International ForGIVEness Day AUG 2, 2009

Lighten Your Burdens Now!

LISTEN to the audio on HOW TO FORGIVE... for all subscribers at

http://ILoveForGIVEness.blogspot.com

Order the simple little ForGIVEness Manual online at

http://thelittlebookofforgiveness.blogspot.com/

Learn this simple easy-to-use forgiveness

method. You can use it any moment, any time,

anywhere - when some incident, some harsh word, some

mean look gives you an on-the-spot reason and way to

ForGIVE. Instantaneously!

Keep YOUR Peace of Mind with this simple

method of ForGIVEness.

Order now.

http://thelittlebookofforgiveness.blogspot.com/

International Forgiveness Day Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 + The Heart and Soul of Forgiveness With Marianne Williamson Saturday, August 1st, 2009 Angelico Hall, Dominican University San Rafael, CA * Priority Seating Tickets Available till July 30th * The Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance would like to invite you to the 13th International Forgiveness Day on Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 from 7 to 9:30 pm in Angelico Hall at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA. The Heart and Soul of Forgiveness with Marianne Williamson, is the day before on August 1st and will also be taking place at Angelico Hall from 1 pm to 5 pm. Come and join Marianne in this powerful experiential afternoon as she leads us through a process of forgiveness, self-realization and global transformation. Till July 30th Priority Seating Tickets will be sold that allow you access to a reserved section with optimal viewing advantages. Don't miss this opportunity to guarantee yourself an amazing seat at this monumental event! Get your tickets now at www.ForgivenessDay.org Table of Contents The Heart and Soul of Forgiveness Workshop International Forgiveness Day Champion of Forgiveness: Marianne Williamson Hero of Forgiveness: John Lewis Hero of Forgiveness: Elwin Wilson Hero of Forgiveness: Christopher Rodriguez Also Participating in IFD Information about IFD and WFA

