Back when I was in my early twenties I met a group of mates that became my “soul family” – when we met, it felt like we’d known each other for many lifetimes already, and I’d never experienced that feeling with anyone before. 😍
When I met this crew of new mates, a few of them had learned Reiki.
One of them was a Reiki Master and she did a session on me, my first ever Reiki treatment. 🙌🏻
For the year prior to that I’d been getting recurring lower back and stomach issues and I felt like my body was trying to give me a message, but didn’t know what.
During that session she got a download for me that led to her intuiting that my stomach and back issues (related to my sacral chakra, which is where we store emotional baggage) were directly related to my first ever serious relationship. 💔
This had been a four-year relationship from 17-21 with a guy I thought I’d marry, who was shagging a 54-year-old behind my back.
You can image the self-esteem issues I got from that relationship!
But by the time I had this Reiki session I was around 25 and thought I was over all of that – but my friend said my body was telling me otherwise and suggested I learn Reiki 1, to learn self-healing.
So I booked straight in to learn Reiki 1 and 2.
Over the next few months, her sister, who became my best mate, suggested I write a letter of forgiveness to my ex so that I could fully process that past relationship.
Honestly, I really didn’t see the value of putting a bunch of words on paper at that point, I didn’t realise how powerful the process could be. 😳
I put it on my to-do list and it took a year for me to get around to it; during that year several other mates told me they’d done their own letters and shared how amazing it was for them.
So one day I woke up and decided that day was the day; it took me three hours to write the letter about the whole relationship from start to finish – the good, the bad, the ugly… and the impact of that relationship and how it had affected me since. ✍🏻
It was a loooooong letter!
My bestie told me to burn it in a kind of ceremonial way, in a place that was significant to me.
So I waited until a trip to a lodge in Scotland with my mates, a place I used to go to a lot with my family as a kid. I decided to burn it in a shed where the baby lambs used to be taken when they were born to be fed or looked after if they were too small or sick. 🐑
This “soul family” crew were on the holiday with me, so my bestie was there guiding me through the process.
Back then, energy work and personal development stuff was very new to me.
We walked into the shed, and the weather (for Scotland) was actually pretty nice and sunny, a few clouds but a lovely sunny summer’s day. ☀️
We sat down and she lit candles and called in my spirit guides and angels (I thought she was a bit cray-cray at the time tbh, it wasn’t my jam at all back then) but I just humoured the process and let her get on with it. 🕯️
She told me to hold the letter and let myself feel the stored up emotions that were in that letter, from that relationship and the 4-5 years it had been since then.
We then used a forgiveness mantra (ho-oponopono) where you say:
I love you
I’m sorry
I forgive you
Please forgive me
Thank you
The idea being that you’re ready to let go of all the resentment, anger, hurt, bitterness – whatever it is you’re holding on to from that experience – because holding onto it is only hurting you.
I set the intention I was ready to let go of all that shit because it wasn’t serving me anymore.
Then I burned the letter. 🔥
The mad thing was, that a bunch of crazy shit started happening to the weather and to my body.
In my body it felt like I had this massive heartbeat in my stomach, this huge pumping heart – that sensation stayed with me for hours after burning the letter.
Then I felt this whirlwind of energy rising up from my stomach into my chest, it felt like my lungs were expanding, and at the same time there was this crazy wind outside out of nowhere. 🌪️ 🫁
Then it all of a sudden absolutely chucked it down with torrential rain – no gradual build up, just bucketing it down for a couple of minutes then stopped as suddenly as it started just as the rest of the letter was finished burning. 🌧️
I was a bit weirded out by it all because I honestly didn’t think anything was going to come of this whole process.
We wrapped up the session and walked back outside – all my peripheral vision had opened up and everything looked brighter than before.
The most bizarre thing was that nothing was wet – I was touching the ground, the grass, the fence, they were all dry – the only things that were wet were the rubbish bags outside the lodge and the cars which seemed significant somehow.
As we walked back in the lodge all our mates were standing at the window talking about how crazy the weather had just been, confirming that it had actually happened.
I felt so strange all day and later on I felt really nauseous all of a sudden and had what I referred to at the time as a big power spew – it felt like all this toxic energy was leaving my body. 🤮 ☠️
After that, the recurring stomach issues disappeared. My back carried on over the years but that’s another story!
I recommend this forgiveness letter process to all my coaching and energy work clients. 🤗
We all have stuff to forgive – exes, colleagues, family, systems, and most importantly – ourselves.
I put together my top three fave forgiveness tools as a freebie and I share them all the time.
Have you tried forgiveness before? I’d love you to share what happened for you!
Catcha on the flip side, where we forgive others because it brings us peace,
