An eBook from the Crossing Twice Series
The Journey of Self-Forgiveness Dr. Reece W. Manley, DD, M.Ed., MPM速
Dedicated to my Grannie V Guilt is perhaps the hardest, most un-Godlike thing we as human beings face. It tears down our spirits. It infects and freezes our minds. It besets us with the inability to move forward. To live in unforgiveness is to live the most limited life imaginable. If you live with not forgiving your fellow man, you ruin all relationships you have or will ever have with that person. But, you also poison every relationship you will have with any other person in the future. Even worse is to live with not forgiving yourself. You are not perfect, but by failing to forgive yourself you stand and scream in God’s face saying you are not worthy of second chances while your Creator lovingly calls you to move forward. You say His Creation is flawed beyond repair. You commit hubris. You overstep the power of man and try to become your own God. A God full of hate, depression, lack of movement and anger. You signal to the world, “I have been bad and I am damned.” There is news here. You are not powerful enough to claim the right to rule over your life through guilt, which is from the mind-self. You wish to use human principles and decisions of the mind-self to be over the spirit-self. Yes, to 2|Page
choose not to forgive yourself, you choose not to participate in God’s plan for your life. Why such passion against guilt? Why such anger over it? It serves no purpose but to stop your movement along your path. It cuts off your relationship with God. It limits your spirit-self from soaring. It makes all things impossible rather than possible. Of course, we do things incorrectly from time to time. We hurt people accidentally. We are hurt by people accidentally. But to harbor such hurts, such failures and feed them until they grow into guilt is far removed from the Sources plan for each of us. Many wrongly believe guilt is a good thing. They say it keeps the behavior we feel guilty about from not happening again. However, guilt is more likely to bring about the same situation. Guilt is a hard, bitter seed. Once experienced it introduces the idea that Grace and Forgiveness are not strong enough forces to overcome the human experience. It says the divine is weaker than the earthly. "We attach our feelings to the moment when we were hurt, endowing it with immortality. And we let it assault 3|Page
us every time it comes to mind. It travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us while we make love, and broods over us while we die....� Lewis B. Smedes - Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve How many times have you been guilty of not forgiving yourself some tiny infraction such as eating chocolate cake it midnight? How about the big things, abortion, addiction or other failings? Will you stop your path? Stop trying just so you can indulge in self pity and guilt. So, what is the alternative to guilt? Do we simply move forward as if nothing happened? Do we leave in the wake of our life path injured people and a hurting self? Do we create self-mayhem and great harm to others with no feeling of responsibility. Of course not. What we move toward is conviction. Conviction is the result of a process. Action, the realization of the action was incorrect, injurious or harmful, the admission to self and the Creator and one other human being, the reception of Grace and the internalizing or taking in of the forgiveness of the act, to, finally forgiveness and conviction not to do the action again. 4|Page
Let us take up the story of Lupe Perez. Ms. Perez is a single mother in a quiet, small town in Texas. Ms. Perez works as a court reporter and supports her two children not only financially but the love and faith of a strong, independent woman. Ms. Perez is filled with conviction. She has had to endure much in her 38 years of life. She has two prominent scars on her face to remind her each time she looks in the mirror of the life she was living four years ago. Ms. Perez was married to Arturo. Arturo was an abusive man, plagued by the demons of alcoholism and self-hatred. His young life had been shaped by frequent beatings without explanations. When he married, his mind-self had been trained to meet frustration with violence and this did not change when he took his wedding vows. For Ms. Perez, the abuse began almost immediately after the birth of her first child. Arturo began to drink in response in his self-doubt of being a father and a husband. He became so imbedded in his pattern he played it out over and over by beating his wife. Ms. Perez took it because of the words her husband would use. He called her a bad mother, a whore, a bitch and worse with each beating.
