Expressive Art Inspirations

7 Ways to Interrupt the Negativity Bias

"The negativity bias is the notion that even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.

In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behaviour and cognition than something equally emotional but negative." (Wiki)

Emotional Triggers

Neuroscientist Dr. Rick Hanson explains how our ancestral "survival brain" is wired to be biased toward the negative. He writes, "In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades “implicit memory” – your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood – in an increasingly negative direction."

It is easy to become trapped in negativity. Because our brains are wired for survival, our default feeling is fear. Fearful thoughts, repeated over time and throughout generations, become deeply patterned into our neurology. 

Not realizing that you are "practicing" your negative emotions, you will accumulate lower vibrational thoughts, emotions and experiences into an ongoing pain story that can feel hard to climb out of. Assembling more fear-based evidence along the way, you will unconsciously confirm that your negativity bias is real.

The Power of Repetition

"Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality."

~ Earl Nightingale

If you are hurting emotionally, you can be sure you are repeating a fearful thought. And, fearful thinking gathers power through repetition. 

Fear makes us feel small and inadequate. Repetitive fear can have us doubting our capacities to be able to survive in the world. Always on the lookout for what is wrong, we can forget about what is good about our life.

Our negativity bias might have us fearing we are not good enough, not lovable enough, not worthy, smart or talented enough, or not abundant enough to be able to physically survive. The good news is, once we become aware of our negativity bias we can regularly interrupt it.

Here are 7 ways to interrupt chronic negative emotions:

1. Witness Your Mind

In meditation, you can learn to identify more with your larger witnessing self instead of just your smaller hurting self. You can witness your innate negativity bias without becoming it.

2. Expand Your Awareness

To expand your sense of self start a daily creative project, spend time in nature or cultivate a regular spiritual practice to invoke feelings of awe.

3. Contradict Negative Thinking

Counteract your negativity bias soon as you notice the painful thought. Identify your painful thought and then interrupt the negative momentum with a new better-feeling thought or action.

4. Repeat Positive Affirmations

When stuck in the negativity bias, saying "I am..." positive affirmations can feel fake. When you feel doubtful about better-feeling thoughts, practice wondering instead. "I wonder what it would feel like to be loved, successful, respected...etc." As you wonder, a slight sense of possibility will arise. Build on this.

5. Minimize Negative Stimuli

Your subconscious mind registers all violence as emotionally real. If you are prone to chronic negativity, it is best to avoid watching the news, violent television and movies. You also might also want to spend more time with people that support and uplift you. 

6. Appreciate What You Have

All negative emotions are underpinned with a fear of lack. To build a feeling of abundance, see how many things you can appreciate during the day. When you are struggling with fear and negativity, amplify your appreciation for even the smallest details in your life.

7. Amplify the Good

Fear-based survival programming is deeply conditioned into your brain, body and nervous system. To interrupt your negativity bias, persistent, the deliberate practice of noticing what is good will increase your joy.

 

The Art of Focusing Within the Body

I keep a "Focusing Journal" where I regularly listen to my body's wisdom. I feel that daily Focusing tunes me up as a therapist and grounds me into my body. It also helps me to be a more compassionate human being.

I have been studying Inner Relationship Focusing for many years, and I am always astounded by the insights that come through my Focusing sessions.

Intuitively Listening Within

You can heal emotionally by listening deeply to your body. Symbols and solutions for positive change will arise from your body when you get quiet. When you feel anxious, there will often be an emotion that needs your loving attention.

1. BEING IN PRESENCE

“I’M SENSING SOMETHING IN ME THAT FEELS…”

Presence is a state of unconditionally "being with" whatever is arising in your awareness.

Whenever you catch yourself saying, “I am…” or “I feel…,” notice how it would feel to say, “I’m sensing that something in me feels…”

Presence is powerful. From presence, you can be with any emotion without feeling overwhelmed. When you are aware of your inner experiences, you can acknowledge your emotions and say "hello" to them.

From witnessing presence, you can sense how each inner experience is a part of you, and that you are much larger than any single part. You are even larger than all your parts put together.

Your witnessing Presence is able to keep company with everything within you with compassion.

2. GOING SLOWLY

“I’M TAKING TIME TO…”

What you do not yet know needs time and space to emerge and unfold.

When you take your time to really feel into your body, you allow a "living forward" process to happen.

