Since last week Friday, I’ve been quite sick. Symptoms of the flu seemed to quickly appear (fever, body aches, congestion). I waited perhaps too long to seek professional treatment, as I thought this too was something I could heal myself as I usually do in 2-3 days.

Thanks to my raw and tender throat, I have found bliss and a delightful peace that has allowed me to listen rather than just hear. As I have been healing / detoxing / cleansing / you name it, between the coughing, hacking and nose blowing, I’ve been praying, meditating, writing a lot and reading.

One of the books I began to re-read is one of my favorites, “Forgiveness: The Greatest Healer of All” by Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D.

Since my attempts at the typical and recommended home remedies hasn’t been working (i.e. lots of liquids/water, lots of sleep, chicken soup), I began to go deeper by peeling off more self-reflection layers than I usually do.

I knew that my illness was due to a relationship matter that I hadn’t resolved, but I figured my awareness equaled my forgiveness. Turns out I was wrong!

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I immediately had a reaction (specifically, coughing attacks!) to reading Dr. Jampolsky’s words this time around:

Forgiveness:

- Releases us by stopping our inner battles with ourselves; stops us from recycling anger and blame.

- Is a powerful healer of our inner and outer lives.

- Can end inner conflicts we tend to carry every day.

He asks readers to imagine the peace that would result on our planet if everyone released old grievances with others… if centuries of racial and religious battles were also released.

Dr. Jampolsky was a physician for more than forty years, and said he recalls how people who had illnesses like back problems, ulcers, high blood pressure, and cancer, found their illnesses decrease as they learned to forgive. He talked about recent research emerging, showing a relationship between health and forgiveness. Dr. Jampolsky said we now know that a lack of forgiveness has a measurable impact on our bodies. This lack of forgiveness includes clinging to fear, anger and pain, which create tensions that affect blood circulation, the efficiency of our immune systems, and puts stress on our hearts, brains and practically all of our body’s organs.

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I personally thought I forgave people that hurt me, including myself. But after reading this, and more of the book, I realized there was still a lot of forgiving I needed to do, and fast, because coughing every night and not getting more than 20 minutes of consecutive sleep for about a week was something I needed to stop now.

The question of how to forgive someone, to me, is like the question of how can one love him or herself. Just how do you do it?

Here’s what I learned:

- Forgive by making the decision to no longer suffer.

- Forgive completely. There is no middle ground.

- Forgive by giving all your anger, anguish and everything that is a burden on you to God.

- Forgive yourself by forgiving others.

One way I found that indicates to me that I haven’t forgiven someone and/or something that happened is when I can still talk about it with the same intensity and passion that I did when it first happened.

Several days ago, I found myself laying on my stomach in the living room writing down a list of people that I still hadn’t forgiven (I thought I did; Lord knows I certainly tried!). One column listed what I needed to forgive myself for, and the other listed people I needed to forgive. It read something like this, “(Name), I forgive you for ________.”

In the midst of what I call the “forgiveness brainstorm,” I found myself with tears of sadness and joy. A feeling of lightness followed soon after.

I can’t say that I had instantaneously just forgave those people on that list, but I can say that my willingness to forgive them and desire to do what Dr. Jampolsky recommends has definitely been working for my healing (along with my naturopathic doctor’s acupuncture treatment and homeopathic and herbal remedies!):

“Make peace of mind your only goal.”

It’s amazing how this has been working wonders in every part of my life.

Here are some other forgiveness quotes from Dr. Jampolsky that helped me:

“Forgiveness means letting go of all hopes for a better past.”

“It becomes easier to forgive when we choose to no longer believe we are victims.”

Visit www.TraciToguchi.com for previous blogs from Traci.