Radical Forgiveness

MASTER INDEX of articles written, posted online or recommended by Alex Paterson

INTRODUCTION

In June 2000 I attended a Radical Forgiveness workshop conducted by Colin Tipping at the Relaxation Centre in Brisbane. The workshop was based Tipping's book, 'Radical Forgiveness'. Below are a few random notes I made at the time about the workshop. Although these notes were made for myself, I have decided to post them online in an unedited format as an introduction for others into Radical Forgiveness.

Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness techniques had a powerful (and positive) effect on me personally and I recommend the technique to anyone seeking to heal the shadow aspects of their psyche and rebuild their relationships with others. For a thorough understanding of the technique it is recommended you obtain and read a copy of Tipping's book 'Radical Forgiveness'.

RADICAL FORGIVENESS

Radical Forgiveness is an extension of the primary truth underlying all reality, namely that everything in the Universe is an expression of a Singularity which I choose to call Source and most others call God. As such, everything in the Universe is interconnected.

Radical Forgiveness is based upon the simple premise that the 'dark' or shadow aspects of our psyche which we need to acknowledge and heal are reflected for us in those who have significant impact on our lives - be they lovers, spouse, work colleagues, children, parents, friends, mentors or so called enemies. As Tipping quite rightly pointed out: "if you spot it (a behaviour trait) in others, then you have got it. (yourself)."

The key word in the above statement is 'acknowledge'. Whenever we try to deny something we don't like by pretending it does not exist within us, we invalidate it. To invalidate means "to render having no effect", but the great irony is that as soon as we attempt to invalidate something it immediately demands attention to be validated. The reason for this is simple. Invalidation by definition is an attempt to separate out that which one wishes to invalidate from those aspects we choose to acknowledge. From the perspective of the essential 'ONENESS' pervading the Universe, separation is an illusory 'artificial' state requiring a huge amount of energy to maintain. When we suppress something by invalidating it, we think the issue has gone away, but this is a delusion because the issue will inevitably reappear at some stage to be acknowledged and validated and this process cannot be avoided. Invalidation is a bit like trying to stop the flow of a stream; it can be achieved for a little while, but eventually the weight of water builds up and overwhelms us and continues to flow in accordance with the natural law of balance.

DEFINITIONS

RELATIONSHIPS

At our essence we are energy expressed as LOVE and love expresses itself as an urge towards Unity and harmony.

When two people meet and are attracted to each other, energy (which is love) begins to flow between them and they experience the emotion of fraternity and in some cases, falling in love. Initially, this flow is unrestricted because the people involved do not judge each other, but with the passage of time one or both of them invariably begin to apply judgement about the other person. As defined above, judgement is a form of discernment in which our Ego consciousness applies 'value' or 'merit' to the different aspects of the thing we are discerning. However, this thinking is fatally flawed as everything in the Universe is a manifestation of SOURCE and despite the perception of separation that is fundamental to experience in this realm (i.e. the Physical Universe ), nothing is ever really separate from anything else and as such everything is of equal validity and value. The moment the Ego assigns value to something over and above something else by judging it, it invalidates all the aspects of so called 'lesser' value which creates disharmony (dis-harmony) resulting in an energy blockage. Thus, instead of the energy flowing freely between two people in a relationship, it begins to spiral back in on itself in order to heal the disharmony. This process manifests itself as emotions of fear, distrust and separation. It is from the perception of separation that we then create our victim stories in which we allege the other person or persons "did something to us". The truth of course, is that we manifested the whole process in co-operation with the soul (or souls) of the other people involved in the drama for the purpose of healing the shadow aspects of our psyche, which have been mirrored by the others involved in the drama for us. (more on this later)

At its essence, Radical Forgiveness is about reminding ourselves that we are not really separate from our Source (God), and as such we are entirely responsible for the circumstances we find ourselves in. It is from the perspective of this universal truth that our ego 'victim stories' are revealed to be the nonsense that they really are, and once reminded of this 'truth', the victim story then collapses.

