Forgive Another : The Eight Steps

Prepare to make a change in your life – prepare for real healing.

The Eight Steps to Freedom
(Forgiving another person or a life situation)

Prepare yourself for healing and change.

  • Step One: State your will to make a change.
  • Step Two: Express your feelings exactly as they are inside you.
  • Step Three: Release expectations from your mind, one by one.
  • Step Four: Restore your boundaries.
  • Step Five: Open up to the Universe to get your needs met in a different way.
  • Step Six: Receive healing energy from Spirit into your personality.
  • Step Seven: Send unconditional love to the other person and release him or her.
  • Step Eight: See the good in the person or situation.

Integrate this change; get used to feeling lighter.


The Eight Steps Explained

Prepare yourself for healing and change. Use a quiet, private space with a place for you to sit and a chair for the ‘other’ person or people.  Using prayer or meditation, call in presence and support from Spirit to surround and help you.

  1. State your will to make a change in attitude and move on. Imagine the person you need to forgive sitting in front of you. Pull a chair up and really imagine them sitting in it.  As you go through the process, talk to them.  Imagine them with a neutral expression, listening intently.  Also recognize their higher self or soul present and listening.  When you’re ready, state your will out loud.  Examples:  “I will to forgive you (for…), I will to free myself from you”.
  2. Express your emotions about what happened. Now tell the person in detail what your emotional truth is. It often helps to start with “I need to forgive you for…”.  Use the language of feelings and tell them your experience out loud.  Example: “You did this and I feel _____”.  You don’t need to be fair, kind or polite.  This step is about getting the resentments, pain, frustration, etc. out of your body.  Use your body: stamp your feet, yell, throw pillows at the chair if you need to….whatever will help release your emotions.  Continue until you feel you’ve ’emptied out’ your emotional truth about this person or situation.
  3. Cancel the expectation(s) you are holding in your mind. When you feel your emotional self is satisfied, you honor your mind…your mental self.
    • Shift expectation to positive preference
      Still out loud, tell the person what you would have preferred they do instead–what you wished for.  Example:  “I would have preferred that you would have……”
    • Acknowledge reality
      Example:  “But you didn’t do that”.
    • Re-state your will to move on;
      Example:  “And I will no longer suffer because of it”.
    • Cancel the expectation with words and inner letting go
      Example: “So I now cancel my expectation that you would have do.ne that in the past”.  After you cancel your expectation, close your eyes and feel the attachment to this expectation release out of your body.**Continue through these steps for each preference/expectation until your mind is satisfied.  “I would have preferred….But that’s not what happened….And I will no longer suffer because of it….So I now cancel my expectation that you would have done that”.  Go inside and feel each expectation dissolve.
  4. Sort out the boundaries: 
    • Give the other person responsibility for their actions and be willing to take yours.
    • Visualize your aura filled with your own energy, as a colored light filling up your personal space.Imagine yourself in your own ‘bubble’ or energy and the other person in theirs.  Make sure your bubbles do not overlap.  Now imagine you can gather up anything that’s in your space that is really the other person’s responsibility.  Use your hands and physically push the things that are their responsibility out of your space and tell them out loud “I give you full responsibility for….. and I take full responsibility for me”.
  5. Open up to getting your needs met in a different way. Sometimes when we forgive someone we’re ‘firing’ them from the job of meeting a need we still have.  If this is the case, you can acknowledge your need and open to having it met another way.  Example: “And I open fully to relationships with healthy boundaries”.
  6. Receive healing energy and unconditional love from your spirit into your body, emotions, and mind, cleansing your whole personalityAt this point you have cleared yourself out emotionally, mentally and physically / energetically and into your clear, receptive space, you invite Spirit. So imagine you have something like a skylight at the top of your head which you open to Spirit to pour love and light into you.  Feel it fill you head, and move through your body…filling you up, healing any places that were injured by this person or situation, washing away any leftover debris from it.  Let it warm and soothe you until you feel like you’re so full that it’s pouring out your hands and out through your feet.
  7. Send unconditional love to the person or situation. When you feel really filled up with love from Spirit for yourself, extend your hands to the person in the chair and offer them some.  Example: Say out loud “I offer you a portion of this love and light from Spirit, through me, just as you are.  I release you to be you and I release me from you”.  Imagine you can send the person a beam of good will from the endless stream that is pouring into you.
  8. See the good in the person or situation. Now tell the person in the chair something good you notice about them or about the situation.  Example:  “I see the good in how you do this or I have learned this because of this situation”. Integrate – Bring the session to a close and notice the changes in your body and attitude. Take time for a few days to let this change settle in as your new way of being. Thank the person for joining you and imagine them leaving, going back to their rightful place. Take a few moments to notice how your body feels different.  For the next 24-48 hours, take especially good care of yourself–giving yourself time and space to integrate.

Integrate this change; get used to feeling lighter.