Forgiving Our Past Selves:

The Secret Power We Don't Know We Have

---

 Note: This post, originally published on Linkedin, is aimed at stressed professionals navigating work pressure, personal growth, and inner child patterns. It focuses on practical insights and psychological perspectives to support you in managing stress, building self-awareness, and fostering emotional resilience. If you’re interested in exploring the energetic, spiritual, and astrological influences behind these experiences—insights from spirit guides, past-life reflections, or awakening practices—check out our other blog sections like "Welcome to Your Spiritual Awakening", "Astrology and Energy" or "Energy for Emotional Support" for deeper perspectives and actionable guidance for those on the Spiritual Path.

---

In my last post, I shared how burnout became the unexpected doorway into the kind of work I now do — work that asks us to meet ourselves at a much deeper, more honest level. This post continues that story. It’s about forgiveness — not of others, but of the many versions of ourselves we’ve abandoned along the way. The parts of us who carried anger, grief, shame, or disappointment for far too long. I want to share how I came to understand that forgiveness is not just an act of kindness, but an energetic release — and how that understanding transformed both my healing and my work.

When I was deep in the research phase of recovering from burnout — in that time when I was giving myself permission to look at the grief and the anger I’d been accumulating — I found myself in conversation with a friend. I remember sitting across from her, tired, brittle, frustrated, carrying the ache of what felt like too many betrayals, too much unfairness, too many people taking. My corporate-analyst self had burned bright and fast, and underneath it all was a river of unprocessed emotional material: loss, resentment, feeling unseen, feeling powerless.

She asked me: “When something painful happens, historically, how have you let it go?” And I admitted: I didn’t have a method. I didn’t have a way to release it, because to be honest, I didn't even realise it was something one needed to do. In response, she gave me a quote from Gábor Maté:

“When we talk about triggers … this little lever that you push … the only reason the trigger works is because there’s ammunition, and a weapon, and an explosive charge.” (Sounds True Podcast-Tami Simon and Gabor Mate, Dec 20, 2022)

I didn’t really understand what she meant, yet somehow I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went away and tried to find where he had said it — which led me into his talk and material about trauma, healing, and how our unhealed past creates the conditions for our reactions.

In that talk, Maté explains that the term “trigger” is a metaphor. A tiny lever might set off an explosion, but only because there’s explosive material already inside. He poses the question: when someone pushes the lever, who is the one carrying the ammunition? He continues: the presence of a trigger shows that something inside us is unresolved, ready, loaded. He says the work is in asking “what is the explosive material inside me?” rather than only asking “why did that person do that to me?” (Sounds True Podcast-Tami Simon and Gabor Mate, Dec 20, 2022)

It felt like a breakthrough. In that moment I realised: the anger I felt whenever someone was rude or aggressive or tried to take something from me wasn’t just about them. The outrageousness of their behaviour may have stung—but the intensity of my reaction was amplified because the ammunition was already inside me: old wounds, unacknowledged, unresolved. And the consequences of carrying those wounds went beyond bursts of anger. I saw they were responsible for constant background fear and anxiety. They were shaping my relationships, my ability to feel at ease, even silently influencing how I moved through the world. Some of that energy I even projected outward without realising it.

So how did I start resolving it? Fortunately, by the time of this realisation I had already begun to receive regular acupuncture. From my corporate-analyst life into the world of energy healing this was one of the first shifts: by returning the body’s energy flows close to their natural state, the energetic blocks that existed because of carried trauma began to soften. In practice I found acupuncture helped clear some of that stuck energy—because it turns out that the same unresolved emotional layers that keep us anxious or reactive are the ones that hold qi or pranic flow blocked in place.

At the same time, I discovered other supports for this work of releasing the baggage. Energy healing modalities of all kinds—reiki, breath-work, somatic healing—have the effect of helping to release old energies, of giving space for what was stuck to move. In my own product-work I draw on this understanding: many of my flower essence blends lean into the emotional layers of letting go—the grief, the anger, the “why me?”, the replay of the story that we’ve told ourselves about being wrong-done-to-or-invisible.

But without a doubt, what has most influenced my approach to releasing the wounding of the past, the parts of me that had been unable to let go of their stories, was my korero with a fascinatingly haunting Hawaiian prayer, and the lessons it taught me about the deep roots of forgiveness.

What is Ho’oponopono? 

Originating in traditional Hawaiian culture, Ho’oponopono is a practice of reconciliation and forgiveness—both for others and for oneself. Historically it was used within Hawaiian families and communities to restore harmony after conflict or imbalance. The perspective it holds is that our external conflicts are reflections of internal wounding and that we carry responsibility—something needs healing within. Over time the practice has been adapted more broadly (with respect and care) into Western spiritual/energy-healing circles. The viewpoint behind it aligns with other wisdom traditions: that what happens to us often reflects aspects of ourselves that we need to see, release or transform.