RADICAL FORGIVENESS HEALING TECHNIQUE

Tell the story. The story is the Ego's perception of the situation. The story is the energy associated with the blockage. The story needs to be witnessed by someone without interruption in order to validate it. Validation is at the crux of the issue. By definition, invalidation is an attempt by the Ego to create a form of separation, which in reality is an impossible task because absolutely nothing can possibly be separated from its SOURCE, that being God. It is because of this that anything that has been invalidated by the Ego (which is part and parcel of the illusory perception of Separation) requires an inordinate amount of energy to maintain.
NOTE: Judgement, and the invalidation that goes with it, is the main reason most humans die of degenerative diseases (dis-ease) at the present 'time', but I digress .... (AP)
Feel the Feelings (emotions) associated with the story, be they anger, hurt, rage, etc. This is very important because this is the point of power. Then...
Collapse the story using the Radical Forgiveness worksheet or some other technique. The Radical Forgiveness worksheet is but just one technique in which one applies effort and intent towards honestly addressing the situation at hand through the auspices of writing about it. The worksheet leads one to acknowledge and 'own' the situation - to recognise that one is entirely responsible for the situation being experienced.
Note: As one becomes more adept in 'owning' the situations confronting us (by accepting our responsibility for them), one can dispense with tools like the Radical Forgiveness worksheet and just cut to the essence of the process by simply giving thought to the situation in an honest manner .
Perform a Radical Forgiveness reframe of the situation. This shifts the perception from one of Ego separation (victim story) to a recognition as to the essential Oneness of all reality and a recognition of the perfection associated with the event. At the heart of Radical Forgiveness is the recognition (and acceptance) that we are all entirely responsible for the situations we find ourselves in - that we have undoubtedly 'created' the experiences (good or bad) confronting us for a reason. (that reason is always associated with the Soul's inexorable drive towards self realisation) In other words, we don't change the event itself, we just change our perception and beliefs around it.
Integrate it by letting new energy pour into our being from the Universe to replace the energy around the victim story we have just collapsed. We hold our story in every aspect of our bodies, so we must integrate our new story into our whole Being.

NOTE 1: One does not need to believe in 'Radical Forgiveness' for the technique to work. As Tipping quite rightly advises "just fake it till you make it."
NOTE 2: The effect of performing a Radical Forgiveness reframe of a situation is often immediate. Tipping related an anecdote that illustrates this point. A client of his was still bitter years after the event about being out negotiated by a business associate of hers over some intellectual property she had created. As the business associate said to her when she complained about the poor nature of the deal from her perspective, "business is business and as a businessman I'm ruthless". Tipping suggested they perform a Radical Forgiveness reframe of the situation to which she agreed. After performing the reframe she then drove back to her hotel, only to find a message on her answering machine from the very same former business partner wishing to renew the contract pertaining to the intellectual property in question. (she had forgotten that the original deal had a sunset clause in it) A check of the date/time stamp on the answering machine revealed that he had made his call to her literally one minute after the Radical Forgiveness reframe had been completed! Needless to say she drove a very hard bargain this time around which more than compensated for her 'losses' associated with the original deal. As she said to him when it came time to sign the new deal "business is business", something he quite happily agreed with. (presumably, he had some respect for her this time around)
NOTE 3: Once we begin to heal and process the shadow aspects of ourselves (i.e. psyche) reflected by the other person, the state of the relationship between those involved has served its purpose and the relationship can either move on to a new level, or end.
NOTE 4: As we heal shadow bits of our psyche, more suppressed shadow bits begin to rise up from our subconscious in order to be processed. In other words, the road actually gets harder commensurate with our capacity to handle it. Fortunately, we find that with practice we start to get good at dealing with the issues rising up before us and then the 'Game' starts to become fun. Just like a good baseball player, we start to look forward to confronting the pitcher and dealing with whatever he or she serves up to us.

MISCELLANEOUS POINTS

The Universe is a manifestation of the consciousness of a single infinite entity we call God. The scientific evidence in support of this concept is actually overwhelming at a Quantum Physics level. In fact, at a Quantum Physics level there is no evidence in support of the Universe comprising separate 'bits' of matter - all the evidence to date points to the Universe comprising a single unified field of energy. The manifestation of God in the Physical Universe is consciousness in the form of energy. Physical matter is just 'slowed down' energy. Emotions are a form of Energy we store in our bodies. (We have many 'bodies' or levels of being, the densest being our physical body)
For more on this subject see:

We are spiritual beings having a physical incarnation in this realm for the purpose of experiencing emotions, especially those emotions associated with the perception of separation and re-connection. Apparently, the emotions we experience in this realm have no real counterpart anywhere else in creation and as such souls are queuing up to experience this realm, despite the misery, pain and heaviness that is part and parcel of experience in this realm at the present 'time'.
NOTE: There is no such thing as 'time', just an eternal 'now'. (a paradox)

