The Rooted Clinician: Forgiveness as a Path to Freedom

Featured Artwork

This painting "Dolphin Quartet" reflects what happens when rigid emotional patterns loosen and relationship within oneself and with others can re-form without force. Forgiveness does not require forgetting or reconciling; it requires the willingness to stop swimming against what cannot be changed and reclaim the freedom to move forward.

Opening Reflection

In the ocean, dolphins rarely swim alone. They move through the water together, rising and falling with the currents, adjusting to one another with a quiet awareness. There is a rhythm to their movement: fluid, cooperative, and unburdened. They do not fight the current. They move with it.

Watching a pod of dolphins glide through the water can feel like witnessing freedom in motion. Their bodies are not rigid. Their path is not forced. Instead, they move with an ease that comes from releasing resistance to the water around them. The ocean does not disappear for them, but they have learned how to travel within it.

Forgiveness often resembles this same kind of movement. Many of us carry experiences that create tension within us like memories that tighten the heart or stories that keep us bracing against the past. When we hold onto these experiences too tightly, life can begin to feel like swimming against a current that never stops pushing back.

"Forgiveness as a Path to Freedom"

Forgiveness is often misunderstood. Many people hear the word and assume it means forgetting what happened, minimizing harm, or reconciling with someone who caused pain. In reality, forgiveness does none of these things. Forgiveness does not erase memory, rewrite history, or remove the scars left by difficult experiences. Instead, forgiveness changes our relationship to what happened. It allows us to acknowledge the reality of the past without allowing it to continue shaping who we are in the present.

When pain remains unresolved, the mind and body often hold onto it as a form of protection. Anger, resentment, or self-blame can serve as ways of trying to make sense of what happened or prevent similar harm in the future. While these responses may begin as protective, over time they can become burdensome. Carrying unresolved resentment or shame keeps the nervous system engaged with the past, limiting a person’s ability to fully engage with the present. Forgiveness offers a way to release that weight without denying the significance of the experience.

Importantly, forgiveness does not mean removing boundaries or excusing harmful behavior. Forgiveness and boundaries can coexist. A person can acknowledge the harm done, maintain distance from those who caused it, and still choose to release the emotional burden of carrying that pain indefinitely. In this way, forgiveness becomes an act of personal agency rather than an act of surrender. It allows individuals to reclaim their energy and direct it toward healing, growth, and the life they wish to build.

In the therapeutic process, forgiveness often emerges gradually as experiences are explored and integrated. When clients begin to understand the meaning they have attached to painful events, they gain the ability to reshape those narratives. What once felt like a defining wound can become part of a broader story of resilience and growth. Forgiveness is not forced or rushed; it arises naturally when a person feels safe enough to loosen their grip on the past.

Ultimately, forgiveness is less about the person who caused the harm and more about the freedom of the one who carries it. It is the quiet decision to stop organizing one’s life around an old wound and to begin living from a place of openness again. When the heart loosens its grip on resentment and pain, space is created for healing, connection, and renewed possibility. In this way, forgiveness becomes not just an act of release, but a path toward freedom.

Clinician Growth Tip: Let Go

Clinicians often carry more than the client’s story. We carry our own expectations, frustrations, and quiet judgments when progress is slow or when clients repeat patterns we wish they could escape. Over time, this can subtly harden our posture toward the work. Curiosity becomes irritation. Compassion becomes fatigue. The clinician may still be present, but internally, something begins to close. Practicing forgiveness as a clinician means recognizing when this has happened and gently reopening.

Forgiveness in clinical work can look like:

• Releasing the need for a client to change on your timeline.

• Letting go of the frustration that arises when clients return to familiar patterns.

• Extending compassion toward your own moments of doubt, fatigue, or imperfection as a clinician.

Remind yourself:

You are not responsible for forcing transformation. You are responsible for creating the conditions where it can emerge. Just as clients learn to release what they have been gripping tightly, clinicians must occasionally loosen their grip on expectations, outcomes, and self-criticism. An open clinician creates space for an open process.

Clinical Application: Guiding Toward Forgiveness

The same truth applies to our clients as it does to us: meaningful change rarely happens while someone is still bracing against their own experience. Guiding clients toward forgiveness often begins with helping them pause. When clients stop fighting the reality of what happened, they create the internal space where healing and forgiveness can begin to take shape.

It allows the nervous system to reset, the mind to process, and the body to recover capacity for the work ahead.

Clinical application can look like:

• Inviting clients to notice what they are still gripping tightly.
  Ask gently: What are you still holding onto that your body may be ready to loosen, even slightly? This can open the door to forgiveness, not as a demand, but as a possibility.

• Helping clients distinguish between releasing resentment and removing boundaries.
  Clients often fear that forgiveness means allowing harm again. Clarifying that forgiveness can coexist with firm boundaries restores a sense of safety and agency.

