Forgiveness. Forgiveness as a way to free yourself from emotional pain and suffering. Forgiveness, do it for you. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Hey there, hey. How’s it going? I have just returned from having a really good workout. I opened the peloton app. Rather than jumping on the bike, I decided to look for other opportunities to exercise. They had this really fun program with Usher where you could do cardio workout and dance. I had a really good time. It was so much fun I started the program over again and did two sessions back to back.

I’m reminded that we all need fun. It’s an important ingredient for having a really rich and fulfilling life. So when you think about getting into the groove, what do you like to do? What are you doing for your daily quotient of vitamin F for fun? I recommend that you stay in touch with it. Just like succulents can survive with very little water, we find that if we give them ample water and even maybe extra water they strive. So rather than just survive, inject some fun in your life so that you can thrive. It will be worth it.

So this week we’re talking about the practice of forgiveness. Forgiveness is something that’s important that we do for ourselves, not for the other person. We do and engage in the practice of forgiveness so that we can feel good walking around in our own body, walking around in our own mind. Because wherever you go, you’re still there. You’re with you every day.

So when the thought of another person comes up in your mind and you find yourself having that reaction and it’s not positive and it’s kind of unsafe for those people to walk through the streets of your mind, that’s a reminder that that’s a place for you to exercise forgiveness.

When I say forgiveness, that doesn’t mean that you have to go and start spending time with the person that you feel has committed some transgression, some wrong against you. It doesn’t require that at all. It is an opportunity for you to give to another way of thinking, to give to a hope or belief that things could have gone a different way. To give yourself a different perspective.

So forgiveness is a way to keep ourselves clear and to release any blocks in us that would keep us from our own good, our own joy. Release us from suffering. So we want to cultivate a practice of regular forgiveness. This is something that’s going to come up on a regular and repeated basis. It’s not an occasional thing. It’s an all the time thing. I dare say an everyday thing.

So how often do you brush your teeth? I kind of love to brush my teeth. So I brush my teeth at minimum twice a day, but sometimes I’m brushing my teeth after every meal. The reason that I love to brush my teeth, that I want to release my mouth of the dirt and grime and buildup of day to day contact with food, air, and the environment. I want to cleanse myself of that which my mouth has been exposed to.

The same thing can happen to us when we think about the day to day interactions with other people. People are going to keep peopling. When people people, they do all kinds of things. It can seem as if people are hurting us. It can seem as if individual behaviors and activities are hurtful, whether the other person intended it or not. So a kind of mental and emotional hygiene. It requires us to engage in a practice of releasing ourselves of old patterns of thoughts.

We want to get in the habit of looking for and practicing forgiveness on a regular basis. So you can check in with yourself and just say, “Hmm, what do I need to forgive in this moment?” I know oftentimes people will say Michelle was wrong. She says when they go low, we go high. I’m not doing that. I’m going lower. I’m getting down in the ditch with them. I’m going to knock them out. I’m really more on Michelle’s tip only because it affects how I feel. It affects how I want to feel. It affects how I want to walk through the world.

So we’re reminded that in everyday life, people are going to make mistakes. People are acting and behaving in ways that can sometimes be displeasing to us as the recipient. If we believe what is said in A Course of Miracles, we’re reminded that all activities are either a call for love or an expression of love. Now it might be incredibly intelligent, but it’s an effort to make connection or a way to ask for connection even though it may be a really clumsy or ineffective or downright wrong way to do it.

Now when we go through life, we’re reminded that there is going to be some betrayal in the world. People are going to let us down. When they do it, how we respond to that betrayal is the area where we get to grow. Is the area where we get to become our better and highest self. So let’s explore a place within ourselves where we can become more aware of love’s presence in any given moment. Where we can tap in and find love’s presence even though the behavior could be intelligent.

Now I’ve been talking to you about the behavior of other people, but oftentimes and more frequently than not forgiveness is an inside job. Forgiveness oftentimes is an act of self-forgiveness. We have to look at our own behaviors, actions, and activities. Sometimes we miss the mark. Sometimes we are not our best self. Sometimes we don’t respond in the way that we are most proud, that we would most like to show up, the way we want to see ourselves. Sometimes we are the transgressor.

So we want to find a place within ourselves that we can forgive. Forgive ourselves for missing the mark. Forgive ourselves for doing it wrong. Forgive ourselves for not living into the image of our very best selves although it’s what we aspired to do.

It was about three or four years ago when I was going through a very difficult time, and I was struggling with having a hard time in almost every aspect of my life. It was because I was deeply, deeply sad. I was referred to a woman who lived across town and had a chiropractic practice across town. Someone recommended me to her, and I decided to go.

It turned out that this woman was a chiropractor. She was also a psychotherapist. More importantly, she was a healer. She practiced a way of healing that was so, so nourishing and refreshing to me. She never actually laid hands on me, but she talked to me about what was going on in my life. Then she gave me certain prescriptions to follow and a regiment to engage with. So I did what she asked me to do.

