Healing The Wounds of the Heart

Can everything be forgiven? 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? Showing that forgiveness is the healing of the heart’s wounds as well as the revival of love, Olivier Clerc looks at what prerequisites might be needed to enter into a process of forgiving and what the effects of doing so might be, for oneself as much as, if not more than for the perpetrator. He identifies 15 obstacles to forgiveness—prejudices, confusions, false ideas, misunderstandings—and discusses where these perceptions and obstacles originate from, which keep many of us from taking the path to healing.

Exploring how to overcome the obstacles to forgiveness and how to let go and change our thinking, the author 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. Drawing from his years of forgiveness work as well as from the Forgiveness Project, he shares inspiring testimonies and examples from both victims and perpetrators who have rebuilt their lives after trauma by walking the path of conscious forgiveness. Clerc reveals how choosing to engage in a conscious process of forgiving our perpetrators—while not without struggle—helps stop a spiral of destruction, cleanses the heart, and leads to relief, freedom, and inner peace. Even when faced with the unspeakable, forgiveness is a path we can all take and in doing so we recover our full capacity to love and find happiness.