Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves. I worked in therapy with a woman in her mid-fifties who, in spite of many years of inner work, was unable to let go of her feelings about a termination she had in her early twenties. I asked her if she had ever talked with the spirit of her unborn child and, looking surprised, she said she hadn't. I asked if she knew a special place where she could go to do that. She said that she sometimes visited a powerful and beautiful spot on a mountain with streams, great rocks and little waterfalls.

'Could you go there,' I said, 'and talk to your baby, talk to her spirit; ask why she was conceived and whether or not she forgives you? Look at the lives she has affected. See if you can understand the effects and purpose of her brief life.'

She visited her special place, performed rituals and spoke to the spirit of her unborn child. Her questions were answered by an inner voice - the voice of her unborn baby's spirit - and it never blamed her for what she had done. She recalled how her pregnancy had deepened her relationship with her mother and her sister, how her friends and family had reached a more real level of being and awareness from the experience of strong emotions and searching questions. After three or four visits and conversations with her unborn child, she was able to forgive herself and feel released. The results were palpable. She was lighter in her spirit and easier in her mind and body. She said that it was as if a stone had been removed from her heart. Through her communions with her child she had been able to forgive herself.

Sometimes we feel blame, revenge or hatred towards someone who has died. We may think that we have left it too late and that death has robbed us of the opportunity to say what will forever be unsaid, to express what we can never express and clear up the issues that will be left forever. Many of us give up on ever being able to forgive (or be forgiven) and some part of us 'dies' along with the deceased person. Anger and blame create a powerful attachment that we cannot shed, without forgiveness.

This identification with the dead person - the fact that both have died in different ways - holds the key. We can speak with the 'spirit' of the dead person, converse with them just as we might talk to an incarnated person, because the one who has died lives on inside us. While we hold on to the unsaid, unexpressed and unresolved issues that are between us and the person who has died we keep them alive in a limbo state. Unable to let go of the issues, we are also unable to release the person. Our spirit goes out of us and a part of us remains suspended between the worlds.

Speaking to the dead person's spirit allows us to release them from the powerful attachment our negativity creates. Following forgiveness usually a flood of positive feelings fills us when we have let go of our anger, grief or revenge towards the dead person. For a while we hold them in this positive way before releasing them altogether.

Without denying responsibility we reach a deep acceptance of what has been done to us by others. Whatever the deed and whoever the perpetrator, forgiveness enables us to take back the power we have lost. We relinquish our right to reject, blame and hate what happened or who did it. Instead we become aware of how we have grown, not in spite of, but through the experience.

Practicing forgiveness leads us to a profound realization. Withholding forgiveness maintains the illusion of the small self, our separate, unconnected, opposed identity that fights for survival in a hostile world and defends itself with negativity and concealed aggression. When we do not forgive, we separate ourselves from life. Forgiveness is fiction, because there was never anything or anyone to forgive. The presumption of somebody forgiving somebody for something they did is a rational argument riddled with spiritual inaccuracies. At the deepest levels of working with forgiveness, we can see that the idea of a separate entity is transparently false.

Forgiveness provokes the profound acceptance of ourselves. We find that we have been carrying outer forms of madness, blame, anger and grief that merely mirror the shadow forms of our inner world. Forgiveness permeates our inner world with love and clarity.

A single act of genuine forgiveness carries tremendous power. To forgive once truly is to forgive all. Practicing forgiveness frees us from repeating the experiences of pain and outrage, sorrow and grief and empowers us to live freely, joyfully and spontaneously in the world.

Richard Harvey, Psychotherapist, Author and Spiritual Teacher, makes the connection between counseling and psychotherapy and spiritual growth. He speaks particularly to those who are looking for more than they have found in therapy. And offers guidance to those seeking to undertake the inner journey - guidance free of dogma and grounded in what many of us experience as the "messiness" of our personalities.

BLOG entry #85

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Practicing Forgiveness – The Real Secret Reason Why We Hold on to Revenge, Blame and Anger’ was first published in 2011.