I have been invited by Lewis Mehl-Madrona to lead a Forgiveness Circle at the Two-Eyed Seing Indigenous Approaches to Emotional Wellbeing Conference hosted at the University of Maine, October 3, 2021.
A forgiveness circle aims at helping you heal your own wounds. Forgiveness is about healing the heart. We all have wounded hearts, and what we need, even more than opening up our hearts, is to heal them – to be able to pour soothing balm on our wounds.
Through forgiveness it is actually we ourselves who are freed from the grip of hatred, from poisons such as grudges, bitter hate and resentment. People often think forgiveness is a gift we give someone else, but in actual fact, it is first and foremost a gift we give ourselves.
The purpose is to reclaim our freedom to love, instead of remaining a prisoner of the past, locked into what others have said or done to us.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician, associate professor at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, and executive director of the Coyote Institute for Studies of Change and Transformation. He is also the author of several books.
The Forgiveness Circle ritual is affiliated with the lineage of Don Miguel Ruiz and Olivier Clerc.