So I revealed to her what was going on with me. She could see this level of sadness, this level of self-loathing, and she prescribed to me some essential oils. She created an oil that was composed of essential oils just for me. Then she called upon me to name this oil combination that she put together just for me. So I called my fragrance or essential oils Lori Anne Harris union with first cause. It allowed me to remember that while I might feel alone that there’s always a presence within me and all around me and about me. I can tap into that at any given time.

So she asked me to take this oil. It was a combination of frankincense, rosemary, lavender, and juniper berry. There’s a protective blend that she added into with she called an oil of protection. She told me that she wanted me to engage in a practice of forgiveness every day. My job was to practice forgiveness and anoint myself every day.

So I did what she asked me to do. I would look in the mirror. I would take this oil, and I would practice this practice of self-anointing with this beautiful oil that she had prepared and created just for me.

I was told to take a drop of the oil in my left palm. Using my right index finger, rub it into the crown of my head, the base of my throat, my septum, both sides of my hips, both sides of my shoulders, at my tailbone, the middle of my back, and the sides of the rights of my thighs. As I did this, I would say I am sorry. I look in the mirror and I would repent to myself and indicate I am sorry.

Next, I would ask for forgiveness. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. Remember all the things that I wish to be forgiven for. Then I would look at myself in the mirror and look at my body and say thank you. Thankful for all that has come before me, for all of it. Thank you. Then finally I would release it by saying in the mirror, “I love you.”

I went through this practice, and I did this anointing. I practiced this practice of self-forgiveness. It created an opening in me where I could see my own transgressions. I could see my own mistakes. Actually, when I started the practice, I had someone else in mind. I would think of this other person, and I would work on forgiving this other person. Overtime, that forgiveness was devoted solely to me.

So I invite you to remember that all day every day, you’re with yourself. That we’re going to encounter other people. They’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to have transgressions. They’re going to lie. They’re going to cheat. They’re going to take what you think is yours, and they’re going to do all of it. That is part of the human experience. It’s not happening to you. It’s happening for you. For your own unfoldment and revelation of who you came to this planet to be.

So rather than try to avoid it or turn away from it, I invite all of us to look it right in the eye. When there is something that has happened that feels like it’s so unfair, so unjust, so just plain wrong, work towards getting to a place of forgiveness. Many times that forgiveness will be self-forgiveness. Self-forgiveness for I should have seen it coming. Self-forgiveness for I should have avoided this. Self-forgiveness for my intuition had nudged me in the opposite direction and I didn’t listen. It’s important for us to have a practice of self-forgiveness so that we can have peace within our own bodies.

I invite you to develop a practice of asking yourself what shall I forgive today? Go through that and see if you can’t experience a clearing within your own body. You might actually feel something lifting from your shoulders and from your back, the weight of having to carry the burden of feeling that you’ve been wronged or that you have wronged another person.

This is the beauty and the joy and the necessity of forgiveness. Not for the other person, not to bring that other person into your life, but for whatever part you may or may not have played in the activity that caused your suffering.

Well, that’s the end of this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. In this episode, we talked about forgiveness. We’re reminded that forgiveness is something that we do on a regular and repeated basis. It’s continual. When we forgive, we’re forgiving not for the benefit of another person, for the person that we feel has done us wrong, but for our own selves so that we can gain peace within our own spirit.

All forgiveness ultimately may be self-forgiveness for an opportunity. To think of it in a different way, we forgive. We give another opportunity for different perspective. Another way of looking at things. Another way that the incident or the circumstance could have occurred. We give up the hope that it might have been different, and we move on to another place where we can find peace.

I am talking to you this month about the power of ritual. I offered to you an exercise in ritual that you can do for yourself. We’re reminded that forgiveness exercises can be sacred and special, and I shared one with you that was given to me by a healer.

The first step is to repent. To look in the mirror deeply and with feeling say I’m sorry. Express remorse for what has happened, what has occurred. Then allow yourself to really feel that. Even though it’s painful to move through it, to accept responsibility, and to know that you always have that opportunity to choose differently.

Step two is to forgive yourself or to forgive the other. To really choose to ask for forgiveness. Say it over and over again until this remorse that you felt from step one comes through. Then step three is to express gratitude for whatever it is that this lesson has come to give you. For whatever it is this experience, occurrence, situation, condition has come to teach you, say thank you and keep saying thank you. Finally say I love you. Look in the mirror and say with feeling and sincerity I love you.

That’s the practice. It’s four steps. When we do an exercise of self-anointing, we can start at our head at the crown. Move over to the area between our eyes on our forehead known as our third eye. Then move on down the body. This is so that we can experience a release. So we’ll do it at the place of the throat to our septum, our bellybutton, both sides of our hips, our back, right at our tailbone, and at the sides of our thighs.

So this is an anointing exercise that you can share for yourself. Just remember that this life is a beautiful life, and all things can be sacred when we guard them that way.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. I’d ask you to go to Apple podcast, rate, and review this show. The way to find it easily is to go to my website loriaharris.com/podcastlaunch and enter your honest ideas. I hope that you’re enjoying the podcast and getting good value from it, and you’ll give me a five star review.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.