Today's podcast episode is more than just an episode—it's a piece of my heart. I'll be sharing my journey of forgiving myself for my daughter's death, and how that devastating experience led me to view life from the perspective of my soul's purpose.

From self-love to universal karma, this episode is the whole shebang! Tune in for tips on letting go, and tricks that involve, yes, actual stones and balloons!  

 🌈 B͇u͇l͇l͇e͇t͇ p͇o͇i͇n͇t͇s͇ o͇f͇ k͇e͇y͇ t͇o͇p͇i͇c͇s͇ +͇ c͇h͇a͇p͇t͇e͇r͇ m͇a͇r͇k͇e͇r͇s͇ 

[00:00] Intro 

Strap in, fabulous listeners! Today, we're talkin' about a topic as universal as mismatched socks—forgiveness! Stick around; it's gonna be a stroll to remember.  

[00:22] What Forgiveness Means? 

Imagine your life as a walk. Sometimes you're dancing on sunshine, and other times, you've got stones in your shoes. We chat about how to clean those metaphorical Nikes and keep on strutting!  

[01:04] What Forgiveness is NOT 

Spoiler alert: it ain't about the other guy or your rotten luck. It's all about decluttering your own emotional shoebox!  

[01:46] Forgiving Yourself  

Ever felt like a DIY therapist for yourself? Yeah, me too! Let's explore how to deal with those internal blame games and guilt trips, using personal experiences as a heart-wrenching guide.  

[05:41] Forgiving Another Person or Circumstance 

Sometimes, it's not just about you (shocking, I know!). We touch on forgiving external factors or people. Yes, even that guy who cut you off in traffic.  

[06:18] When Forgiveness is Really Hard 

Some stones in our shoes feel more like boulders. We get into how to lift 'em out even when it feels impossible.  

[11:24] How Forgiveness Helps You? 

Based on the movie "Letting Go," we explore the life-altering question: "Why not me?" Discover the superpower of forgiveness and embrace the compassionate hero within. 

[14:29] Why Forgiveness Is Important? 

Stones in your shoes? Time to clean up that emotional space! How letting go can make you lighter than a feather in a breeze. 

[16:22] The Cosmic Connection Between Forgiveness and Karma

Is it a dance floor or a cosmic journey? You decide. Dive deep into the spiritual aspects of forgiveness and its impact on your karmic cycle. 

[18:02] How Can You Forgive and Let Go? 

🏅 Stone Toss: Take that grudge, picture it as a stone, and toss it into the ether! Visit ArtofLifeCenter.com/Forgiveness for more. 

🎈 Balloon Pop: Fill a balloon with your emotional clutter and either release it or pop it (but please, no startling any innocent pets). 

[20:14] Life Makeover for Forgiveness, Healing and Growth 

Introducing the fabulous Life Makeover Program featuring art therapy meditations and a buffet of playful exercises. Heal, manifest, and add a little bit of sparkle to your daily life. 

🌈 Episode Highlights 

🪨 1. Stones in Your Shoes, Stones in Your Soul 🪨 

Have you ever stepped on a LEGO and thought, "This is it. This is how I go"? Well, consider each emotional grudge a little like that—a stone in your shoe. Learn how to stop, drop, and roll those metaphorical stones right out of your life. Your soul's foot arch will thank you! 

🌌 2. The Cosmic Connection: Your Soul, Your Life Purpose, and Your Forgiveness Quotient 🌌 

Ever wondered why you're here, besides enjoying pumpkin spice lattes? This episode dives deep into how forgiveness ties into your soul's life purpose. Imagine your life as a blockbuster movie; sometimes, forgiveness is the plot twist that elevates it to Oscar-worthy status. 🎬 

🎈 3. Let it Float Away: Forgiveness Via Stones and Balloons 🎈 

If the first stone trick didn't rock your world, how about balloons? Visualize filling up a balloon with all your anger, resentments, or that cringe-worthy moment when you accidentally called your teacher "Mom." Then, let that balloon float away. You'll feel lighter than the helium inside it! 

