NURTURING Positive Affirmations for Forgiveness

The fifth video in Day by Day’s “Shaping my Day” affirmation series is all about forgiveness.

Day by Day is an initiative from some of the Baha’i Blog team that offers meditations and affirmations to connect with your spiritual self. We hope that repeating the positive affirmations shared in this video will help you to create connections, love and friendship, and make positive change in the lives of those around you!

When we think of forgiveness, as with so many virtues, Abdu’l-Baha provides a shining example. Nowhere is this more evident than in this vignette, told in Annamarie Honnold’s Vignettes from the life of Abdu’l-Baha:

In His almost off-hand brushing aside of a cruelty, in the ineffable sweetness with which He ignored it, it was as though He said: Forgiveness belongs only to God. An example of this was His memorable meeting with the royal prince, Zillah Sultan, brother of the Shah of Persia, Muhammad ‘Ali Shah. Not only Abdu’l-Baha, but a great number of His followers, band after band of Baha’i martyrs, had suffered worse than death at the hands of these two princes . . . One day Zillah Sultan came to him. In describing the scene later, the European said: “If you could have heard the wretch mumbling his miserable excuses!” But Abdu’l-Baha took the prince in His arms. “All that is of the past,” He answered. “Never think of it again. Send your two sons to see me. I want to meet your sons.” They came, one at a time. Each spent a day with the Master. The first, though an immature boy, nevertheless showed Him great deference. The second, older and more sensitive, left the room of Abdu’l-Baha, where he had been received alone, weeping uncontrollably. “If only I could be born again,” he said, “into any other family than mine.” For not only had many Baha’is been martyred during his uncle’s reign (upwards of a hundred by his father’s instigation), and the life of Abdu’l-Baha threatened again and again, but his grandfather, Nasiri’d-Din Shah, had ordered the execution of the Bab, as well as the torture and death of thousands of Babis. The young prince was “born again” — a Baha’i.

The affirmations that we are guided to repeat in this video are:

• I am worthy of love, respect, and kindness.
• I am not defined by the actions of others.
• I choose love and compassion.
• My forgiveness is an act of strength and courage.
• I release the pain of the past.
• I honour my own journey and choose forgiveness.
• My mistakes are my lessons, I give myself space to learn from them and then let them go.
• I lift myself and others by choosing forgiveness.
• I love myself unconditionally.

You can follow Day by Day on Instagram, find more of its “Shaping my Day” videos on YouTube, download an affirmation wallpaper from its Pinterest account, or check out its website.

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Sonjel Vreeland

In her innermost heart, Sonjel is a stay-at-home parent and a bookworm with a maxed out library card but professionally she is a museologist with a background in English Literature. She currently lives on Prince Edward Island, an isle in the shape of a smile on the eastern Canadian coast. Sonjel is a writer who loves to listen to jazz when she's driving at night.