Learning to forgive is an essential part of reclaiming our life force and living a more satisfying and expansive life. As a child, we may have been taught to immediately tell someone, “I forgive you” and that was that. Even if it was said through narrow eyes and a clenched jaw! Forgiveness most certainly has more to it than that.

The need for forgiveness is created when we hang onto our emotions and do not let them process at the time of the perceived infraction. We store them up inside of us and are unwilling to actually feel our rage, anger, disappointment, etc. We walk away seething or placating and try desperately to get rid of the emotions that are hardest for us to feel (anger is a challenging one for most of us) instead of actually allowing ourselves to feel them.

Collin Tipping explains this process quite well in his book Radical Forgiveness. In it, he mentions breathwork as an important tool for anyone on the journey of forgiveness. From chapter 27, “As emotions come up, the person “breathes through” them, which allows the person not only to feel them fully but to release them. We often stop breathing to hold emotions in check, so breathing through them allows this feeling and release to take place. In some cases, the person expresses them verbally and kinesthetically while breathing. No matter how the emotions are released, almost invariably a sense of profound calm and deep peace results from the process. This simple technique provides dramatic and long-lasting healing effects. I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who is serious about wanting to clear out their emotional closet.”

As we work with our breath and become more comfortable feeling our emotions we can clear away past traumas that we may have felt have been haunting us. We also become more emotionally astute and can handle our present-day situations with more ease and grace and no longer find ourselves choking back on our words or bypassing our feelings. Even our body awareness is increased.

There is tremendous power in knowing how to truly forgive another and most importantly how to forgive yourself!