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The Forgiveness Pattern Outline

This pattern was developed by Connirae and Steve Andreas and participants in a six-day intensive workshop in March 1990. It is useful for anyone who is angry or resentful/ blaming, particularly if it is long-standing, and the person who harmed him/her is dead, or out of the person's life. This outline of the pattern presupposes considerable NLP training, particularly in submodalities, and in shifting (and aligning) perceptual positions.

General Frames

The goal of this pattern is to bring peace and resolution to the person feeling anger or resentment. Forgiving others (or yourself) does not mean condoning the behavior that harmed you (or someone else), or giving up the values that were violated. An important part of the pattern is to reaffirm your own values and criteria and use them to develop ways of coping resourcefully. The resolution and integration that forgiveness brings will make it easier to take effective action to uphold your values and standards in the future.

1. Resentment/Anger. Identify the person and the incident you are still angry/ resentful about, and with whom you would like to reach a feeling of forgiveness and resolution. Take a moment to notice how you think of this person and incident now. (Calibrate to client's nonverbal responses.)
2. Forgiveness. Identify an experience of forgiveness in your past. There are two major choices for this resource experience:
1. You once resented someone, but when you think of that person now it is with a feeling of forgiveness and compassion.
2. Someone harmed you, and you forgave him/her right away because you recognized that they harmed you accidentally, or that they were doing the best they could, etc. For instance, a small child hurt you, and you instantly recognized that he couldn't possibly do otherwise, or understand the consequences of what s/he did. (Calibrate to client's nonverbal responses.)
3. Contrastive Analysis. Compare the experiences in steps 1 and 2 above to determine the submodality differences between the two, particularly location.
4. Test Submodality Differences. One at a time, change the submodality differences of the resentment/anger experience to make it like the experience of forgiveness. Notice which submodalities are the most powerful "drivers" in changing resentment/anger to forgiveness. (Typically location will be the strongest.)
5. Ecology Check. "Does any part of you have any objection to reaching forgiveness with this person?" The most common objections are of two types:
1. Meaning. Forgiveness would mean condoning the harmful behavior that violated the person's values and standards, or that forgiveness would mean something about the client, for instance, that he's a wimp, etc. Reframe.
2. Forgiveness would eliminate a positive function, usually protection from a repeat occurrence of the harm. Separate this positive function from anger or forgiveness, and provide specific behavioral responses to accomplish this protective function without the need to get angry.

Satisfy all objections - at least conditionally - before proceeding to step 7.

6. Step into "Other" Position. First take the observer position to observe yourself and the person who "harmed" you from the outside, in the context in which are were harmed. Then step into the other person, noticing what you can learn that is new to you about this person's experience. What additional information do you get about how this person sees, hears, feels, and understands events? (This will be much easier and more effective after aligning perceptual positions.) "Do you realize that this person (and yourself) was doing the best s/he could in this situation, given this person's background, limited knowledge or motivation, etc.?" Take time to be sure this presupposition is in place.
7. Transform Resentment/Anger into Forgiveness by "mapping across" all submodalities, starting with the more powerful "driver" submodalities you identified in step 4. (Often changing location alone willl be enough.) As you do this, be sensitive to any emerging objections or reluctance, and satisfy them before proceeding.
8. Test. "Think of the person you used to feel resentment/anger toward. How do you feel about him/her now?" Calibrate to the nonverbal responses, comparing with what you observed previously at steps 1 and 2. Usually the incident of harm will now be the past, while the person who has been forgiven will be in the present and/or future, and with a feeling of neutrality or compassion.
9. Timeline Generalization. (Optional) If the person has had many experiences of resentment/anger, it can be very useful to take the experience of knowing how to forgive, float up over your timeline, then drop down onto the timeline before these other experiences of resentment and anger occurred. Let yourself move forward through time to the present, as your unconscious transforms these experiences. This "re-sorting" process can have a dramatic impact on a multitude of past experiences and also install forgiveness as a "through time" ability that becomes part of the person's sense of themselves in the present and future (as in the "Decision Destroyer").