It can really help in the beginning to do the Four Steps to Forgiveness in writing, This helps you to keep our focus and not get lost in a particular step. Later as you get more experienced you can do it just in your head and even do it while out walking.
It can be good in the beginning to go through each step fairly quickly, a few times, to get the feel of the whole process. Then go through the steps more slowly and deliberately as you warm it.
If you don’t feel much difference after trying all the steps on an issue, say a dozen times, then look to the hints and tips below to see what will help.
As you do each step your are exploring and investigating the different parts of the process of forgiving. You may turn up a few surprises along the way – feelings and attitudes you did not realize you had. If so, that is a very good sign.
An important part of the 4 steps is in helping us get our get level feelings behind the forgiveness process. In these steps we are educating this part of ourselves about the ways in which forgiveness benefits by showing it that we are letting go of painful feelings and creating more enjoyable feelings. This bridges the gap between our ideals (wanting to be more forgiving) and our real life experience (of feeling blocked because part of us resists the process). If part of you objects feels that you ought to be able to forgive without getting any benefits then ask yourself how else you can forgiving as you would like to be.
What can help at any step is to deepen your breathing slightly and allow yourself to breath out with a long sigh – if it feels right. Occasionally breathing in a little bit more than you normally do and occasionally breathing out a little bit more than you normally do can help a lot too.
Step 1 Tips
Step 2 Tips
Step 3 Tips
Step 4 Tips