Posts Tagged ‘Unconditional Forgiveness’
New Year, New You: The Top 10 Books to Help You Ring in the New Year Right!
As the earth completes its annual rotation around the sun, some things come to an end but others begin. For me, the New Year always implies new beginnings, new opportunities, and the chance to create real change in my life. It’s a time when the world collectively takes a moment to reflect, re-center, and reconnect with the life we want.
Here in the Beyond Words office, we’ve been sharing some of our favorite books to help invoke a New You for the New Year. Whether you’re looking to change your body, mind, or soul, we’ve got a book designed just for you.
Here are our top 10 books to help you ring in the New Year right! (more…)
Interview with Mary Hayes Grieco, author of Unconditional Forgiveness, Part Two
Today, we continue our exclusive interview with Mary Hayes Grieco, author of Unconditional Forgiveness.
You’ve worked with such diverse clients, even war veterans. Can you share a particular transformative experience you’ve witnessed?
I guess the most transformative forgiveness work I have been witness to has been the healing of severe sexual abuse: helping a woman to forgive her minister who assaulted her when she worked for him in the church office. She lived in hell about that for seven years, and then emerged free and clear after forgiving it. Shortly afterwards, I was called upon to help a man who had been a perpetrator of sexual abuse. He too was living in hell and in severe depression until he could forgive himself. Their suffering was so profound, on both sides of the story, victim and perpetrator. I learned a lot from seeing this.
Can your techniques be used to forgive our selves as well as others?
Yes. Self-forgiveness is very important, and it relies on the ability to view yourself and your situation from the perspective of spiritual level, a higher level of consciousness, than where your conditional human personality dwells. It is a different technique then the eight steps of forgiving another, and it is very simple and very powerful.
How do you define forgiveness?
Forgiveness is the refreshing experience of releasing an unrealistic expectation that has been causing us to suffer. It is a tool we use to let go of an emotional burden, and it creates a new openness and fresh new vitality inside us.
What if someone has done something terribly wrong? Should we forgive them?
I encourage people to practice “unconditional forgiveness”—live a life in which you forgive everyone and everything, no matter the size or severity of the insult. When we make the decision to forgive someone, we are not saying that what they did is excusable or okay on any level. What we are saying is that even though they did this (bad, wrong, immoral, awful, etc.) thing to us—we choose now to release the painful impact of that wrongdoing upon us, once and for all. Any time we forgive anything, big or small, we are doing it for ourselves—so we don’t have to carry the burden of stress and resentment. So you see, it is even more important to forgive the terrible things so that we can end the big suffering inside us.
Why do your Eight Steps work to get rid of an emotional problem?
The Eight Steps reliably work to get rid of an emotional problem because they address the issue through all the parts of our personality (will, body, emotions, mind), our spiritual nature (energy, body, and soul), our relationship to the other person, and to life itself. Because we address the wound on all levels, there isn’t a need to hold onto it any more, and it completely dissolves. The relief that comes from this letting go is permanent, and all that remains is the learning that took place from this experience—we turn the wound into wisdom!
Learn more about Mary and her Eights Steps to freedom in this exclusive video. Mary’s book, Unconditional Forgiveness, is on sale now.
Interview with Mary Hayes Grieco, author of Unconditional Forgiveness, Part One
Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary Hayes Grieco, author of Unconditional Forgiveness. Mary Hayes Grieco has taught her powerful method of forgiveness in a wide variety of venues since 1990. With her background in psychology, and her ten years of intensive personal training with Dr. Edith Stauffer PhD, Mary has refined her method of forgiveness, as well as the way it is taught in workshops, making this life-changing process accessible to everyone. This consistently effective program has transformed thousands of lives.
Her new book, Unconditional Forgiveness, offers equal doses of humor, compassion, and clarity, as she walks readers through each of the Eight Steps to Freedom to heal an emotional issue. By following this unique how-to guide, you’ll be bale to hurt less, love more, and experience more peace of mind every day.
My interview with Mary will be featured in two parts here on the blog. Be sure to check back tomorrow for the second half of this exclusive interview.
What makes your book on forgiveness so different than what’s been written in the past?
Most previous books about forgiveness focused heavily on why forgiveness is a good thing to do, but they were not so clear about how to do it. A lot of them were very intellectual and moralistic, and either too religious or lacking a spiritual framework. None of them adequately addressed the importance of honestly expressing the emotions, or drawing on the healing light available in the subtle energy body. Unconditional Forgiveness is the first book that goes into clear detail about a step-by-step method of forgiveness that includes all the levels of our being—physical, emotional, energetic, spiritual. This makes the method powerfully effective and it has brought swift and permanent relief to thousands of people for forty years.
The other difference in this book is its tone—it’s light and accessible and fun to read. It addresses forgiveness issues from the mundane to the catastrophic, in a universal spiritual language, and with both compassion and a sense of humor.
When we think about forgiveness, we automatically think about major transgressions—relationships ending, death, trauma, but what about the minor transgressions like neighbors and coworkers that drive you crazy? Can your techniques help with our everyday challenges?