It is in the body that your ‘next step" lives.

You will need to go slowly enough for the unfolding of your inner symbology to arise. If you feel you’re not going very deep into your body, try going even slower.

Notice exactly what is happening right here, right now. When you slow down and keep something company in this slow way, your body will communicate to you through words, poetry, symbols and imagery.

3. SENSING IN THE BODY

“I’M NOTICING HOW THAT FEELS IN MY BODY NOW”

The body always exists in present time. The body communicates the truth of how you are feeling right now.

The body cannot lie. You might want to ignore what can be felt in the body, but if it is there, it is real.

The body also expresses wholeness. The body brings the whole situation, all of your past and all your future relating to this problem, this stuckness, into this single felt-moment - now.

As you keep company with something in your body, a fresh image, word or thought will likely come into your awareness. 

4. STAYING IN CONTACT WITH THE UNCLEAR EDGE

“I’M SENSING FOR WHAT IS UNCLEAR HERE”

In Focusing, you can be with your experiencing in a way that is open and curious about what is unclear.

To help the ‘more’ from your subconscious to open, you need to hang out at the edge of the whole thing. You need to sit near the places you don’t know.

It is important to notice and value what is fuzzy, vague, puzzling, unclear, and hard to put into words. This is where the ‘more’ is to be found. 

Whenever you are taking your time and feeling it in your body, you can sense for the ‘edge,’ a sense of something not-quite-in-words-yet, almost-known, and ‘fuzzy.’

This is where the life-forward energy is enfolded. Learning to cherish the slow, the subtle and the vague helps your inner symbology from your creative unconscious to emerge. 

“I’M LETTING IT KNOW IT CAN BE THE WAY IT IS FOR AS LONG AS IT NEEDS TO BE”

As you take time to keep company the unclear edge in your body, you are creating a space for something new to emerge.

At this point, you do nothing but keep company with what’s there and wait.

It can be very difficult to just stay with something, keeping it company, when it feels like nothing is happening. 

The more you can trust that your body knows the direction that you need to grow, the easier this whole process will be.

From Presence, you can patiently wait with something until it is time for it to shift. When something shifts, it is an experience that can be described as grace – beyond your control.

5. HOLDING A SPACE FOR SOMETHING NEW TO COME

“I’M SAYING ‘YES’ TO WHAT’S COME”

If you already knew what your growth direction looked like, you wouldn’t need Focusing to find it. So when it comes, it may surprise you. In fact, it probably won’t be what you expected at all.

Whenever you sense some kind of movement, shift, relief, opening, flowing in your body, you are experiencing a step forward.

A new insight is often followed by a deep spontaneous breath.

A new insight might just be a word or phrase that doesn’t seem connected with anything but somehow it feels right in your body.

It might be a single word or an image that seems strange or even bizarre. Whatever it is - if it fits with how your body feels - it symbolizes your next step.

6. WHATEVER FEELS LIKE ‘FRESH AIR’ IS A STEP, NO MATTER WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE

Your symbol might not an actual ‘action step’ but a ‘process step.’ Sometimes inner realizations do not require outer action.

In order for your inner process to ‘carry forward,’ you need to suspend judgment about what should happen, what action should be taken, and where this will lead.

A ‘step’ is a shift, however small. It is a change in how your current situation is perceived and carried forward in the body.

If you sense more flow in your body, and if it feels good - it is a step that needs to be welcomed.

AN UNFOLDING PROCESS

Symbols for growth unfold one after the other from the body. Each symbol is only a step in the whole process of living forward.

It is important to remember that the symbols from your creative unconscious are just an indicator of how to move forward. The direct experience in your body will always be more than you can capture in a symbol, no matter how well it fits. 

 

Ten Ways to Heal the "Not Good Enough" Wound

"Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough."

 

~ Brene Brown

 

"How do I heal my "not good enough" wound? How do I love myself? How do I heal shame?" These questions come up so frequently in therapy sessions, I thought I would share a brief list of ways to heal.

 

1. Find self-compassion. We all had to find ways to fit in enough to be taken care of as children. When you differ from your family members it is easy to think you are “not good enough.”

 

2. Forgive your forgetting. Your differences can trigger your family's and other people's unhealed emotional wounds. It is easy to repress your differences until you forget who you really are.

 

3. Summon courage. Differentiating from your original family is a courageous hero/heroine’s journey because your family members might not prefer your differences.