• Encouraging small moments of internal permission.
  Sometimes forgiveness begins with something simple: allowing themselves to stop replaying the same story for a few moments and noticing what their body feels like without the tension of holding it.

Remind your clients:

Letting go does not mean the pain did not matter. It means the pain no longer gets to decide who you become.

Rooted Exercise: A Forgiveness Process

The following activity is my own adaptation of the Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono. It is a practice of reconciliation, forgiveness, and restoration of harmony within relationships and community.

1. Grounding
   Invite the client to sit comfortably in a place where they feel safe. Begin with a brief breathing exercise to help them feel calm, centered, and grounded.

2. Create the Stage
   Ask the client to imagine a stage in front of them. This stage is a place where any person, memory, or part of themselves can step forward when forgiveness or healing is needed.

3. Invite the Figure Forward
   Have the client invite forward the person or part of themselves connected to the pain they wish to release. Encourage them to observe the figure for a moment before speaking.

4. Offer Forgiveness
   Guide the client to say:
   “I forgive you for the negative things you have brought into my life.”
   “I hope that you can forgive me too.”

**Pause and allow space for any internal response.**

5. Invite Mutual Exchange
   Ask the client to reflect:
   “Is there anything we can do for or give each other that would fully embody this forgiveness?”

**Allow space for any thoughts, emotions, or images that arise. Encourage the client to offer any symbolic gift or gesture that feels meaningful.**

6. Acknowledge the Role
   Guide the client to recognize the role this person or part has played in their life. They may say something like:
   “I see you. I recognize your purpose. I thank you. I love you.”

**Allow time for any internal response. If gratitude is not reciprocated, encourage the client to acknowledge this and extend forgiveness for that as well.**

7. Release the Cord
   Ask the client to imagine a cord connecting them to this person or part. Explain that this cord represents the emotional burden they have been carrying. When ready, have them imagine gently cutting or dissolving the cord, releasing the weight while keeping any lessons or growth from the experience.

8. Reintegration or Care
   If the figure represents a part of themselves, invite the client to welcome the part back into the whole of who they are. If the part is not ready, encourage the client to imagine the part being cared for by an animal, sacred figure, or element of nature until they return to this work later.

9. Close the Exercise
   Invite the client to take several slow breaths and notice any shifts in their body, emotions, or sense of openness.

Closing Encouragement

Forgiveness does not erase memory. It does not rewrite history. It does not remove scars. Instead, it changes the relationship to what happened. Forgiveness transforms rigid narratives into integrated ones.

The memory remains, but it no longer hijacks.
The story remains, but it no longer dominates.
The past remains, but it no longer dictates identity.

LIKE A CLENCHED FIST, THE HEART CANNOT RECEIVE FREEDOM UNTIL IT LEARNS TO OPEN.

Embodiment of the Message

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What am I still holding onto about this client, and how might releasing it allow me to see them more clearly?

   
   

2. Where might I need to extend forgiveness toward myself in this work?

   
   

3. What would it look like to release the need to control this outcome while still remaining deeply committed to the client’s growth?

A Word of Value

At Art of Growth Counseling Services, forgiveness is a part of the process. We believe that forgiveness can be a mechanism to let go of the baggage we hold related the experiences of our past. Which speaks to the second step in our process- Reprocess!

Reprocessing is the intentional revisiting of past experiences in a safe, grounded way so they no longer carry the same emotional charge, distorted meaning, or physiological activation. It is not reliving for the sake of reliving. It is integrating. Through evidence-based and experiential approaches, we help you metabolize what once felt overwhelming, reinterpret what was once confusing, and release what no longer serves your present life. When an experience is reprocessed, it shifts from being something that controls you to something you understand.

We believe that true growth begins when a person’s inner world: spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical is brought into harmony with their authentic self. This means living in congruence with one’s values, experiences, and aspirations, and recognizing when areas of disconnection or fracture need compassionate attention. In noticing this disconnection or fracture you can practice compassionate forgiveness with yourself and forgiveness with boundaries with others. It is reclaiming agency. This means choosing to loosen the grip of resentment, shame, or self-blame so your nervous system can settle and your life can move forward.

Moving Forward

This month was about Forgiveness as a way to reprocess and reclaim agency, Next month’s issue will focus on protecting that agency. Join us as we reflect on Boundaries as a form of care without collapse: for ourselves, our clients, and our communities.

This has been brought to you by,

Roger Lee Crowe III, LCSW Owner/ Psychotherapist Art of Growth Counseling Services, PLLC.

Community Note

Do you have a story of forgiveness that you’d like to share?

We may feature reader artwork or reflections in future issues. You can send responses by email to roger@artofgrowthcounselingservices.hush.com. We look forward to your responses!