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Ms. Perez ended up in the hospital on several occasions. On two of the visits, she fled to the local woman’s shelter. Only, Arturo would find her and remind her of her vows and her duties, guiltily Ms. Perez would return. It was an angry unhappy life. Finally, two weeks after the birth of her third child, Ms. Perez walked in to find Arturo beating her two-week old infant for crying. Arturo’s eyes were distant and his face filled with rage. Ms. Perez will always remember the look in Arturo’s face as he delivered what would be the fatal blow to the young life of Stanza Perez. Stanza’s small form stopped wriggling and slipped quietly into death. Arturo feel to his knees drained of the rage, sobbing on the floor, drunk, next to the body of his now dead little girl. Ms. Perez felt overwhelming guilt in the days after the funeral. In addition to depression, she blamed herself for returning to Arturo. She had been so afraid to face life on her own. She had wanted to do the right thing and follow her vows. She had wanted a husband her culture had taught her to value. She had felt guilty she had left. And, now she felt even more guilty she had returned. She became so depressed she was suicidal, weeping for months after
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Stanza’s funeral and long after Arturo’s arrest, she walked the tight beam between suicide in living in self hatred. Ms. Perez finally turned to her priest, a gifted clergy with a keen insight on what must happen for Ms. Perez to move forward. Father Donovan knew what must happen for Ms. Perez to be released from the depression and life-stopping events of guilt. Father Donovan knew when he visited with Ms Perez the seed of guilt had grown into a tree of neglect. The two surviving children were living in squalor. Ms Perez neither ate nor drank for days at a time. She tore at her hair, her babies went unchanged, family calls were left unreturned. Guilt was having its way with Ms Perez and Father Donovan was going to treat the guilt as the demon it was. With a direct, righteous attack to quickly bring about the changes from guilt to conviction.
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Again, what Father Donovan wanted was for Ms Perez, Lupe, to move from the destructive state of guilt to the living state of conviction. Father Donovan would take Lupe through the admission of her actions, the admission that her actions were incorrect, injurious or harmful, the admission to self and the Creator and one other human being. Next, Father Donovan would guide Lupe through the reception of Grace and the internalizing or taking in of the forgiveness of the act, to, finally forgiveness and conviction not to do the action again. Once at the point of conviction, life could move forward. Conviction to not perform an act again frees the mind-self and spirit-self to move forward and it allows guilt to pass away. Once Grace and forgiveness is accepted, it cannot be undone. The Creator keeps no score book. Our spirit-self does not either. However, our mind-self keeps nothing but scorecards. It keeps nothing but past experiences. The mind-self assumes guilt is a piece of knowledge. So, the shift from guilt to forgiveness to conviction must be a spiritual action. Father Donovan had the following planned for Lupe over the course of several meetings with her:
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Lupe will identify her actions which were and were not within her control.
Lupe will write out her wrongful actions over which she feels guilt and will share these with herself, her Creator and Father Donovan.
Lupe will stand before her Creator in her spirit-self, state her shortcomings and ask for Grace to come.
The Spirit of the Creator will descend upon her the very second she asks for Grace to come and will offer Lupe complete, total, and irrevocable forgiveness.
Lupe will bring a consciousness to act upon her mind-self from her spirit-self rewriting the statements containing guilt and replacing them with conviction.
Lupe will practice affirmations of forgiveness and conviction for as long as it takes for her to recognize guilt’s destructive, life-stopping power.
Lupe will say this ritual daily. Upon finding a quiet place and lighting a single white votive candle, Lupe will find her spirit-self (described in Meeting Your Spiritual Self) and allow it to speak the following:
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“Loving Creator, I join with You and Worship You. I know You are the most loving, most powerful and the Most High. I have committed acts which led to paths not of Your choosing. I now seek Your Grace. Let It flood me with Your love, Your joy and Your forgiveness. As the waves wash away the shore, I release my guilt to Your endless love and power. I am blameless in Your eye’s now, Creator. I am forgiven. I am forgiven and acts against You are remembered no more. You are also challenging Creator. I stand ready to be challenged. I allow the harm of guilt to pass, but ask you place conviction upon my heart to thirst for the right path. I seek to fulfill your will of loving myself and loving others. I speak this Truth to my whole being, I am forgiven. I am of the Creator. I am above questioning of my forgiveness. I am whole again. I am and always have been loved. These are the Truths of my life. Praise you Creator for grace. Praise you Creator for conviction. Speak these now to my spirit-self and empower these Truths to take over my life. I am loved and I am thankful, Father.”