We come into this realm forgetting who we really are (i.e. that we are individualised, but inseparable aspects of Source) to add realism and excitement to the perception of separation associated with this realm. Unfortunately, it would appear that the 'virtual reality' that is this realm has become so 'real' to most humans they have become lost in it. Thus, most humans no longer have any clue as to their true nature - that they are an inseparable aspects of Source - and perceive themselves to be truly separate and cast out by God. (e.g. Christianity) Many humans are so lost in the 'game' they are no longer even aware of the existence of Source. (e.g. Western culture)

NOTE 1: Apparently most souls incarnating here for the first time don't really believe it is possible to lose sight of their real identity in this realm (i.e. that they are an inseparable aspect of God) as there is no real counterpart to the perception of separation anywhere else in the Universe.
NOTE 2: Colin Tipping told an anecdote about a discarnate entity who entered the physical body of a compliant human for the purpose of healing work and was heard by those witnessing the healing session (which included Colin) to exclaim in a rather shocked tone "how real it all seemed" and that it (the entity) now understood why humans have become "stuck in this realm".
NOTE 3: Colin Tipping recounted the story where some clients of his brought home their new born baby from hospital and their three (3) year old daughter insisted on being allowed to spend some time alone with the new born baby. They agreed to this request because they were able to monitor the event using a baby monitor. The three (3) year old child was heard to approach the baby and say; "Please baby, remind me about God because I'm beginning to forget."

We invoke everything that happens to us in this realm. There are always reasons for the circumstances we find ourselves in, meaning there are no such things as 'accidents', and those reasons are associated with our spiritual growth. We do not need to consciously know exactly why we have invoked the circumstances we find ourselves in - the reasons will reveal themselves at the proper time - we just need to remember and accept that we are the authors of our story and get on with it. Most humans don't understand or accept any of these truths, which why there is so much pain and suffering in the world at the moment.

Pain is not really an emotion - it is a resistance to feeling associated with fear. The fear is associated with our failure to understand that we create our circumstances (in conjunction with others in our 'play') for the purpose of spiritual growth and as such we are entirely responsible for the same. Ironically, most humans spend an inordinate amount of time ranting and raving against circumstances they themselves have unwittingly created, instead of seeking to understand why they created the circumstances in the first place.
Tipping recounted a story where he was conducting a workshop for people with life threatening diseases. One of the attendees was a woman in her early forties who had breast cancer. The woman was seething with anger about her circumstances. Apart from the breast cancer, a significant 'irritant' in her life was the behaviour of her twenty something year old daughter, who was in the eyes of this woman "hanging around with unsuitable men and not staying at home helping me defeat my disease". At the end of the workshop Tipping had the attendees carry out a breath meditation and then discuss what happened during the meditation. As Tipping recounted; "I could tell the angry woman had gone deep because she went very quiet, so I left her till last." When it came time for the woman to recount what had happened to her, the class fell silent. The woman said in a very quiet voice "I don't know what happened, but I found myself out 'there' in Universe with my daughter. We performed a beautiful dance around each other looking into each other's eyes and there was tremendous love between us - it was a beautiful experience. Then we suddenly sat down and my daughter said to me; "look we have got to resolve this thing once and for all - who is going to be mother this time?". It would appear it didn't really matter who played the role of mother and who played daughter. After recounting her experience the woman said in a calm voice "I can't explain it, but I have a completely different feeling towards my daughter now - my anger towards her has completely gone." Tipping advised the woman to say nothing about what had occurred during the meditation when she got home and "just see what happens". Two days after the woman returned home, the daughter arrived unannounced at her mother's doorstep with her bags. The daughter had 'sacked' all the boyfriends and moved in with her mother. The woman and her daughter then proceeded to have an extraordinarily rich relationship over the next five years, at the end of which the mother experienced a painless death. (presumably because the issues underlying the incarnation had been resolved and there was no purpose to the woman's 'life' continuing)

This realm would appear to be very rare in that those souls partaking of it have free will, and that within the rules of the 'game', anything goes. Souls in this realm are the 'thrill seekers' of creation so to speak who have volunteered to experience this realm for that reason. By definition GOD is perfection and as such the Universe always remains in a perfect state of 'balance'. One of the immutable rules of the game in this realm is that any imbalance we create associated with our perception of separation must be re-balanced, via a process known as 'Karma'.