The Heart and Soul of Forgiveness With Marianne Williamson Saturday, August 1st, from 1 to 5 PM. Come and join Marianne in this powerful experiential afternoon as she leads us through a process of forgiveness, self-realization and global transformation. We are at the pivotal moment in our history that calls for us to be our very best - the shining light of love - to erase all doubts and limitations to our greatness - to join together with kindred spirits and to concentrate our conscious energies in bringing forward the changes we want to see. We who are fortunate to have experienced the joy and the power of conscious awakening are blessed to have this opportunity to help birth a new vision that we can unite to create together. Marianne will focus on how crucial Forgiveness is to loving oneself, which is crucial to having prosperity. The more we love ourselves, the more everything in our lives works, including our relationships and our economic well-being. And, with her breadth of knowledge, awareness and experience, Marianne will give us her thoughts about where we are now in the healing of our nation and where she see's us going in the future with Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace. We are witness and we are the weavers of that vision. The event will be videotaped, segments will be disseminated via You-tube and other streaming video online, and a DVD will be produced of this Workshop. We anticipate this to be a significant milestone in elevating the conversation of consciousness. There will be an opening Global Drum Circle led by David DiLullo. Advance Priority Seating Tickets are available on line at www.ForgivenessDay.org 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Sunday, August 2nd, from 7 to 9:30 PM. Come celebrate the possibilities of change in our lives when we learn to forgive. Experience the moving and powerful stories of our heroes and champions who have learned to forgive under highly difficult circumstances and then have gone on to teach reconciliation and forgiveness to the broader world. The event promises an inspiring evening of shared experience as outstanding pioneering leaders of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace are honored. Come and hear their words of wisdom, learn the stories of their journey to compassion, experience the power of forgiveness. Tickets are available on line at www.ForgivenessDay.org This year we have four Honorees: 2009 Champion of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Marianne Williamson Marianne Williamson, an internationally acclaimed spiritual activist, author, lecturer and founder of The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace, will be one of the featured guests at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony. There she will be presented with the Champion of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award. Champions of Forgiveness are those who dedicate their lives and work to expanding awareness and knowledge about the regenerative power of forgiveness and reconciliation as well as to help others experience it. Ms Williamson is also the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. She has published nine books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers, including "A Return to Love", considered a must-read of the new spirituality movement. It is from this book that Nelson Mandela took his famous 1994 Inauguration Speech quote that begins with the words, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure..." Ms. Williamson also has been a popular guest on numerous television programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, Good Morning America and Charlie Rose. 2009 Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Rep. John Lewis U.S. Representative John R. Lewis of Georgia, an International Leader of Peace, is often called "One of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement produced." In 1961, he was a leader of the Freedom Riders, a group of young, college students seeking to end segregation in the "Jim Crow" South. During a demonstration at a "whites only" bus station in South Caroline, he and his group were attacked by an angry mob led by the Ku Klux Klan. John Lewis was mercilessly beaten and hospitalized. In 1965, as the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he participated in the "Selma to Montgomery" marches led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There he endured brutal beatings and suffered a fractured skull at the hands of Alabama State police. His head wounds are still visible today. Yet, recently, former Ku Klux Klan member Elwin Wilson, who led the 1961 mob of Ku Klux Klansmen and was personally involved in the beating of Lewis, confronted John Lewis. After 48 years, Wilson sought out Congressman Lewis to apologize for what he had done. "I'm so sorry about what happened back then," Wilson said breathlessly. "It's OK," Lewis responded, "I forgive you." John Lewis says he never believed that such a thing would happen and attributes this amazing reconciliation to the power of Love, Grace and the power of people to say, "I'm sorry". This year, at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony, U.S. Representative John R. Lewis of Georgia will be honored as a Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award for dedicating his life to securing civil liberties, protecting human rights and for building what is known as "The Beloved Community" in America. 2009 Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Elwin Wilson Elwin Wilson was an unabashed racist, the sort who once hung a black doll from a noose outside his home. John Lewis was a young civil rights leader bent on changing laws, if not hearts and minds, even if it cost him his life. They faced each other at a South Carolina bus station during a protest in 1961. Wilson joined a white gang that jeered Lewis, attacked him and left him bloodied on the ground. Forty-eight years later, the men met again - this time so Wilson could apologize to Lewis and express regret for his hatred. Lewis, now a congressman from Atlanta, greeted his former tormentor at his Capitol Hill office. Lewis said Wilson is the first person involved in the dozens of attacks against him during the civil rights era to step forward and apologize. When they finally met in person, Lewis offered forgiveness without hesitation. Since then, Wilson has been on his own freedom march in search of forgiveness. This year, at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony, Elwin Wilson will be honored as a Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award for coming to contrition and forgiveness for himself and for having the courage to ask for forgiveness from those who he had harmed. 2009 Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Christopher Rodriguez Christopher Rodriguez, a 12-year-old boy paralyzed by a robber's stray bullet as he was taking a piano lesson in Oakland last year, had a message for the gunman who shot him, "I forgive you." Christopher delivered his words after rolling in his wheelchair to the front of the Oakland courtroom on Tuesday June 16, 2009 where the shooter Jared Adams, 26, had just been sentenced to 70 years to life in prison. Then he shook the convicted man's hand. Adams received a stiff sentence for wounding Christopher and committing other crimes 18 months ago that left him with a dozen felony convictions. The crime binge included the carjacking at gunpoint of then-state Senate leader and current Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata. "I know it wasn't your intention to shoot me, but remember - actions always have consequences," Christopher said. "Two of the bullets almost hit my mom. You could have killed my piano teacher, other students, yourself, your girlfriend and just normal people nearby." During a gas station robbery Jan. 10, 2008, a drunken Adams fired three shots. Two of his shots went across the street to the Harmony Road Music School which is located along Oakland's busy and normally safe Piedmont Avenue corridor. One of the shots penetrated the school's wall and severed Christopher's spine. Because of his powerful act of forgiveness, Christopher Rodriquez, will be awarded the Hero of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Peace Award at the 13th Annual International Forgiveness Day Awards Ceremony. Also Participating Fred Luskin, Ph.D. A featured speaker will be the 2002 Champion of Forgiveness, Dr. Fredric Luskin, Ph.D. who is the Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects, a Senior Consultant in Health Promotion at Stanford and an Associate Professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Dr. Luskin's best selling book, "Forgive For Good" outlines his ground breaking research which demonstrates that learning forgiveness leads to increased physical vitality, hope, greater self-efficacy, enhanced optimism and conflict resolution skills. His research also shows that forgiveness lessens the physical and emotional toll of stress, and decreases hurt, anger, depression and blood pressure. He has successfully worked with men and women from both sides of the violence in Northern Ireland who have had family members killed. Performing at the event will be vocalist Carmen Marie Coleman in addition to the renowned East Bay International Mass Choir, which is frequently featured in such venues as Carnegie Hall in New York City, Hillside Chapel in Atlanta, Founder's Church Annual International Choral Festival in Los Angeles as well as in West Africa. They will be accompanied by pianist Ed Bogas. Radio personality Peter B. Collins will be the Master of Ceremonies. http://www.peterbcollins.com/ International Forgiveness Day www.ForgivenessDay.org International Forgiveness Day, created in 1996 to honor the healing power of forgiveness, is the brainchild of Robert W. Plath, a Mill Valley attorney and Executive Director of the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance. Plath's dream is to have every first Sunday in August around the world designated as International Forgiveness Day; it would be the first internationally sanctioned holiday. Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance Mission The mission of the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance is to promote awareness and knowledge of the scientific findings related to forgiveness as well as the psychological, physiological, emotional and spiritual benefits of the forgiveness process. The Alliance pays tribute to Heroes of Forgiveness - people who exemplify the power of forgiveness by overcoming personal tragedies and traumas and moving from anger and revenge to the transformative release of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Alliance also honors Champions of Forgiveness - those who dedicate their lives and work to expanding awareness and knowledge about the regenerative power of forgiveness and reconciliation as well as to help others experience it. This year's 13th annual awards ceremony and entertainment event will be held at the Angelico Hall at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA. It will feature musical performances of the East Bay International Mass Choir and Carmen Marie Coleman, vocalist and choir director at Unity of Marin. You can visit the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance's website at www.ForgivenessAlliance.org Celebration Spreading Around the Globe International Forgiveness Day, which originated in Marin County, is spreading to other locales around the world. In years past, it has been celebrated in New York, Hawaii, Washington State, Oregon, Ghana, Canada and Nigeria as well as Southern California. This year, international efforts of the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance are being spearheaded by its International Coordinator, Pamela Gregory, who is helping the Alliance to bring Forgiveness Day to Cairo and London. You can find out more about Pamela at www.PamelaGregory.com

Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance www.ForgivenessAlliance.org 20 Sunnyside Ave, Suite A-268 Mill Valley, CA 94941 (415) 381-3372 (415) 384-0107 FAX

Lighten Your Burdens Now!

LISTEN to the audio on HOW TO FORGIVE... for all subscribers at

http://ILoveForGIVEness.blogspot.com

Order the simple little ForGIVEness Manual online at

http://thelittlebookofforgiveness.blogspot.com/

Learn this simple easy-to-use forgiveness

method. You can use it any moment, any time,

anywhere - when some incident, some harsh word, some

mean look gives you an on-the-spot reason and way to

ForGIVE. Instantaneously!

Keep YOUR Peace of Mind with this simple

method of ForGIVEness.

Order now.

http://thelittlebookofforgiveness.blogspot.com/

True ForGIVEness. Article by Lynn Woodland

True Forgiveness
by Lynn Woodland

Can we have love but not forgiveness?

Or true forgiveness without love?
Without forgiveness we can't love.

From the perspective of spiritual reality, the statements "I love you but don't forgive you" and "I forgive you but I don't love you" are impossibilities.

Love and forgiveness go hand in hand.

We can't have one without the other.

True forgiveness is not something we do for another person.

I often hear people speak of forgiveness as something we give to someone else, something that must be deserved or earned, and sometimes needs to be withheld.

The spiritual purpose of forgiveness is self-healing.

As long as we are holding anger, resentment and grudges against another person, we are poisoning our bodies with toxicity, lowering our immunity to disease and on subtler levels generating thoughts, expectations and attitudes that repel our highest good.

As we hold on to the belief that someone has harmed us so badly that we cannot, will not, forgive, we give power to the part of us that feels vulnerable and susceptible to being harmed.

Our lack of forgiveness actually draws more circumstances that will feed our anger and victimization.

Lack of forgiveness has been related as a contributing factor to physical illness, excess weight, financial scarcity, failed relationships and a host of other problems.

Lack of forgiveness inhibits love, which is the only true source of power.

As we withhold forgiveness, we inhibit our power and our very life-force.

Medical intuitive Caroline Myss, who, through her gift of intuitive sight sees the energy patterns that lead to illness, says, "By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person."

Now that we have established its importance, what exactly does it mean to forgive?

What often makes forgiveness so difficult is that we tend to think of it as a sacrifice, as giving in, giving up, losing our "rightness.

" It's like giving up the chip that says

"You owe me."

It seems to discount the pain we felt.

Forgiveness is sometimes experienced as letting someone who hurt us off the hook, no longer holding them accountable for their actions.

But forgiveness is not an act of negotiation between two people.

It does not begin and end by speaking the words "I forgive you."

Instead, it is an internal state, an ongoing process rather than an act.

True forgiveness is not about excusing someone's hurtful actions.

It goes much deeper than this.

It is the inner awareness that no harm was done, thus there is, in truth, nothing to forgive.

Most of what passes for forgiveness is rooted in the belief that we are separate and vulnerable and have been harmed.

In this way, the act of forgiveness directs the attention of both people to the hurtful act.

The forgiver feels self-righteous, the forgiven, guilty.

The whole process strengthens both people's belief in the reality of separateness and harm, and in this way is disempowering to both.

True forgiveness is a shifting of attention away from the hurtful act, not in denial, but in release.

