Love is the harmonizing energy of the universe. Paramahansa Yogananda

Valentine’s Day is sacred to me. My husband and I were engaged on Valentine’s Day in 1991 and my mother, Priscilla, transitioned on the same day 30 years later. These two people, who couldn’t have been more different, have shown me, maybe more than anyone else, that love resides inside the heart space of forgiveness. That is to say, if we truly desire and seek to experience the harmonizing energy of love, we will inevitably get wise to the ways we block it by holding on to its opposite: non-forgiveness. Hearts, minds, and bodies know when they are open, and when they are closed.

When negativity towards self and others takes up residence in our hearts and minds what could be a flow of love and harmony congeals and eventually hardens into blame, bitterness, and self-righteousness. Louise Hay and Caroline Myss have written extensively about the emotional and physical consequences of living in a chronic state of resentment, such as TMJ, overall body stiffness, pain of unknown origin, and lack of mobility in the joints, just to name a few.

It goes without saying that some things are easier to forgive than others, and for that reason, it usually takes a little while to disarm. Forgiveness does not ask us to accept hurtful behaviors, or forget about them. Forgiveness simply asks us to realize that the we are only ones truly being affected by bitter thoughts and feelings. None of us deserve to have past events and negative inner narratives become a barrier to a sense of sustained contentment. If we truly want to experience the harmonizing energy of the universe we call “love,” we need to make space for it by releasing painful experiences from our hearts and minds.

But how?

❤️ Begin with a sincere intention in your mind, body, and soul.

❤️ Spend time with positive people that will elevate your perspective.

❤️ Try Vinyasa, Yin and Restorative yoga. Locate places where you may be bracing, armoring, and holding tension in the body. Flow. Move. Breathe. Get Still. Soften. Let go.

❤️ Try Yoga Nidra

❤️ Try Deep Brain Reorienting a therapy model that dismantles experiential shock held by the body. You could also try Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), also known for shifting the splenetic chronicle of non-forgiveness to a perspective that prevents outside influences from determining how you feel..

❤️ Try energy healing and energy psychology. Assisting the Human Energy Field (HEF) with Reiki, Hands of Light, Healing Touch, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Cranial Sacral Therapy (CST) can transform emotional re-activity to a state of neutrality. Resentment and negativity are chronically depleting physically and emotionally. Energy work is known to expand consciousness and physical vitality by affecting feelings as a form of pure energy, and going underneath the memory and the story rather than continually verbalizing an old (or new) “story” that no longer serves.

❤️ Read Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card or Beneficence by Meredith Hall.

❤️ Try journaling. My favorite journaling prompts for transforming hurt into harmony come from my friend, Jennie Lee, an author, coach, and yoga therapist, in her award winning book, Spark Change.

❤️ Try meditating with the ancient Hawaiian mantra “Ho’onoponopono,” translated “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” Send it to yourself and others. Watch what happens.

Forgive your mother; forgive your father; forgive your sister; forgive your brother; forgive your ex; forgive the person who misunderstood you; forgive the person who didn’t know how to listen; forgive the person for whom your love was not enough; forgive the person for whom your love was too much; and most of all, forgive yourself, over and over and over again.