 

4. Create safety. How do you feel ok with not fitting in with others when it sets off your nervous system's alarm bell of non-belonging? To feel safe in your body, you will need to encourage yourself in ways you have never experienced with other people before.

 

5. Encourage yourself. How can you encourage yourself when others do not? Encourage yourself by affirming your authentic nature repetitively until the safety of self-belonging takes hold in your nervous system.

 

6. Repetition is the key. Repeating kind, soothing words to yourself over and over eventually changes the well-worn grooves of socialized self-rejection. Find kind words that feel good in your body and repeat them until they "land."

 

7. No one will save you. Once you enter adulthood, you are responsible for healing the pain patterns that you acquired during the socialization process. Lack of self-love is yours to heal.

 

8. Always be kind to yourself. Your need for social belonging might be so strong, you will reject and criticize yourself in the same ways that you were rejected and criticized by others in the past. Decide instead to always be kind to yourself.

 

9. Find the antidote. To turn self-criticism and self-rejection into its opposite, create a self-love statement. Enjoy how good this "antidote" feels in your body.

 

10. Practice good feelings. It is possible to "practice" your pain by feeling it for far too long. You might not know what it means to feel good. Emotional pain needs to be acknowledged, assessed for self-limiting beliefs, and then "interrupted" with self-care, self-affirmation and self-love practices.

 

Emotionally Expressive Collage

It is no secret that expressive collage is my favourite modality to practice and to teach.

Spontaneous collage can be so revealing of what is going on within our inner world.

This video demo shows you how to create a collage as a form of emotional catharsis (release).

I welcome you to watch this short video (excerpted from my online course Bloom into Collage) that details how to create an emotionally expressive collage.

 

Transforming Emotional Pain with Expressive Art

Softening to Emotional Pain

“If you can sit with your pain, listen to your pain and respect your pain—in time you will move through your pain.”

~ Bryant McGill

It is so challenging to "sit with" emotional pain until it reveals its story. Yet, to feel peace within, you must find ways to respect and listen to the painful parts of yourself.

To feel complete peace with yourself, all emotions must be accepted so that your limiting "pain stories" can be recognized. When you find the story that creates the pain, it can be "re-storied" towards health and happiness.

Respecting Emotional Pain

I have a dedicated sketchbook where I delve into my emotional discomfort through intuitive drawing. When needed, I create an intuitive "pain drawing" and spend a month (or more) "respecting" my drawing until it reveals its full story to me. This way of processing emotional pain is patient, reverent and it always brings about deep change.

Below, I share a way to "soften" your emotional pain so it will reveal its limiting story to you. This process involves creating an "intuitive pain drawing" and offering regular acceptance to the visual representation of your emotional pain.

Once the resistance to my emotional pain releases, I gain insights into what is causing my discomfort, and then I know exactly how to make a shift for the better.

Moving Toward Emotional Discomfort

This exercise is for those of us who repress emotional pain and need to learn how to listen to its messages. Instead of recoiling from your pain, set the courageous intention to get to know this part of yourself. Your negative emotions are always trying to tell you something important about how you are seeing your life in a limiting way.

Use this art process when you are judging an emotion as negative or unpleasant. This process also works for physical pain because unexpressed emotional pain somatizes as discomfort in the body.

Relax as you begin this art process. Take several slow deep breaths. Allow yourself to feel all of your emotions. Look for areas of contraction, dislike or aversion to discomfort in your body. 

Creating an Intuitive Pain Drawing

(*This art process was inspired and informed by psychotherapist Karči Cole Kňazovický)

Step 1. Talk to your emotional pain. (Welcome your pain to be here. Notice any discomfort or easing that comes with your attention.)

Invite an emotion that you find unacceptable to come forward into your awareness. Say “hello” to your sadness, your anger, your fear, your shame, your loneliness. If you are unaware of your emotion, focus on a tight, numb or painful part of your body.

Once you have identified a feeling of emotional pain (or a sore/tight area in your body) imagine you are meeting a stranger, determined to get to know this part of yourself that you usually try to push out of your awareness.

Sometimes this greeting can be startling to aspects of self that have long been denied. Difficult emotions that have never received acknowledgement or acceptance can be surprised by your sudden friendliness. 

