ___” (day, week, month, year). If you’re interested in more of a self-exploration approach to coloring, check out my “Coloring Mandalas as Meditation”. You can download this mandala at MandalaoftheWeek.com.
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