The following meditation is led by Tara Brock.

To access more of my meditations or join my email list, please visit TaraBrock.com.

In Buddhism, a forgiving is considered the precursor to met our loving kindness.

The understanding is that while it's quite natural for hatred and anger and blame to arise,

when it's sustained it becomes a kind of armoring around our heart.

It heartens and our identity gets caught in it.

So when we are locked into non-forgiveness, when we're locked into blame, in those moments

we're in a kind of trance.

We've lost access to our wholeness.

We're no longer able to see clearly who another is.

Our lens is narrowed and we're just fixated on the badness.

And we're not able to really remember who we are.

We're living from a small and disempowered place in us.

So the process of forgiving, of letting go of that armoring is really for the freedom

of our own hearts.

It empowers us when we're blaming and unforgiving we are disempowered.

We're caught in a victimized and small place.

The challenge for many is there's a misunderstanding that forgiving is in some way condoning.

It's like saying, oh, what you did's okay and you keep doing it even if you want.

And far from that you can forgive someone and absolutely create whatever boundaries or

whatever actions are necessary to fully take care of yourself or loved one or whatever

whoever you need to protect.

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