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Healing the Wounds of the Heart
15 Obstacles to Forgiveness and How to Overcome Them
Foreword by Lewis Mehl-Madrona
Published by Findhorn Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
An exploration of the life-changing power of forgiving
• Discusses 15 perceived obstacles to forgiveness and how to overcome them
• Details four different methods of forgiveness: the Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono, Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness, Fred Luskin’s Nine Steps to Forgiveness, and the author’s own Gift of Forgiveness
• Shares inspiring testimonies and stories from around the world, revealing how forgiveness helps stop a spiral of destruction, cleanses the heart, and leads to relief, freedom, and inner peace
Can Everything Be Forgiven? Forgiveness allows our hearts to heal and love to be revived. Forgiving the small and average sufferings experienced throughout life is one thing. But what about bigger transgressions, like infidelity, abuse, or even large-scale offenses such as genocide?
Olivier Clerc identifies 15 obstacles to forgiveness--prejudices, confusions, misunderstandings--and discusses from where these perceptions originate and how they might keep us from taking the path to healing. Drawing from his years of forgiveness work as well as from the Forgiveness Project, he details four practical methods for forgiveness, each with a unique approach: the Hawaiian practice of Ho‘oponopono, Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness, Fred Luskin’s Nine Steps to Forgiveness, and the author’s own Gift of Forgiveness, inspired by his work with don Miguel Ruiz. Inspiring testimonies and examples from both victims and perpetrators who have rebuilt their lives after trauma show that even when faced with the unspeakable we can heal. Choosing to engage in a conscious process of forgiving helps stop a spiral of destruction, cleanses the heart, and leads to relief, freedom, and inner peace.
• Discusses 15 perceived obstacles to forgiveness and how to overcome them
• Details four different methods of forgiveness: the Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono, Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness, Fred Luskin’s Nine Steps to Forgiveness, and the author’s own Gift of Forgiveness
• Shares inspiring testimonies and stories from around the world, revealing how forgiveness helps stop a spiral of destruction, cleanses the heart, and leads to relief, freedom, and inner peace
Can Everything Be Forgiven? Forgiveness allows our hearts to heal and love to be revived. Forgiving the small and average sufferings experienced throughout life is one thing. But what about bigger transgressions, like infidelity, abuse, or even large-scale offenses such as genocide?
Olivier Clerc identifies 15 obstacles to forgiveness--prejudices, confusions, misunderstandings--and discusses from where these perceptions originate and how they might keep us from taking the path to healing. Drawing from his years of forgiveness work as well as from the Forgiveness Project, he details four practical methods for forgiveness, each with a unique approach: the Hawaiian practice of Ho‘oponopono, Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness, Fred Luskin’s Nine Steps to Forgiveness, and the author’s own Gift of Forgiveness, inspired by his work with don Miguel Ruiz. Inspiring testimonies and examples from both victims and perpetrators who have rebuilt their lives after trauma show that even when faced with the unspeakable we can heal. Choosing to engage in a conscious process of forgiving helps stop a spiral of destruction, cleanses the heart, and leads to relief, freedom, and inner peace.
Excerpt
From Obstacle 3
Forgiveness Would Mainly Be a Gift to the Other
Could believing that be an obstacle? For many people, yes.
Why?
Because if I believe that granting forgiveness to someone who hurt me, and for whom I still hold a grudge, is a gift to that person, an inner voice will immediately arise to say, “NO, no way! I’m not making him or her that gift! I was hurt, I suffered a lot, so don’t count on me to grant forgiveness.” In thinking that way, I’m convinced I’m punishing the other by refusing forgiveness. I believe it’s that person who will suffer now.
Is this a fair way to see things?
Actually, not really. In fact, not at all.
If I am physically attacked and wounded, not taking care of myself will make me suffer first. If the other person has a change of mind, that person might also be affected. But they may also not care less, or may never know about it. In the same way, if my heart was hurt, if I suffered things that deeply affected me in my emotional integrity (not the physical one), refusing to heal – which means refusing to grant forgiveness since forgiveness is described here as healing the wounds of the heart – is mainly going to make me suffer. I’m the one who will go on poisoning myself with hatred, resentment, and the desire for revenge. I’m the one who will spend months, years, maybe decades, with open and painful wounds in my emotional body. I’m the one who will have a wounded heart, emotional cysts, and an emotional handicap.