Art Process: As you say hello to your pain, begin to draw intuitively with a black pen. Invite your emotional pain to form a visual shape or structure. 

Step 2. Work up to accepting your emotional pain.

Ask yourself: Can I accept this painful emotion? Let the answer spontaneously come. Be honest. Saying "no" is often more honest than saying "yes.”

If the answer is "no," ask yourself again, “Is it okay that it is no?” Again wait for the reply. Allow your answer to emerge from your heart. Do not seek the answer from your mind.

If the reply is "no" again, continue asking: “Is "no" an okay answer?” Continue asking until you get a "yes". “Yes” is a form of acceptance. Patiently wait for your mind and heart to open. Acceptance is what your pain needs.

Art Process: In the spirit of self-acceptance, allow discomforting imagery, symbols or colours into your drawing - if they want to be there. You might have parts that are "ugly" or distorted that want to be included in your drawing.

Step 3. Explain to your pain why you had to deny it.

Take time and ask yourself for reasons why you had to deny this emotion. When the answers come, speak directly to the emotion as if you were talking to a friend whom you could not talk to for a long time.

Simple, honest answers soothe the rejected parts of self.

Art Process: Be aware of the reasons for your denial as you draw. Speak to your drawing about your denial. 

Step 4. Apologize to your emotional pain

This step requires courage. Notice your resistance to speaking kindly to your pain. Notice the urge to want to get rid of your pain.

The mind likes to "parcel" pain away as a self-protection mechanism. Sense into your mind's desire to stay separate from your pain. Joining your mind and heart together, say, "I am so sorry I have ignored you."

Art Process: Write out or speak your apology out loud as you draw.

Step 5. Ask forgiveness from your emotional pain.

Ask the pained part of yourself to forgive you for denying it and excluding it from inclusive participation in your life. Your pain will forgive you for ignoring it - if you ask deeply and sincerely.

You might say the ho'oponopono prayer: "I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank-you. I love you." 

Art Process: On the opposite page of your drawing, write out your forgiveness prayer or say it out loud as you draw.

Step 6. Forgive yourself for denying your emotional pain.

Accept yourself and forgive yourself for ignoring your pain for so long. “I forgive myself for denying my  _________” can be repeated several times until you feel a sense of relief. Let your heart guide you.

If forgiveness feels impossible, try: “I accept myself for feeling _____ and I forgive myself for not accepting myself earlier.” Repeat this several times, slowly, until you feel a release.

Art Process: Intend self-forgiveness as you draw.

Step 7. Release judgments.

As you hold loving space for your feelings they change and become new. A painful emotion feels difficult to tolerate before it develops an unhindered flowing quality.

Say “I release the judgment that this emotion is wrong, bad or something to avoid.” Then allow your painful emotion (and intuitive drawing) to become a part of your daily life.

Art Process: Place your drawing in a place where you can look at it. Gaze upon your "emotional pain drawing" until you feel a complete acceptance of it. 

Step 8. Negotiate a new relationship with this painful part.

If your emotional pain is not fully transformed through this expressive arts process, "sit with" your drawing for a month or more. Put your drawing in a place where you can meditate upon it daily.

I felt aversion to my "pain drawing" below. I wanted to hide my drawing in my closet and forget about it! So, when I feel aversion, I say, "I love you" to my pain.

I stayed with my drawing for about a month, saying, "I love you/I accept you" when it felt difficult. Gradually my resistance to my "pain drawing" dissipated, and a touching, yet limiting story from my younger years emerged. 

By staying with a pain that you have visually expressed, you are training yourself to accept what is really happening inside of you without judgment or resistance.

If you really delve into the exercise, you will recognize your denial and soften your blocks to love’s presence. With ongoing acceptance, you will free the energy flow in your body and in your life.

This process can be applied to physical aches, illnesses, emotional hurts, depressions or any place that you find in yourself that is not completely happy.

Sitting With an Emotional Pain Drawing

Intuitive drawing comes from the subconscious edge of what you do not yet know about yourself. For this reason, it is fruitful to intuitively draw your pain and trust that the meaning will be revealed later. 

I meditatively "sat with" a pervasive pain in my heart during and after creating this intuitive drawing. I companioned my intuitive drawing for over a month before I understood what it meant to me. 

Some days it felt challenging to stay with my drawing. However, by releasing judgments and repeatedly forgiving the pain for "plaguing me" with discomfort, my drawing gradually revealed its heroic but limited childhood narrative. 