🌈  L͇i͇n͇k͇s͇ f͇r͇o͇m͇ t͇h͇i͇s͇ e͇p͇i͇s͇o͇d͇e͇:͇ 

🌟Unlocking the Power of Forgiveness: Quotes & Exercises to Set You Free 

https://artoflifecenter.com/blog/forgiveness-quotes-and-exercises/ 

🌟️ Register today for a full-on Life Makeover – a super easy, gentle and fun way to heal every aspect of your life with Art Therapy Meditations 

https://artoflifecenter.com/art 

🌟️ Subscribe to Art of Life podcast 

https://listen.artoflifecenter.com/listen/ 

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Apple: Click link and scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section near the bottom of the page, then give a 5star rating and write review https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/mypodcasts/show/artoflife/3c78b5c13de0446b8b8a8e8ccb1cd648/episodes 

🌟️Movie Just Let Go https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3196830/ 

🌈 S͇o͇c͇i͇a͇l͇s͇ a͇n͇d͇ W͇e͇b͇s͇i͇t͇e͇:͇ 

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Hey there, welcome to the Art of Life podcast, a podcast where you learn how

to heal your life every week with just really simple practical steps that you

can apply at any time and anywhere.

Okay, so let's get started.

Today we are talking about forgiveness.

So let's start first with what forgiveness means.

I often think of forgiveness as, well, sort of like taking a walk in life.

And when you're walking in life, just like as you're walking, maybe routinely

in your everyday life, there are moments where you get stones in your shoes.

Sometimes they can be small stones, sometimes they can be

bigger stones, and forgiveness is just cleaning up that space.

It's just cleaning up that shoe.

So what forgiveness is not?

Forgiveness is not about the other person or the circumstance.

It literally is that as you're walking, you get some stones.

There's some experiences that you have.

You don't like them.

That's what I'm calling the stone.

And the stones just occupy space in your shoe.

You know, something happened, whether you had control over it or whether you did not

have control over it but it left a little stone in there or a big one in your shoe.

And then forgiveness is okay, just taking that stone out and

having it out of your space.

Now what does that mean?

So sometimes forgiveness could be related to myself.

So I might be holding myself back from something.

Let's say I feel I did something wrong.

Personally, I know for me, one of the hardest things was to

accept my daughter's death.

I held guilt for a really, really long time because I was asleep

while she was passing away.

I was pregnant with her and I just felt myself accountable

because how can a mom do that?

How can a good mom be sleeping?

What sort of mother was I?

All those sorts of things.

Guilt of other things that we hold, shame or sometimes just blame with

ourselves can be other things as well.

And then there's blame around, how come I didn't see it?

How come I didn't understand it?

How come I didn't see the signs?

So there's a whole lot of self guilt, self blame that we can hold on to

ourselves and in reality all that they are is just small stones or big stones.

We were having a walk in life, our purpose here on earth is

to have a life experience.

We all as beautiful souls came on earth to have an experience.

Part of that meant having these difficult situations and learning

from them and evolving from them.

So the best way forward then would be not to really own the stones,

not to really hold on to it because the guilt or the blame isn't

doing really any justice to me.

It's not helping me out.

Of course, if I had known my thing with my daughter would have been different.

If I had any awareness, I would not have been sleeping.

It was not a choice.

And other places as well where I feel like, oh my God,

I made that mistake again.

Yes, if I had learned it, I would've probably done something better.

But you know what?

I did not learn my lesson by then.

So just go back to your school.

There were a lot of times where you got a concept that your teacher was telling

you and you just got it the first time.

Then there are other concepts that just take you time.

And that's okay.

You don't have to really hold yourself to it.

Similarly, even with our life experiences, we don't really have

to hold ourselves with the blame.

Yes, something happened.

There was a younger version of me.

This is now a better version of me little bit more experienced version

that knows a little bit better.

I will probably still make mistakes.

Oh, no, I'm a hundred percent sure I will still make mistakes.

And that's absolutely okay.

Because you know what?

That's my role.

As a soul on this life, that's what I came to do.

I came to Earth to have a walk.

I came to Earth to have these life experiences.

I came to Earth to grow and evolve and to have experiences where I grow and I learn.

So it's just a matter of my self talk with myself and going, well, it's

okay, maybe I don't have to keep the stones that are really hurting me.

Now then there's another type of blame or guilt that we can hold

and that's not related to us, that's related to somebody else.

Maybe there's a circumstance that we hold ourselves.

a little bit guilty for, or we just hold that for someone else.

So maybe there was like a traffic accident whether or not it was caused by us or just

like, Oh, why did I let that person go?

Why did this accident happen?

Why didn't I do something about it?

Just that.

And that's when forgiveness is really hard as well, because some of these

emotions can be really charged.