Will the person who hurt me suffer from my refusal to grant forgiveness? Not sure. It varies a lot from one person to another. While some would like to be forgiven their wrongs one day, others really don’t care. However, it’s true that from a spiritual point of view, my hatred – which is a negative energy though an invisible one – will do no good to the person to whom I send it. It’s a kind of psychological attack that may sometimes have tangible effects. Except that by going through me first before reaching its goal, I would be the one to have to pay the most for it. Secondly, it will inevitably have an effect on all of my other relationships, including those I am closest to, who would also, indirectly, pay the highest price. Because yes, the human heart is one, and if it exudes hatred on one side, it cannot box itself off and express pure and unstained love on the other side. Thirdly, all the negative energy I express – just like everything I sow with my thoughts, my intentions and my feelings – is going to attract similar energies to me, therefore negative ones too, and I risk locking myself into an infernal vicious circle.
Do I really want that? No, obviously not. And most of us fall into that trap out of sheer ignorance of its mechanics and consequences.
The best way to avoid this obstacle is precisely to be aware of the fact that forgiveness is first and foremost something we do for ourselves! We forgive to free ourselves from the poison of hatred, to heal our own wounds, to cure our own heart. We forgive in order not to remain crippled in our heart and unable to love again fully, even those who are closest.
What’s difficult here lies in the fact that resentment is a link. In French, there is in fact the expression, Je t’en veux – unknown in other languages – that I find very expressive. It literally means I use my will on you. It means I have a hold on you through a link of resentment and hatred. I don’t want to let you go because of what you’ve done to me. If I ever for-gave you, I’d relinquish this link, I’d free you . . . No way! So I continue to hold it against you, and the link of resentment I cultivate chains me to you, therefore limits me. To get rid of this link, to be able heal oneself, it’s necessary to make the distinction between two levels, two dimensions within us that we tend to confuse and mix up: our heart and our mind. As we’ll go deeper into this matter later, implementing forgiveness (healing our heart) does not mean becoming an idiot intellectually and making stupid decisions. I can forgive... and bring a legal charge against someone. “I forgive everything . . . but I leave nothing out!”, said one of my spiritual mentors. “I forgive everything” means “I refuse to poison myself with the venom of hatred, so I do what’s necessary to heal my heart.” And “leaving nothing out” means “I also don’t lack judgement and common sense. I know that what you’ve done is unacceptable. So, without hatred, I do what is needed so that you’re confronted with the consequences of your actions.”
I’ll go deeper into this main subject later. What’s important for you to understand, while tackling this specific obstacle, is that you can forgive, you can make this gift to yourself, grant yourself the healing of your emotional wounds, without necessarily freeing the others – those who hurt you – from the legal consequences of their actions. Yes, you free them from your hatred, since you’re the first one to get something out of it. But you don’t necessarily give the others a blank check that would shield them from all responsibility. So, you must make the difference between two important things to protect yourself from this obstacle:
• a first difference between how we act towards ourselves, and towards the others: what do I plan to do for myself, to heal myself, to recover my integrity? And what will I do towards the person who did me wrong? These are two very different things, that you must deal with separately, making the distinction between them. The choice is not between “I suffer to make the other suffer” or “I heal, but in the process I free the other.” There is a third way to deal with this: “I heal, I take care of myself . . . but I keep a free hand on acting towards the other as required by the wrong committed.”
• a second difference between what happens in my heart, and in my mind: instead of the two working together (either negatively “I don’t forget and I condemn”, or positively “I forgive and accept”), I develop their respective autonomy: my heart forgives, heals, and recovers its integrity and flow, while my mind keeps all its ability to judge and makes the fair decisions that are required to protect my heart, and puts the people concerned in front of their responsibility. We shall see that this is the condition for the inner couple “heart/mind” to take their full space instead of alternatively submitting one to the other while our decisions err one way or the other.