Most people’s forgiveness concerns play out on the everyday level—frustration with your spouse or kids, little fights with an unreasonable neighbor, dealing with the mistakes of a coworker that make your job more difficult. Some of these scenarios play out every day—day after day—and layers of tension build up around them, making daily life more difficult and less joyful. We have the power to increase the peace in our immediate world, and, if more people live the principle of forgiveness as a daily habit, we will increase the peace on a global level. Every act of forgiveness creates a powerful “ripple effect.”
As the holidays approach, many people dread the inevitable family gatherings. What advice would you give to people suffering this holiday season?
I recommend that if you know you are going to be tense or resentful with someone at the holiday table, you take some time in advance and do some “pre-emptive forgiveness.” Sit down with Unconditional Forgiveness and make a short list of individuals you need to be more accepting of and release your expectations of them ahead of time. See what common ground you share, however small, and find one or two good things about them to focus on when you are in the room with them. Also, make some real choices about what you do and don’t do during the holidays, so you can enjoy some of it exactly on your own terms, and surrender peacefully to the other situations, exactly as they are.
You’ve called the need to forgive a public health issue. Can you talk about that?
Studies show that emotional resentments cause an accumulation of stress in the body, and this can cause disease. Everyone you know is walking around with some unresolved issue or other, and it’s merely because as a society we don’t understand and teach the process of emotional healing. These days, most people agree that you shouldn’t smoke cigarettes, that you need to exercise, drink water, and eat your fruits and vegetables. It’s common public health knowledge. I believe we are on the brink of widely recognizing that forgiveness is a life skill and a good health habit that can be taught, just like we teach reading or driving or good health habits. It will reduce stress-related illness, marital disruption, and violence—because violence has roots in shame, which is a self-forgiveness issue.
Part two of our exclusive interview with Mary Hayes Grieco will be posted here on the Trend Watch blog tomorrow. Stay tune to learn more about Unconditional Forgiveness.
Unconditional Forgiveness from Mary Hayes Grieco
“There is nothing that is unforgivable…embrace the spirit of Unconditional Forgiveness.”
As the holidays near and we approach the New Year, many of us are thinking about new beginnings, about change. Inevitably, thoughts turn to the things in our lives and the things about ourselves we would like to change. But change can be hard. It’s difficult to move forward when the old is still weighing on our shoulders and dragging us backwards. But to release these burdens, doubts, disappointments, and failures, we need to forgive—forgive others and forgive ourselves. In our newest title from Mary Hayes Grieco we are taught there is nothing that cannot be forgiven and shown, in eight easy steps, how to let go of the past and move forward with a lighter heart and a greater sense of purpose.
When I first dived into Unconditional Forgiveness I was a bit worried that the book would be a bit heavy, full of heartbreaking stories that would only make me feel guilty about my own seemingly petty worries. But, Mary’s brilliance is her ability to use equal doses of humor, compassion, and clarity to heal any emotional issue, from small to global.
In her introduction, she relates her own story of trying to run away from her own worries and anxieties. She seeks shelter in a cabin for a week away, away from her worries and stress, but found she was incapable of relaxing. “I paced around like a cagey cat with a twitchy tail…” She was worried her boyfriend was cheating. She felt guilty for not calling her parents, but couldn’t stand them at the moment. She wondered what to do with herself, and if she would amount to anything.
Each of us can relate to feeling overwhelmed with worry, guilt, or shame, and Mary writes the book as though she were right there in the room with you. You share in her own journey to pursue a path of Unconditional Love and Forgiveness and feel like you have a partner with you as you begin your own journey.
“I’ve been on a journey of spiritual growth for a long time. I’ve been consciously whacking, chipping, digging out, and polishing off my emotional issues, layer upon layer for many years now.”
This title has become my new favorite book to share with family and friends. And during this holiday season, it seems more than appropriate to give this gift, one of release, of unconditional love, of unconditional forgiveness.
Forgiveness: Key for the Happy Holidays; Guest blog from Mary Hayes Grieco
Forgiveness: Key for the Happy Holidays
By Mary Hayes Grieco, author of Unconditional Forgiveness
It’s time for our annual cultural schizophrenia about the holidays: “This is so fun—I love this! This is so stressful—I hate this!” Together, we carry around our guiding mythic vision of the holiday “glow”—the fragrant house decorated with twinkling lights, piles of glittering gifts under the tree, loving faces gathered around the laden table, Christmas carolers singing cheery songs outside, soft white snowflakes drifting slowly down. The whole family will gather, and everyone will be mellow and grateful and everyone will get along…except, at your house, it doesn’t look like that.
At your house, you act cranky and stressed because you are exhausted from creeping through a traffic jam to a crowded mall after a long day of work. You’ve been trying to pile up the presents under the tree, but it isn’t very fun because your position at work has been cut way back and you already had too much on your credit cards before the holidays began. Your husband was going to help you with some of this shopping, but he is down with the flu, so it’s all on you. You’re blue because one of your grown children isn’t coming home this year and you miss them. Your whole family will get together, but you aren’t looking forward to it because your sister is a control freak when she is the host, and her husband will make everyone tense as he holds forth with his bitter political views. What you really want to do is stay home in your robe and watch a movie by yourself with a good cup of coffee. You resent the expectations of the holiday season, and you feel guilty about your negative attitude. It’s time to actively practice some forgiveness. (more…)