Some of these experiences can be really charged.

But perhaps what works best in this is just stepping back, possibly from the

situation, removing yourself from the situation as best as possible and going,

okay, what is the bigger purpose here?

I'm the soul.

on earth.

I'm having a walk in life.

I'm having this experience.

Perhaps what was the purpose here and try and focus your thinking if possible

more from a point of view of what is it that as a soul you need to learn.

The more you can detach in a way from your own experience and look at it as if

you're watching yourself in a movie, the more it helps, the more you can go, well,

you know, why did I have this experience?

Why did this person do this to me?

And it's not as much from a victim mindset that you're trying to find it out.

Of course, we all tend to go there, right?

But if you can step out from that victim mindset and look like, well, what is

this person trying to really teach me?

Maybe you really hate the person.

Maybe the person was absolutely mean to you and did some really nasty things that

nobody should have to go through, correct?

But I'm not saying give a high ground to that person.

What I'm saying is, think why as a soul, why did you call that experience?

Why did that experience manifest in your life?

Now I personally know that I lost my daughter and as much as yes, I

hold myself guilty or now I don't.

The circumstance itself felt really mean and I didn't feel I deserved it.

I do feel at some place that I am a good mom, capable of being a

really good mom and I would have loved and adored my daughter.

It felt unfair.

But as much as I say that the other side of the story also is that there's a bigger

purpose to why all of that happened.

Now, my life wasn't really going in a very good trajectory.

I wasn't in the best, happy place.

I was really depressed in life.

And just living a life, not really living, very, very sad,

was almost dead inside when...

when I lost my daughter and as I continue to do the meditation work, I realized

that she was really a gift in a way because she came to show me how I needed

to shake my life up and just stand up.

You know, it was just a different message.

So instead of viewing that as, Oh my God, that's such an unfortunate incident.

I have started looking at it as a moment of grace.

Definitely it's not something that I wish for anyone that they lose their child.

But personally, for me, the lesson has been that life's

actually a lot more beautiful.

And there's a lot that I learned from the experience, not just

this, it was just around trying to let go of control as well.

You know there was definitely a part of me that wanted to control how life

would be for her, but it was just accepting that life is what it is

and I just have my duty to live in life or just have the experiences.

I would urge you to look at your own unique situations in

that similar sense as well.

Why did a situation, why did a person come in your life?

What was the higher purpose?

You know, it doesn't mean about that person, but just

means about you as a soul.

What was the higher reason for that person entering your life?

Even if you had the most traumatic experience, I empathize with you.

I totally do and that's why I urge you to look at why that happened.

Why, what is the strength that you get out from that experience?

Why did that happen?

So there was a very beautiful movie that I watched called Letting Go a long time ago.

This was about a guy who lost all of his family just had one, I think

two kids living afterwards and the movie is called letting go.

There's another teenager who's almost drunk driving.

And that leads to all of this.

And in the end, this teacher, he forgives.

that person.

And when he was asked, why did he do that?

And he said, well, initially I used to ask why, why did this happen to me?

Why did, you know, my family die?

Why did I lose my wife?

Why did I lose my daughter?

He said, well, I would think that.

And then one day I switched the question around.

And the question more became, well, why not me?

He was a teacher.

He was teaching people how to be compassionate.

So he started saying, well, why not me?

Because I was the perfect person to be able to go, well, I can forgive.

I can let this child know.

The teenage person who killed his family members by drunk driving.

He said, I can let him know that it's okay.

And it wasn't about the person, but it was just that, well, it's an experience

and I can let go and it's fine.

You know, when we try and hold on to something, there's an essence of

us where we are sort of trying to go, well, I've got to control this.

But there's another sense where another higher power, perhaps, where what

happens to each one of us in our lives, there's sometimes called as destiny.

I tend to think of it as life purpose.

So life purpose would be what you've come on this earth to do.

For example, for my daughter, Ayana.

Her life purpose was to just come into life, live that little short

period, just 31 weeks as I was pregnant and in my womb, just give me that

motherhood experience and experience life that way and then come out of it.

For someone else, you don't know what their previous life is about.

So maybe if there's a child who's born sick, maybe the experience is

around well, you know, seeing life that way, knowing what it feels like

to not be fully capable in the body.

And experiencing that love, maybe as parents, the purpose was that you are the

chosen one because you are the perfect parents to give that child that love

and that opportunity to grow them, to nourish them, to give them compassion.