Once this third obstacle is put aside, the word forgiveness should automatically mean something that does you good! The centre of gravity of this word would stop being on the same level as the other person, what that person says or does, what that person deserves or not, to reposition it on ourself: how do I want to live? What state do I want to be in? How can I heal? Once I’ve healed myself, the decisions I make concerning the others are not dictated by my hatred or resentment anymore: they can therefore be more objective and fairer, because they come from a space within me that has calmed down.
Bear this in mind: when you forgive, you are first and foremost freeing yourself. The opposite, holding a grudge, is a dangerous form of emotional constipation. Would forgiveness be an emotional laxative? Here is an unexpected metaphor, though very significant, to add to the others!
Forgiveness Would Mainly Be a Gift to the Other
Could believing that be an obstacle? For many people, yes.
Why?
Because if I believe that granting forgiveness to someone who hurt me, and for whom I still hold a grudge, is a gift to that person, an inner voice will immediately arise to say, “NO, no way! I’m not making him or her that gift! I was hurt, I suffered a lot, so don’t count on me to grant forgiveness.” In thinking that way, I’m convinced I’m punishing the other by refusing forgiveness. I believe it’s that person who will suffer now.
Is this a fair way to see things?
Actually, not really. In fact, not at all.
If I am physically attacked and wounded, not taking care of myself will make me suffer first. If the other person has a change of mind, that person might also be affected. But they may also not care less, or may never know about it. In the same way, if my heart was hurt, if I suffered things that deeply affected me in my emotional integrity (not the physical one), refusing to heal – which means refusing to grant forgiveness since forgiveness is described here as healing the wounds of the heart – is mainly going to make me suffer. I’m the one who will go on poisoning myself with hatred, resentment, and the desire for revenge. I’m the one who will spend months, years, maybe decades, with open and painful wounds in my emotional body. I’m the one who will have a wounded heart, emotional cysts, and an emotional handicap.
Will the person who hurt me suffer from my refusal to grant forgiveness? Not sure. It varies a lot from one person to another. While some would like to be forgiven their wrongs one day, others really don’t care. However, it’s true that from a spiritual point of view, my hatred – which is a negative energy though an invisible one – will do no good to the person to whom I send it. It’s a kind of psychological attack that may sometimes have tangible effects. Except that by going through me first before reaching its goal, I would be the one to have to pay the most for it. Secondly, it will inevitably have an effect on all of my other relationships, including those I am closest to, who would also, indirectly, pay the highest price. Because yes, the human heart is one, and if it exudes hatred on one side, it cannot box itself off and express pure and unstained love on the other side. Thirdly, all the negative energy I express – just like everything I sow with my thoughts, my intentions and my feelings – is going to attract similar energies to me, therefore negative ones too, and I risk locking myself into an infernal vicious circle.
Do I really want that? No, obviously not. And most of us fall into that trap out of sheer ignorance of its mechanics and consequences.
The best way to avoid this obstacle is precisely to be aware of the fact that forgiveness is first and foremost something we do for ourselves! We forgive to free ourselves from the poison of hatred, to heal our own wounds, to cure our own heart. We forgive in order not to remain crippled in our heart and unable to love again fully, even those who are closest.
What’s difficult here lies in the fact that resentment is a link. In French, there is in fact the expression, Je t’en veux – unknown in other languages – that I find very expressive. It literally means I use my will on you. It means I have a hold on you through a link of resentment and hatred. I don’t want to let you go because of what you’ve done to me. If I ever for-gave you, I’d relinquish this link, I’d free you . . . No way! So I continue to hold it against you, and the link of resentment I cultivate chains me to you, therefore limits me. To get rid of this link, to be able heal oneself, it’s necessary to make the distinction between two levels, two dimensions within us that we tend to confuse and mix up: our heart and our mind. As we’ll go deeper into this matter later, implementing forgiveness (healing our heart) does not mean becoming an idiot intellectually and making stupid decisions. I can forgive... and bring a legal charge against someone. “I forgive everything . . . but I leave nothing out!”, said one of my spiritual mentors. “I forgive everything” means “I refuse to poison myself with the venom of hatred, so I do what’s necessary to heal my heart.” And “leaving nothing out” means “I also don’t lack judgement and common sense. I know that what you’ve done is unacceptable. So, without hatred, I do what is needed so that you’re confronted with the consequences of your actions.”