Emotional pain is created from limiting decisions that were made from a less mature state of consciousness. Staying with an intuitive drawing with loving patience will reveal its messages. Once the (younger) limiting story is made conscious, you can make new choices for well-being. 

 

Healing Emotions Intuitively

The Mind Does Not Know How to Heal

In our ordinary mind, we do not always know what is best for our growth. Because our ego is split into parts, with various factions competing to get differing needs met, we cannot always perceive how to heal. When we follow our (ego) self-will, we will make many mistakes. But, this will also bring the lessons necessary to learn and grow, albeit through struggle, burnout, loss, pain, illness, and confusion.

The process of deep emotional healing sometimes feels stressful because our protective mind is built to guard against discomfort. When we follow our inner knowing about how to heal emotionally, we may take steps that feel unusual or even embarrassing to our conscious mind. Yet, each intuitive direction that we follow through on will be accompanied by an inner affirmation of relief.

Releasing Emotions Spontaneously Through The Body

Unresolved emotions can be worked through spontaneously by giving your body permission to do what it needs to do to release old emotional imprints. Breathing deeply, making sounds, instinctively shifting your body into different positions, contorting your face, or laying down with arms wide open is often all that is needed for an emotion to release.

Your body will always tell you what you need to do to release your pain but your mind will likely resist. However, you cannot think your way through an emotion.  Staying with whatever comes up, and moving, breathing and sounding without thinking, will shift the emotion out of submersion, and into the light of love.

 

Intuitive Collage - Step by Step

What is Intuitive Collage?

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

~ Carl Jung

Intuitive collage is a process of quieting your everyday mind and inviting imagery to express the story of your inner world.

Intuitive collage will always tell you something that you do not yet know about yourself. Intuitive collage will communicate the "growth edge" that is emerging from your unconscious mind.

I love intuitive collage because it does not require traditional artistic "talent." Over the past 15 years, intuitive collage has taken me on a journey to the depths of my unconscious, and it still continues to inform me today.

I have been passionately exploring digital collage this past year. Digital collage is such a fast way to process emotions and make the unconscious conscious. You can see my visual process and instructions HERE.

As much as I have grown to love digital collage. I still love the tactile process of getting my hands sticky with paper collage. Here are instructions on how to make a paper collage.

Intuitive Magazine Collage

Supplies

You will need a sketchbook or loose paper, a glue stick, scissors, and magazines to cut up. 

Magazine Collage Process

1. Quiet your mind. Take three deep breaths and quiet your mind. Sink your awareness deep into your body. Set your rational mind on "silent" and sense into what you do not yet know inside yourself.

2. Tear out 10-20 magazine pages. Quickly flip through a magazine and instinctively pull out 10-20 pages that move you emotionally - positive or negative. 

3. Cut out your imagery. Meditatively cut out 10-15 images and words that emotionally move you the most.

4. Arrange your collage. Intuitively arrange your imagery. Lay down your largest images as your background and spontaneously layer your smaller images and words on top.

5. Glue down your images and words. Gently move your image arrangement to the side of your paper and glue down your background first and then layer on the other images.

6. Contemplate your collage. Hold your heart gently and soften your eyes. Sense into your collage and contemplating what it means to you.

Meditate Into Your Visual Language

Initially, an intuitive collage offers up a "feeling-tone" that might not have words. So bask in the "feeling-tone of your inner world in visual form.

If any insights or words "pop into" your mind write them down on the back of your collage. If no insights come, just enjoy the feeling of your honest self-expression.

Try to contemplate your collage for an entire day and then put it away. Pull it out at a later time and see if more insights arise.

 

Seeing the Beauty

Seeing the Beauty Behind all Circumstances

Uplifting our emotional state can be either easy or difficult during this time of year. Part of my own emotional healing has involved looking deeper than the negative appearances of my life to see the growth lessons behind all that has troubled me.

During this magical time when the world collectively efforts to uplift out of its heavier emotional states into a place of celebration and connection, I offer you a beautiful quote about how to magically draw forth the beauty from your holiday season.

The Gentle Art of Blessing

by Pierre Pradervand 

"How to incorporate blessing into your life. On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth, for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the texture of the universe and awaiting each and all.

On passing people in the street, on the bus, in places of work and play, bless them. The peace of your blessing will companion them on their way, and its aura will be a light on their path.

