lara simmons

  "I'm not okay. You're not okay. But that's okay." -- Colin Tipping , author of Radical Forgiveness If you have been reading this blog for awhile, or if you read my previous blog , you know that Colin Tipping is my forgiveness guru. He has written a couple of absolutely fabulous books on the subject, leads workshops on Radical Forgiveness all over the world, and has even created a forgiveness worksheet that you can use to forgive others and set yourself free (these worksheets can be downloaded for FREE on his website). And this is one of my favorite quotes on forgiveness. I love it for its truth and simplicity. I am not okay, at least not all the time. And neither are you. But that's okay. It has to be, because IT IS. At the same time, we all want to do our best, to improve and to move forward into ever greater expression of our TRUE SELVES. The selves we want to be, the selves we are meant to be, the selves we were before we were hurt and mistr...

In this session, we started off with the idea that we all have a "story" about who we are. This is not necessarily a bad thing - it is part of being human - but sometimes our "story" no longer fits and we need to let go of it in order to write a new one. So ask yourself this question: WHAT IS MY "STORY?" and WHAT PART OF IT AM I READY TO LET IT GO THIS YEAR? (Some examples might be, "I am the 'good girl,'" or "I am the 'black sheep of the family.'") As a way to let go of the part of the story that no longer fits, we did an exercise from the book, Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping called The Three Letters Process . In this exercise you write three letters (that you DO NOT send) to someone who you feel has wronged you or in some way treated you badly. Choose someone who has been significant in your life and whom you feel forgiving might help to release you from your old story. Afterwards we all came ba...