NOTE: Karma has nothing to do with 'punishment' - it is simply an expression of the 'balance' that defines the Universe. Karma is a very sophisticated process and the notion that we simply incarnate to experience what we inflicted upon others in an earlier incarnation is an overly simplistic and naive interpretation of the process. 'Grace' is the fast tracking of the Karmic realignment process associated with a person's total surrender to the will of their Higher Self, and the unconditional love and forgiveness of Self that so defines that surrender. Once a person has surrendered up their reluctance to forgive themselves regarding the events pertaining to the so called karmic debt, that 'debt' simply evaporates because its purpose of impelling 'balance' has been fulfilled. (AP)

Our EGO is the everyday consciousness we are aware of within this realm associated with our 'present' incarnation. As mentioned earlier, our Ego consciousness is by necessity of limited awareness as to its real identity (i.e. that it is an individualised, but inseparable aspect of God) for the purpose of adding realism and a sense of adventure to those partaking of experience in this realm. Our Ego would appear to be an amalgam of some aspects of other incarnations we have chosen to bring with us into our 'current' incarnation, characteristics of the genetics (DNA) associated with the body we have chosen to incarnate in, and our experiences within this realm (i.e. our upbringing and life experiences in the present incarnation). On the other hand the psyche (soul) of most humans remains relatively unconscious to our waking 'ego' consciousness in this realm, but whispers to us through our emotions, gut feelings and our conscience. (e.g. the Soul is the 'voice' that whispers to us "I shouldn't have done that") Spiritual awakening is all about getting in touch with our Soul (i.e. our Higher Self) from within this realm and allowing it into our waking everyday consciousness. Whilst the physical brain is the store house of information for our Ego mind to operate with in this realm, that information (and our ego consciousness) survives physical death as anyone who has had a near death experience can attest.

NOTE 1: As Colin Tipping quite rightly noted, our Ego holds a huge sway of votes as to how we think and act in this realm, but its perception of reality is dangerously flawed. (It should be remembered that it is only 500 years (or eight lifetimes) since most humans believed the Earth was flat and anyone who had the temerity to think otherwise was invariably burnt at the stake!)
NOTE 2: Our ego consciousness does not emanate from our physical brain, as evidenced by those who can go Out of Body (OBE) or who have experienced a Near Death Experience (NDE). The brain is just an organ, like any other organ in the human body used by a Soul to 'filter' our awareness down to within the confines and 'rules' of this realm. When we think about it, this is logical as all reality is simply a manifestation of consciousness anyway.

Because we have free will, our Soul (the God essence of our Being that always remains consciously connected to SOURCE) does not directly interfere with the decisions made by our Ego consciousness. Because of this 'rule' the GAME is structured such that we attract into our physical lives those who display (mirror) the 'shadow' aspects of ourselves we wish to heal (transmute). As Colin Tipping quite rightly quipped; "if you spot it (in others) you've got it" (meaning if we become upset by something another human being does or displays, then we can rest assured that that is a shadow aspect of our psyche we have come into this realm to heal)

This realm is really just a dream so to speak. (the ultimate virtual reality) From time to time we are given glimpses of our true essence via spiritual experiences from within this realm for the purpose of keeping us going. In other words, the veil is pulled aside slightly from time to time so we don't completely lose sight of our essence. (I consider my experiences of the Void and NDE as examples of this sort of thing. AP)

We are all co-creating the virtual reality that is the Physical Universe. The 'I' that is 'we' (i.e. Spirit) has designed the dream to be so realistic that we must experience what we have put in place. The 'Game' itself never stops, (time itself is an illusion) but once we understand the game and the rules (which we are all co-creating) we can move through it with levity and fun.
NOTE: The dream will eventually end when 'everyone' wakes up and chooses to return home to the oneness with God that is our true state of being.

Because human souls have free will, there is no compulsion on humans to wake up as to their true identity and move on. However, it would appear that the souls involved in this realm eventually get sick and tired of the pain, suffering and heaviness associated with the karmic debt incurred whilst playing the 'game' and then experience an urge to progress beyond this realm towards a conscious reconnection with their essence (GOD). (I consider myself in this category. Alex Paterson 2000)

From the human perspective within this realm practically everything is wrong in the world at the moment, with evil occurring everywhere. (e.g. there are at least 40 wars occurring at this very moment, along with a level of environmental degradation that threatens our very existence on Earth etc.) However, from the perspective of spirit everything is perfect and nothing 'bad' is really happening; just the unfolding of a divine plan (game) in which each and everyone of us eventually wake up to our true identity.

A couple of weeks after this workshop I met a man in a bookshop. He made two (2) statements which cut to the essence of 'Radical Forgiveness'.

RADICAL FORGIVENESS WORKSHEET

Alex PATERSON

INTRODUCTION