On meeting people and talking to them, bless them in their health, their work, their joy, their relationship to the universe, themselves and others. Bless them in their abundance and their finances, bless them in every conceivable way, for such blessings not only sow seeds of healing but one day will spring forth as flowers in the waste places of your own life.

To bless means to wish, unconditionally and from the deepest chamber of your heart, unrestricted good for others and events; it means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with awe that which is always a gift from the Creator. To bless is to invoke divine care upon, to speak or think gratefully for, to confer happiness upon, although we ourselves are never the bestower, but simply the joyful witnesses of life’s abundance.

When something goes completely askew in your day, when some unexpected event upsets your plans—and you—burst into blessing. For life is teaching you a lesson, and the very event you believe to be unwanted, you yourself called forth, so as to learn the lesson you might balk against were you not to bless it. Trials are blessings in disguise, and hosts of angels follow in their path.

To bless is to acknowledge the omnipresent, universal beauty hidden from material eyes; it is to activate that law of attraction which, from the furthest reaches of the universe, will bring into your life exactly what you need to experience and enjoy."

PS
And of course, above all, do not forget to bless the utterly beautiful person YOU are.

 

Creative Healing Stories

Have you felt broken, and have put yourself back together through creative practices? If so, I would love to share your creative healing story with thousands of readers. 

This creative healing story series honours the human journey from hurt to creative self-empowerment, from limitation to inspired possibility, and from fear to compassionate contribution.

Telling your truth, and sharing how you have creatively healed through life's challenges inspires us all to move from pain to empowerment.

If you feel inspired to share your creative healing story please contact me at shelley@expressiveartworkshops.com and take a look at the 14 questions to guide your essay.

Each person who shares their creative healing journey holds a forever place in my heart. I welcome you to enjoy these healing stories and connect to the creative work of the story writers.

I welcome hearing your story and promoting your personal web page via Pinterest and my FB Page.

With much love,

Shelley

 

How to Forgive

If you are not seeing a luminous and loving world, you are looking at life on the level of fear, and forgiveness will feel nearly impossible. Forgiveness involves letting other people be as they are without judgment. When you condemn other people, believing that ego cruelty is their ultimate and only truth, you will become a part of their hatred, harm and selfishness.

It is possible to function with love in the world without becoming an active part of another's ego darkness. While on one level you need to say a firm, "no" to fear-driven mistreatment, unkindness, cruelty or destruction, on another level you can join with everyone you meet with the silent intention to spiritually heal within.

Spiritual teacher Miranda Holden offers a beautiful way to inwardly join with people when it feels difficult to communicate face-to-face. My adaptations are below:

1. Choose Someone to Forgive: See someone you are unable to relate with person-to-person in your imagination with whom you would like to make a deeper connection, experience some kind of healing, or break through into forgiveness.

2. Look for the Light: See this person's face and feel their presence. Brush past the difficult personality traits, behaviors and history together. Notice your fears of deeper contact and search for the light in his or her heart. Trust that although this light may be shrouded, it is there. Be willing to reach for the highest light within this person.

3. Build a Bridge of Grace: Once you can see this seed of light in the darkness of the person you find difficult, reach out from your heart to the light in his or her heart and walk towards it. Allow this light to draw you towards the highest within this person you want to forgive. Imagine that the light within both of your hearts is forming a bridge of love.

4. Find the Emotional Need: With your heart wide open, compassionately sense into this person's darkness. Ask, "What is your primary emotional need?" Allow your intuition to show you a hidden emotional need within this person.

5. Find the Antidote: Next, ask your intuition to communicate the antidote to his or her emotional pain. It might be respect, love, appreciation or acceptance, for example. Pour this antidotal feeling of fulfilment into the person you want to forgive. Pour this emotional remedy directly into his or her heart.

6. Give to the Emotional Need: Through your imagination, give this person what he or she emotionally needs. Know that what you give to another, you also give to yourself. As you both feel emotionally fulfilled on an inner imaginal level, speak out the contents of your heart.

7. Celebrate the Spiritual Relationship: Let all fears between you drop away. When you forgive someone who has harmed you, your authentic self emerges along with a feeling of emotional relief. Enjoy the truth of your spiritual relationship with this person, even if it is not a reality on a personality level.

Excerpted from A Course in Creating Miracles