FORGIVENESS AS A STEP TO ACCEPTANCE: A FUNDAMENTAL HEALTH CONCEPT

Course overview

Forgiveness is a long term process that promotes release from painful events of our past. In that respect, it is a skill to be learned and to be practiced over and over. The lack of forgiveness is a major component to ongoing chronic stress, reflected through emotions such as resentment, hatred, fear, shame, or/or guilt. Thus, forgiveness is an important factor to physical and mental health and the recovery from disease. It is helpful to understand the various steps that are creating resistance to forgiveness, and to have suggested ways to assist the process in our clients and patients. This course strives to integrate both the traditional, (and largely mental/emotional) and the alternative, (and largely body-based) approaches to forgiveness, making the point that true forgiveness requires work in all domains, and thus is more complete when the body/mind is all part of an ongoing process.