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Lupe will also need to engage in a visualization much like the one we are about to journey on together. This visualization is necessary to allow consciousness from the spirit-self to reach the mind-self. If you would like to follow along with the recording of this visualization, you are welcome to do so. But, many people find visualizations to be easier if they can listen the first few times and then read through it.
As always, find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. You may wish to light a single candle to help you focus, or you may wish to play some soft music of an inspirational nature.
You may click here to download the sound file JSF.wav if you have not already done so. The file may be found by visiting www.crossingtwice.com/insidecircle.xhmtl and selecting “CT - Journey of Self-Forgiveness”. Once downloaded and ready to play, lay this eBook aside and press play. Press play now. “You are now in your spirit-self. You hold the image of your body-self and mind-self in your arms. You are strong and powerful. You are loving and you are at peace. You 11 | P a g e
are ready to speak to your Creator. You allow a great ball of light to form in your mind’s eye. Slowly at first. It grows brighter and larger and fills your mind.
You are in the presence of your connection to the Source. Your heart fills with love from the great Light. Such brilliant, powerful love that your head may swim for a moment. Slowly allow a tiny line to go from yourself in your mind’s eye to this Great Light. As the line reaches the Great Light you feel it pulse back to you.
Love, power, peace and such joy you never know when you are operating out of your mind-self. This place is a different place. It is where the eternal you is connected to your loving Creator. In this place, this place of love and peace, you turn your attention to the child you hold in your arms. This child represents your mind-self and your body-self. The child is beautiful and trusts you completely. You have a great love for this child and you begin to speak these words to the child hangs on your every word.
Little child, do not be afraid and do not be sad. I know the mistakes you have made and the burden of the guilt you 12 | P a g e
feel. You see the child believes you. The child believes what you say and is very attentive to you as your continue to speak.
Child, listen to me. You are forgiven for the acts you have committed. No matter how large they may seem, they are much smaller than the great Light we are here with now. As you hold the child, allow the Great Light to send through your line a feeling of great love and great grace.
Listen, little child, the Creator has said we are forgiven. We are forgiven and we are loved. We are forgiven and the Great Light has taken our guilt and allowed it to be completely forgotten. It is lost never to be rediscovered. The Great light holds us blameless. Feel the forgiveness wash over you. It is clean. It is fresh smelling. It scrubs out ever little stain and spot of guilt. We can sit here as long as you wish, little child, but the message will not change, you are forgiven and your acts are forgotten. You are clean.
Listen little child, for this is a Truth: You are forgiven. You are clean and you are surrounded by love and light.
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Where there was guilt there is a tiny hole. I want to you to see the line you have connecting you to the Source pulse with a powerful beautiful light. It overwhelms you and begins to fill in the tiny hole. The Light continues to flow until the hole is filled. The hole is now filled. It is invisible and undetectable. Now as you hold the child in your arms, hear you say “We are now whole again, we are forgiven. Our acts have been confessed and they are no more through the grace of the light. Instead of guilt our Creator bids us to feel the challenge of conviction.
Little child, we have simply learned a part of our path. The Creator loves us even more and challenges us not to repeat our acts. The Creator calls us forward. His Grace has forgiven us. It is time for us to go. Hear yourself say, little child, we are now going but our connection to the Creator is there for us. But, we must be about our lives. We do so full of love, free of guilt and clean, so very clean from our guilt. I am loved. I am forgiven. I am free of guilt.
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Now see the Great Light begin to fade and you come back to the place and room your began from. Open your eyes and realize you are back. Go forth knowing how very much you are loved and how you are forgiven and free. Yes, you are free.
This ends our journey for today. You will find more on self-forgiveness in Crossing Twice: Answers from the Source.
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