I’ll go deeper into this main subject later. What’s important for you to understand, while tackling this specific obstacle, is that you can forgive, you can make this gift to yourself, grant yourself the healing of your emotional wounds, without necessarily freeing the others – those who hurt you – from the legal consequences of their actions. Yes, you free them from your hatred, since you’re the first one to get something out of it. But you don’t necessarily give the others a blank check that would shield them from all responsibility. So, you must make the difference between two important things to protect yourself from this obstacle:
• a first difference between how we act towards ourselves, and towards the others: what do I plan to do for myself, to heal myself, to recover my integrity? And what will I do towards the person who did me wrong? These are two very different things, that you must deal with separately, making the distinction between them. The choice is not between “I suffer to make the other suffer” or “I heal, but in the process I free the other.” There is a third way to deal with this: “I heal, I take care of myself . . . but I keep a free hand on acting towards the other as required by the wrong committed.”
• a second difference between what happens in my heart, and in my mind: instead of the two working together (either negatively “I don’t forget and I condemn”, or positively “I forgive and accept”), I develop their respective autonomy: my heart forgives, heals, and recovers its integrity and flow, while my mind keeps all its ability to judge and makes the fair decisions that are required to protect my heart, and puts the people concerned in front of their responsibility. We shall see that this is the condition for the inner couple “heart/mind” to take their full space instead of alternatively submitting one to the other while our decisions err one way or the other.
Once this third obstacle is put aside, the word forgiveness should automatically mean something that does you good! The centre of gravity of this word would stop being on the same level as the other person, what that person says or does, what that person deserves or not, to reposition it on ourself: how do I want to live? What state do I want to be in? How can I heal? Once I’ve healed myself, the decisions I make concerning the others are not dictated by my hatred or resentment anymore: they can therefore be more objective and fairer, because they come from a space within me that has calmed down.
Bear this in mind: when you forgive, you are first and foremost freeing yourself. The opposite, holding a grudge, is a dangerous form of emotional constipation. Would forgiveness be an emotional laxative? Here is an unexpected metaphor, though very significant, to add to the others!
Product Details
- Publisher: Findhorn Press (March 22, 2023)
- Length: 160 pages
- ISBN13: 9781644115985
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Raves and Reviews
“In an ever more closely intertwined world, forgiveness could be called the number one survival skill. Olivier Clerc has an amazing record of spreading the word, and I cannot recommend his book too highly for any conscious human being.”
– Pierre Pradervand, author of The Gentle Art of Blessing
“Healing the Wounds of the Heart is a superb book that allows us to understand both the why and how to forgive. The author’s study and practice shows his deep understanding of forgiveness. He offers compelling insights and moving stories. It is rare to find a book that is both simple and deep. I recommend this book without hesitation.”
– Frederic Luskin, Ph.D., author of Forgive for Good and director of the Stanford University Forgivene
“Beyond answering the important question framed in the title, this book does a superb job of teasing out the nuances of forgiveness from beginning to end, reflecting the author’s deep experience, wisdom, and heart. For the person who wants to understand forgiveness, this book is an excellent choice. For the one ready to forgive, several practical approaches are provided. For those struggling with forgiveness, the book provides an invaluable discussion of the obstacles to forgiveness and the spiritual development that is possible to those who apply themselves to this path.”
– Eileen Barker, author of the Forgiveness Workbook and founder of the Path of Forgiveness
“This might be one of the most important books you will ever read. Everyone, without exception, has some forgiveness issues. Unknowingly, these issues drain our life of true vitality and joy. We’ve all heard that it’s good to forgive. The uniqueness of Olivier’s book lies in its clear explanation of why we probably won’t do just that. As a teacher of personnel development, I have seen people transformed and released upon realizing specifically why they hold on to pain and judgment. You can see in their eyes the immense gift it is to finally free the heart so it can love and dance once more. Read this book, free yourself.”
– Bernard Groom, A Course in Miracles teacher
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