Why Study This Mantra...

You will learn to appreciate forgiving naturally, effortlessly, and constantly. Never hold a grudge again!
 

Introduction 

Those who tend to forgive others report higher self-esteem and lower anxiety and depression. The process or act of forgiving someone increases your well-being by lowering grief, anger, and anxiety. Benevolence toward an aggressor is positively related to satisfaction with life and positive mood.

In short, holding negative judgements can be the anchor that holds us under water. Let's break that chain.

This month, you will learn to forgive. You will detach from negative and harmful people, ideas, and thoughts. You will shake off the grudges of your past. In short, you will set yourself free.

Before you begin...

Before you start these practices and challenges, take a moment to rate yourself on this mantra. Give yourself a score from 1-10 (10 being the highest). 

Do this again at the end of a month of practices and challenges. How much have you grown?

The Practices

Daily Practices

 

As I go throughout my day, I will be conscious of my feelings. If I feel offended, I will take note to revisit this later. (It's not only people who may be forgiven, situations may be as well.)

At the end of the day as I remove my mantra, I will go through the REACH exercise. I can use the space in my journal, but ultimately I want to get good at thinking through this process in my head. Ultimately, my goal is to forgive my offender, not because I like what they did or condone it, but because it doesn't help me to hold onto the bad feelings.

Monthly Challenge

Forgiveness Letter

This month, you will write a forgiveness letter.

First, decide who to forgive, and for what. You may write to the same person as covered in your REACH exercise in your journal, or it may be someone different.

Now pull out a blank sheet of paper or use your journal to write a letter of forgiveness to the offender. Be genuine. Don't lie to yourself. The value of this exercise is in truly believing the words and actually forgiving your offender.

Whether or not you share it is up to you. Writing it and standing behind it is what's important.

REACH

First, participants recall (R) the hurt.

Second, they develop empathy (E) for the offender.

Third, participants reframe forgiveness as an altruistic (A) gift for the offender.

Fourth, they commit (C) to forgive, and

In the final step, they learn to hold (H) on to forgiveness (Akhtar & Barlow, 2018).

The Reasoning

For a definitive look at this month's mantras and practices, including what philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and scientists throughout history have thought, taught, and advocated, click below.