It means identifying with the higher part of ourselves that was never harmed so we can see past the illusion of separateness to the reality of Oneness.

As we understand ourselves to be one with the person who hurt us, forgiveness becomes self-forgiveness.

As we transcend our belief in ourselves as victims, we are able to see the other person differently.

Instead of seeing his or her "wrongness" we see the pain that motivated his or her actions.

Living from a belief that doing harm brings personal gain is a prison of separateness, powerlessness and pain.

Anyone who acts intentionally to harm another is trapped in this painful prison, even if he or she doesn't recognize it as such.

When we understand this, we can more easily feel compassion instead of rage.

As with the idea of "love," I have heard the concept of forgiveness promoted in spiritual, metaphysical and psychological circles for years as the spiritual thing, the healthy thing, the right thing to do.

And, as with teachings on love, I have heard much more on the benefits and reasons to do it than on how to do it.

How can we coax our hearts into forgiveness when they feel hardened or broken?

Words of forgiveness are worth nothing without truth behind them.

Let following help you find a path into the process of forgiving.

Let Go of Victim Scenarios

Write a "victim" scenario.

Describe everything that was done to you unjustly, all the ways you have been harmed, every way you are right and the other party is wrong.

Next, describe the same scenario from the perspective that it was somehow a great lesson, gift or turning point in your life that served you in some important way.

Write this even if you don't believe it.

Take the first scenario of yourself as victim and symbolically release it: burn it, tear it up, bury it or flush it.

As you let it go imagine that you are releasing the need to feel victimized.

Keep the second scenario and read it every day for at least a week.

See the Reflection of Your Core Beliefs

Instead of focusing attention on the wrong thing that has been done to you, imagine that this painful experience reflects some belief or expectation you have about life.

This doesn't mean you "asked" to be hurt.

It means that you learned, probably when you were very young, to expect painful experiences.

Release blame, shame and any idea that you have done something wrong and simply look at this situation as a mirror, giving you important information about your core beliefs.

Every day for a month, pray to God or your Higher Self for help in stepping out of the hurtful dance you have created with this other person.

Pray for help in releasing the beliefs and expectations that call hurt into your life.

If you are working on forgiving a parent or other person from your early childhood who helped to instill your limiting core beliefs about life, you can still see your experience with this person as reflecting some deep level of choice.

Imagine that your Higher Self called this relationship into your life for a purpose.

For example, if I look at all the pain my alcoholic father caused me in my childhood and early adulthood, I am tempted to feel rage and powerlessness.

However when I think of the turns my life took as a direct result of this early pain, I realize that my whole life path with its focus of love and healing was because of my father.

From this perspective, I see a higher purpose to our meeting and can actually feel gratitude for this painful experience in my life.

Get to the Root of Displaced Anger

When your anger is toward a group, an institution or society, rather than an individual, it is important to remember that anger is a much weaker power source than love.

Many feel that anger is a necessary ingredient for creating change.

While anger can motivate action, ultimately, when we give attention to victimization and abuse, we may achieve some sense of victory, but we also perpetuate a reality that includes victims and abusers.

The more we motivate ourselves from a place of anger, the more we will continually have to fight victimization.

Being angry at a group often has a feeling of hopelessness built into it.

While we may be able to create peace and resolution in relation to one person, doing so with all of society is obviously more difficult.

When we often find ourselves angry at "the system" in one form or another, there is usually a person or people from early in our lives we need to forgive.

This early hurt, usually related to one or both of our parents or other significant adult care-takers, imbedded within us feelings of anger and powerlessness that we project onto other situations in our lives.

We may also find that we have anger toward one or more of the important people in our adult life ¾ a spouse, friend or co-worker - and have displaced this anger onto an impersonal system because we fear the consequences of our anger.

It may be easier to face the anger we have toward a faceless system than to deal with the true source of our feeling, which invariably comes back to personal relationships with individuals.

However, it is far more manageable to forgive an individual than a system.

When you find yourself angry at a group, find the one individual you most need to forgive.

If, for example you are angry at a company where you used to work, focus on the one person you feel the most anger toward.

If you are angry at society or other such large institutions where there is no one single individual who stands out, then look to see who in your life you are holding anger toward.

Practice Self-forgiveness

If all approaches to forgiveness feel equally difficult, you probably have at least as much trouble forgiving yourself as you do others.

In this case, begin the forgiveness process by forgiving yourself.

Make a list of all the things you hold against yourself and begin to say out loud and as written affirmations, "I, (your name), forgive myself for ___________."

Louise Hay suggests looking at yourself in the mirror as you say affirmations of self-love.

I find this mirror technique to be especially helpful in working on self-forgiveness.

Aim for Moments of Forgiveness








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