Forgiveness is about more than just letting go. It’s about healing wounds and wiping away scars. It’s about feeling better—physically and emotionally. It’s about living your life with purpose and truly moving forward. In Unconditional Forgiveness , Mary Hayes Grieco offers the Eight Steps to Freedom, a simple, effective eight-step program that teaches readers how to completely forgive in order to achieve both emotional and physical well-being. This step-by-step method incorporates emotional, energetic, and spiritual components that are accessible to everyone and offer lasting success. The Eight Steps to Freedom are: Step One: Use Your Will Declare your intention through the power of will to begin the process of forgiveness. - Step Two: Express Your Emotional Pain You are given complete freedom to express your honest emotions without judgment or fear. - Step Three: Release Expectations from Your Mind Identify and let go of the expectations you had surrounding the person or situation that you are forgiving. - Step Four: Restore Your Boundaries Firmly separate yourself from the harmful actions and attitudes of the other person or situation. - Step Five: Open Up to Getting Your Needs Met in a Different Way Emotions have been released, expectations have been let go, and you no longer demand anything from the person or situation that you are forgiving. - Step 6: Receive Healing Energy from Spirit Reach to a higher level, bringing unconditional love and light into your being. - Step Seven: Send Unconditional Love to the Other Person or Situation and Release Unconditional love and light is freely given to the person or situation you are forgiving. - Step Eight: See the Good in the Person or Situation Now that you are free from the past pain and grievance, recognize the good that can be taken from the person or situation. Grieco walks the reader through each step and addresses the entire spectrum of painful issues, from the everyday mundane to the most difficult, as well as providing a way to forgive one’s self, when necessary. The how to appendix provides a perennial, off-the-shelf reference to swiftly guide readers through the process whenever the need arises. With Grieco’s in-depth yet simple program, your healing can be as swift as it is lasting. "For forgiveness workshop instructor Grieco, forgiveness is an activity that goes beyond letting go of resentments. It is an act of universal harmony. Guided by the belief that 'there is nothing that is unforgivable,' the author spends much of this book outlining her Eight Steps to Freedom. Part therapy and part ritual, the Eight Steps begin with expressing feelings and a desire to change, and proceed through restoring boundaries, opening up to the universe, sending unconditional love to the offending party, and finding the greater good. It is a unique approach that incorporates Western therapeutic practices with Eastern concepts such as chakras. Along with these steps, Grieco shares personal stories of her own stresses and sufferings and relates many success stories of her clients’ forgiveness breakthroughs. Her writing is serious when it should be, but also humorous and accessible. While the universal spirituality–meets–therapy session approach to forgiveness makes this somewhat of a niche book, it may speak to seekers who are struggling with unresolved personal or spiritual grievances." (Dec.) Reviewed on: 11/11/2011 Publishers Weekly “Of all the factors that foreshorten our lives and erode its quality, emotional stress increasingly emerges as the biggest culprit. Mary Hayes Grieco’s book offers us engaging, story-driven science and a straightforward approach to relieving emotional pain—something from which we all suffer from time to time. It’s a must-have manual for anyone interested in living a longer, better life.” —Dan Buettner , author of New York Times bestseller The Blue Zones “I love her work, wisdom, and humor.” —Ann LaMott , author of Traveling Mercies and Plan B “Mary teaches a forgiveness process that is simple yet powerful in healing long-standing hurts and resentments. I recommend this forgiveness process to anyone who wants to lead a more loving life.” —Rev. Ann Romanczuk , Unitarian Universalist Minister and Chaplain "This beautiful book details just how the Eight Steps of Forgiveness can support any Twelve Step program of recovery. Mary Hayes Grieco is a wise, accessible guide through this powerful model of emotional healing.” — JoAnn Campbell-Rice , spiritual care coordinator at the Hazelden’s Dan Anderson Renewal Center “This forgiveness process is the most effective tool I have to use in my psycho therapy practice. For many of my patients this process has healed wounds they felt couldn’t be healed—they are amazed by the results.” —Mary Conner , MA, LP "A simple way to make important changes! I have worked for so many years in the field of recovery, trying to help people with forgiveness, and indeed ap