The Practice of Freedom: Forgiveness as a Universal Law

There is a part of you, somewhere, that is still standing in a moment that already ended.

You may not think about it often. You may have built a whole life around it without even realizing that's what you did. But it's there — frozen, waiting, holding a pain that time was supposed to carry away and never did.

This is what happens without forgiveness.

What Forgiveness Actually Is

Forgiveness gets confused with a lot of things it isn't. It isn't condoning what happened. It isn't pretending it didn't hurt. It isn't reconciling with someone who hurt you, and it isn't even about them at all.

Forgiveness is a release. It's the decision to stop paying, over and over, for something that already happened once.

Many of us were never actually shown what forgiveness looks like. Maybe your parents never modeled it — maybe resentment was just the air you breathed growing up, unspoken but always present. If that's you, it's not your fault that the word forgiveness feels foreign. You're not broken. You're just starting somewhere new.

What It Costs You Not to Forgive

Here's the truth: forgiveness costs you nothing. It is holding on that costs everything.

When we don't forgive, a part of us gets left behind — frozen in the very moment the pain happened, unable to move forward with the rest of us. And over time, that frozen part doesn't just sit quietly in the past. It starts to shape us. It can become mistaken for our personality, our identity, the way we assume we've always been. It colors how we see ourselves, how we see other people, and how we see the world — usually without us ever tracing it back to its source.

You've probably felt this. The unexplained defensiveness. The trust that won't quite form. The heaviness that follows you into rooms that have nothing to do with what actually happened. That's not who you are. That's the frozen part of you, still standing back there, still trying to get your attention.

Forgiveness isn't just relief. It's a portal — a door to the life you actually want, the one you dream about when you set yourself free. And here's the hard truth: without walking through it, you may never fully arrive there. Not because you don't deserve it, but because part of you is still standing back there, frozen in that moment in time, instead of walking forward with you.

I think of people I've known who lived full, accomplished lives while quietly carrying resentment for decades — never realizing how much more was waiting for them on the other side of release.

A Story I Was Told

A friend of mine once told me about a trip he took to Wudang Mountain — the legendary home of Taoist monks and Tai Chi masters. He traveled there with a group of devoted practitioners, on what was, for them, a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage.

Somehow, a journalist had maneuvered her way into the group, and the entire trip she complained — about the travel, the food, the lodging, the weather. Nothing was right. Nothing was enough.

When they arrived at the Wudang Mountain village, they were granted a rare audience with the Grandmaster. Everyone lined up across the room from him. Through his interpreter, he pointed — not at the senior practitioners who had trained for years, but at her. "He wants you," the interpreter said.

She walked toward the Grandmaster, smiling. He held out his hand, palm up. The interpreter told her to place her hand on top of his. She did. He held it there for a few minutes, then he nodded — she could remove it now.

She bowed and turned to walk back. She didn't make it halfway across the room before she collapsed to the floor and wept — for forty-five minutes, curled up, unable to stop.

When she finally rose, she was a different woman. She loved herself. She loved the group. She loved the food, the weather, the whole difficult journey that had brought her there. Everything she'd been complaining about, she now simply loved.

You don't need a monastery, or a Grandmaster, or a hand held over yours for forty-five minutes, to have this happen for you. That same release — the frozen part of you finally rejoining the rest — is available right now, through your own forgiveness. Not as a pilgrimage. Not as luck. Just your forgiveness — practiced, on purpose, like the universal law it is.

The Practice

Find a quiet moment. Close your eyes if that feels right.

Ask yourself: Where in time is this part of you still standing?

Let the moment come — not to relive it, just to locate it. You'll know it when you feel it. There's often a tightness, a familiar ache, an emotion, or a specific face or moment that rises up.

Now, see yourself walking toward that part of you. Not to go back. Just to reach them.

You can place your hand out, open, and let that part of you place their hand in yours — or place one hand gently on top of the other, however feels natural. There's no wrong way to reach for yourself.

As you do, imagine warmth moving through your hands — not just meeting them, but filling them. Let that warmth travel like light passing from one candle to another.

Silently, or out loud, say:

"You have carried it for so long. The hurting no longer serves you. You don't have to carry it any further. You can come back to me now."

Let that part of you rejoin you — not erased, not forgotten, just no longer frozen. No longer alone in that moment. Whole again, with the rest of you.

This isn't something you do once and never again. Some parts of us take one visit to come home. Others need to be welcomed back again and again, until they finally believe it's safe to stay. That's not failure — that's just how healing moves.

Whenever an old pain rises again, you can return here. This practice is yours now. No monastery. No Grandmaster. Just you, reaching for you.

If this teaching opened something in you, and you feel drawn to deeper support, Joseph offers one-on-one sessions for healing, clarity, and emotional freedom — in person or virtually, worldwide. He is a Reiki Master and Certified Hypnotherapist with a B.S. in Psychology and Human Services.

Our Services | UNUM Reiki & Wellness