Practically, the core of the practice is a simple four-step mantra or prayer:

1. “I’m sorry.”

2. “Please forgive me.”

3. “Thank you.”

4. “I love you.”

The first time I tried it, I had no idea what to expect. I decided to take the phrases one at a time, spending an entire day with each. I’ll admit — I began at step three, “Thank you.” It felt safer. I imagined various people from my past, silently responding to them as if they were the ones seeking my forgiveness.

But as I kept going, something shifted. When I reached “I love you,” I felt an unexpected wall rise up. It became clear that maybe I too had unresolved emotions in those matters that went beyond simply receiving an apology. That realisation softened something in me, allowing me to move into the earlier steps, “I’m sorry” and “Please forgive me”, realising how much more easeful the act of forgiveness felt when the apologies and gratitude felt like it flowed freely in all directions. Not out of some strange sense of virtuous accountability, but more as a collective agreement to wipe the slate clear so that we could all move on without dragging the weights of the past.

By the end of that day, something profound happened. A deep, almost ancestral sob rose up from somewhere within me, shaking loose a grief I hadn’t known I was still carrying. It was one of the most powerful emotional releases I had ever experienced.

I didn’t understand exactly how it worked — only that it did. Something else, however, was clear: my refusal to forgive had been rooted in a belief that letting go meant condoning what others had done. But all that resistance ever did was keep me bound to the pain.

There’s a saying that perfectly captures this truth:

“Imagine being bitten by a snake — and instead of tending to your wound and healing the poison, you chase after the serpent, desperate to understand why it bit you.”

When my acupuncturist first suggested Ho’oponopono to help release the wounds even energy work couldn’t fully reach, I didn’t understand why I would need to apologise to those who had hurt me. But as I continued, learning more about the prayer and hearing renditions sung by Hawaiian elders and medicine women, the deeper wisdom revealed itself:

You aren’t saying the prayer to them — you’re saying it to you. To the versions of yourself who froze in pain. To the parts of you cast in stone when you attached to the identity of victimhood, when you allowed it to become a part of who you are instead of an experience you had.

The real power of Ho’oponopono lies in this: forgiveness is how we retrieve those lost fragments of ourselves. When you ask for forgiveness from the wounded parts of you, you’re giving them permission to step out of the moment they got stuck in. You’re saying — I see you now. You’re free to come home.

A suggested meditation and self-discovery exercise for you (or your client)—

So below, I highlight an exercise I now recommend to a client who is working on the wounds of the heart: hurts, resentments, betrayals that have infiltrated their personal stories to their detriment.

In the mindset I recommend, you might say it to the version of you who experienced that event—“I’m sorry you had to go through that and that it hurt you. Forgive me, because I haven’t yet processed it and a part of you has been stuck in time. Thank you for having experienced it, knowing its greater purpose of helping us transcend and release. I love you, and I’m here to release us both.”

A suggested meditation and self-discovery exercise for you (or your client)—

1. Make an inventory of 2-5 “versions” of you who endured something painful: the 5-year-old who was excluded, the 10-year-old who was betrayed, the 15-year-old who felt invisible, the 30-year-old whose exhaustion became burnout, etc. You might take a week to reflect on this. Write about them if journaling resonates; create a timeline if helpful.

2. As you write, note which versions of you still carry visceral reactions when you recall that age or event. That’s a strong sign of unresolved ammunition.

3. Then begin a meditation practice over a 2-3 week period: recall those versions of yourself, one at a time. Talk to them, thank them, ask them what they feel. Recite the 4 mantras, and let them know it is now safe for them to process and release whatever pain they have been carrying.

4. Repeat for each version you’ve identified, over the course of a few weeks, noticing any shifts in how you feel, how you relate to others, how you carry yourself in the world.

Why this matters for releasing emotional baggage 

This practice is deeply aligned with what I now teach in my energy-healing work: that unresolved emotional wounds are stored energy. They animate our reactions, shape our beliefs, distort our present moment, and keep us tethered to the past. The power of forgiveness directed inward — toward your past self — is that it releases the energy you were holding onto. It clears the “ammunition” so that future triggers don’t ignite the same explosive charge. It creates new space inside you for freedom, calm, ease, and presence.

A closing reflection

I share this because I know where I was: carrying anger, carrying grief, unable to let go, feeling powerless not only from what others did to me, but from what I carried inside. My burnout taught me that self-care was more than fancy rituals or escapes; it was healing my internal terrain. Forgiveness of others is powerful. But forgive the versions of you who were hurt — that is transformative. In that space lives real freedom.

If this resonates, I invite you to try the inventory and the prayer. See what arises when you offer forgiveness not just to someone else, but to your own past self. You might find that you’ve been carrying the weight of many versions without even realising it. And when you release that, you reclaim more of your present.