I once had a minister tell me that every time they did a talk about the Dreaded Practice, fewer people would come to church that Sunday.

What on earth could be that Dreaded?

Meditation?

Journaling?

Taking a spiritual inventory?

No, my friends. It’s something much, much worse:

Forgiveness.

There’s a reason forgiveness is so unpopular. Forgiveness, by definition, means there’s something to forgive. That something is usually not super fun. Hostility, deception, betrayal, you name it. Forgiving stuff like that can be hard.

A while back, I was struggling with forgiving a former employer. I tried praying about it. I tried talking it out with friends. I tried the Radical Forgiveness process, a tool that had always prompted a shift in the past.

Nothing worked.

After a while, I gave up. I figured I was always going to carry a wee bit (or more than a wee bit) of resentment toward my former employer, and that’s just the way it was.

At the same time all this was going on, Melissa and I were doing our OhMyGod Practice on a daily basis.

The OhMyGod Practice is a gratitude practice developed by Melissa and me. It consists of finding gratitude for elements that are often left out of traditional gratitude practices.

One of the most effective elements of our OhMyGod Practice is finding gratitude for problems – or, as we like to call them, Projects.

When we first added the Project step to our gratitude practice, my Projects weren’t super intimidating. They were areas of my life that were problematic, but not intractably so. I could imagine them getting better and, by applying the Project step to them, they did indeed get better.

And then I had an inspiration. Since the Project step was so effective, perhaps I should try putting my feelings about my former job into my Project step. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try, right?

So every day, when Melissa and I did our OhMyGod Practice, I looked for things to be grateful for about my former job.

It was reeeeeeeeally hard at first. But little by little, I started to find more and more things to be grateful for about my experience at my former workplace. Before long, I was practically gushing with enthusiasm for all the gifts I’d been given by working there.

And then the darndest thing happen.

I realized I’d forgiven my former employer.

Not because I’d tried to forgive them. Forgiveness had never been the goal of my practice. I was simply focusing on gratitude.

Forgiveness was a byproduct of gratitude.

Trying to forgive my former employer head-on had been way too intimidating. And totally ineffective. I was still too resentful. I had too many “reasons” to stay mad.

But gratitude, little by little, broke down my resentment. It chipped away at my “reasons.” Leaving me with genuine appreciation for the experience I’d had at my former workplace.

It was like gratitude provided a magical backdoor to forgiveness, one I could slip through with ease.

Before I thought to put my former employer in my Projects step, my resentment was something I’d become resigned to. I figured it was like air. Something I couldn’t escape.

But gratitude proved me wrong.

If you’re interested in the Project step, and using it to transform your horrible problems that are never going to get any better Projects, check out our OhMyGod Practice book. (There’s another unique element to our OhMyGod Practice, which is expressing gratitude for things we want to manifest in the future – as if they’re already here now. That element is also super cool, and you can find out lots more about it in the book as well.)

Forgiveness may be the Most Dreaded spiritual practice, but now that I’ve discovered a magical backdoor to get there, I don’t mind it. I even enjoy it.

See you on the other side!

What’s your experience with forgiveness? Share your comments below!

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