Copyright 2001, Colin C. Tipping

Be Gentle With Yourself
Do not criticize yourself for being attached to any of
them or for being unwilling to let them go. You may
have had these ideas, beliefs, and attitudes for a long
time. In fact, they may define who you are. For ex-
ample, if you are an incest survivor or an adult child of
an alcoholic, these labels, which represent ideas or
beliefs about yourself, may provide a reference for who
you are. If you let go of the ideas associated with these
labels, you might lose your identity. So, while you want
to be firm with yourself in separating what is real from
what you have made up, be gentle with yourself and
allow time to release these beliefs.
The next step after this is the Radical Forgiveness
reframe — seeing that the story was perfect and had to
play out that way. Watch out for the guilt, the anger, the
#
My Interpretations About What Happened
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depression, and the criticism you might feel and direct
at yourself when you find out you have created your
entire life around a set of untrue beliefs.
Please, do
not do this
. Instead, remember that everything has a
purpose, and God does not make mistakes. Use one
or more of the forgiveness tools to work on forgiving
yourself and on seeing the perfection in your situation.
If the facts still prove that something 
bad
took place —
for example, a murder remains a murder no matter what
interpretations you may have made, the Radical For-
giveness Worksheet provides the best tool to help you
shift the energy around that event.
22: Four Steps to Forgiveness
T
his adaptation of a three-step process taught by
Arnold Patent* serves as a reminder of our power
to attract the events and people we need to feel
the emotions we have around a particular issue. The
process takes only a few moments, but it is one that
literally could save you from getting totally caught up in
the drama of what is happening and going to 
victimland
for an extended stay!
When something happens and we get upset it is ex-
tremely easy for us to forget everything we ever knew
about Radical Forgiveness. Until these principles be-
come firmly anchored in our minds, our tendency is
always to default to victim consciousness whenever our
upset creates a lot of emotional turmoil. The problem
* Patent A. M. 
“You Can Have It All”
Simon & Schuster, 1995 and
“Death Taxes And Other Illusions”
(Celebration Publishing, 1989).
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is, once there, we tend to hang out there for a very long
time. Without a Radical Forgiveness viewpoint, you
would probably stay there for years, which is what most
people do. 
(See diagram next page). 
However, if you
know someone who knows Radical Forgiveness and
recognizes your symptoms, he or she will have you do
a worksheet or listen to the 13 Steps CD so you can
return to peace. As you will see on the diagram below,
each time something happens we default to becoming
a victim and go for an extended stay in victimland
.
Then
we get reminded of how everything might be perfect,
so we use the technology to express our willingness to
see the perfection and eventually return to a state of
peace.