Elizabeth F asks when does a person know if they have truly forgiven someone. Is there a certain ritual or thought process involved? Or is it enough to simply say: I forgive you?

True forgiveness occurs only when whatever it was that you are forgiving the being for is no longer thought of. When you are filled with light and love and proceeding forward, no longer held back by whatever it was that you needed to forgive them for. If you are constantly still thinking of the act and all that surrounded it, you may have said the words but you have not forgiven. You must be willing, you must want to love yourself enough to fill yourself with light and not be held back by any negative.

For that is what happens when you do not forgive. It holds you to a place in time, almost in a state of “no growth” that is not healthy or healing for you or anyone else. True forgiveness is a greatest gift you give to yourself—for whatever matter. And all beings hold within themselves things they’ve not forgiven, though they’ve never put it in the light of forgiveness.

Any instant or element or learning or act that you constantly think of is definitely not forgiven. But even if it’s just once in a while that you think of it. It’s only when a beings says: Oh I’d completely forgotten that, then you have forgiven.

When you can stand whole and loving of yourself and look at the act or the circumstances and have just a feeling of light and love for yourself and for the being that perhaps created it. And see them as someone trying to be who they need to be: learning, growing. And see you as an amazing being, full of light, full of willingness to grow and to learn.

You choose this, my dear. You choose it. Think of the act or the being and surround them in light. Think of them as proceeding with their life. Think of them as a small child having difficulty, and love them as a mother or father or sister would love a child; as a being who loved them no matter what the action was.

When you have been harmed, think of this harm as a gift you gave to that person, an offer to help them grow. Whether they chose to or not has nothing to do with you. For you to heal your being, know that you have the greatest energy to give, to love, never ending.

It isn’t a matter of turning the other cheek so you could be hurt again. It’s a matter of loving yourself well enough to know that you will remove yourself from the situation and be whole and balanced.

Forgiveness is something that can be a constant in a being’s path, for many different reasons. There are different layers of it—until you understand it completely and eventually the time will come when you no longer think of it at all any more, and have just a feeling of love.