I would really urge you to think about your life from that

perspective, if you can possibly switch it around from a victim.

feeling, like why is it happening to me, but just switching

it to, well, why not me?

What is, as a soul, what is it you really needed to do?

And sometimes it's heartbreaking, it's gut wrenching, I hear you, I

understand you totally, but I wanted to give power to you in just being

that light and being able to go, okay, this is why or this is the strength

that I'm getting and as hard as it is, you know, I'm the chosen one for this.

So I hope that leaves you with some thoughts to deal with situations

when forgiveness is really hard.

Now, why forgiveness is important and how does it help you?

I wanted to come back to that, circle back to that.

So in the beginning of this podcast, I was talking around stones.

And as we walk in life, we get little stones and we get big stones in our shoes.

Forgiveness is basically around.

cleaning that space.

It's just around cleaning the shoes.

It's around living the human experience, but just enjoying it being

light and just think of everything coming into your space as stones.

You don't have to internalize it.

You don't have to take the stone inside.

You don't have to have it in your body.

You don't really even have to carry it around in your shoes for a long time, you

can just take it out right then and there.

It doesn't matter who it came from.

It doesn't matter what it is, how big it is.

You came on this journey to evolve, to have a human experience.

You know, for whatever reason, when you were choosing your life on

earth- you chose this life, the basic dynamics of it you chose and you said

well I want to have this experience.

Sometimes it was that pain experience that you chose because you wanted

to evolve as a soul that way.

So gratitude to yourself and power to you for enduring all of

those experiences so beautifully.

Your idea of evolution is to travel as a light soul in this

earth, as a soul that gives out light, as a soul that feels light.

So let go, let go of the stones that you feel on the way.

Your Karma, your real purpose in life is to do the things that you want to

do and whatever that's coming up in between, just letting that go and just

being a little bit in the balcony with it as opposed to in the dance floor

where all the emotion is happening.

Just stepping up and going, well, that's okay.

I don't want that stone anymore.

And that growth, that empowerment to you, because that's the

evolution of the true you.

That's the evolution of your inner light, your highest potential.

And I wish you nothing but just that.

When you feel something's coming up in life, when you feel that things

are hard, how can you forgive?

There are a couple of different ways.

I'll link a few different articles in the show notes.

But otherwise just go to artoflifecenter.com/forgiveness/ and

you'll find a whole lot of meditation exercises or even non meditation exercises

that you can do every day to forgive.

I'll just share one quick one here.

Let's say you're feeling hard about something actually let me do two.

So one, because I've already talked about all of this as stones.

So let's say there's something that you really, really want to forgive.

Actually imagine it as a stone, like imagine maybe the person as a stone,

the circumstance as a stone and take that stone and either throw it away.

If you want to throw it away out from your space and just imagine doing that again

and again and again Give that power to yourself You could even just physically

take a stone Think of it in the sense that, you know, this is what I'm doing.

This is what the stone represents to me.

And you can throw it away in a river or something and see if that let's go.

Every one little bit that you do counts.

So just keep doing it.

Keep going ahead.

You can visualize it as a stone and just let it go away from your space.

The other thing you could do if there's a circumstance that you want to think

just similar tone, but you can imagine you've got a balloon and the balloon

fills up with all of that energy that you want to let go around something.

Maybe there's somebody that you're really angry with.

Imagine all of that in a balloon and then just let it go high up in the air.

Blow it up if you wanted to, but just let it go away from you.

I give you ultimate power so that you can be the pure and the divine

light that you're supposed to be.

If you are interested, I'm also launching a life makeover program,

forgiveness is one part of it, and so is so many other things.

In the life makeover program, we do art therapy meditations, they're

really art based, so you play with art and small visualization meditations.

They're all playful, fun, and every hour of art therapy helps you deal

with some aspect in your life.

Sometimes you'll learn to forgive.

Sometimes you will learn how to heal your past.

Sometimes you will learn how to deal with traumas, how to connect

with your body and how to let go of some body aches and pains.

And you will also learn to manifest and so on.

It's an amazing program.

I definitely urge you to check it out.

If you get time, please leave a review for the Art of Life Center.

Definitely helps me understand where you're at.

What are your questions?

What makes you really listen to the show?

And that prompts me for other things and other stuff that I

can share on the podcast as well.

So kudos to you.

Keep shining and be the beautiful light that you are.

I will see you next time, next week.

Take care.