Healing Through Forgiveness – 12 Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety

Sentence Completion Exercise

Use these incomplete sentences to explore forgiveness and what it means in your life. Take each sentence stem below and write it at the top of a piece of paper. Next, repeat it silently (or aloud) to yourself, and then complete the sentence stem with the first thought that comes to mind. Do six to ten completions for each, or as many as come to mind.

You can see the ‘fill in the blank’ sentences below and access/print a worksheet setup to facilitate the process.

The events that I lack words for are ____.

The unfinished business and grievances that I hold on to are ____.

To speak about these events, I can ____.

The unforgivable events of my life are ____.

I would have a hard time forgiving ____ because ____.

The stories I tell to support my grievances include ____.

The unenforceable rule that was violated for each situation mentioned is ____.

The grievance stories or resentments would change in these ways if I rewrote them to release the grievances ___________.

For me, forgiveness is false when ____.

For me, forgiveness is real when ____.

The steps you’ve taken throughout the book should be bringing you to an ever-greater grasp of emotional sobriety. This gives us a sense of freedom. What can we do with that freedom? We can turn to another very important aspect of emotional sobriety, living life with purpose. This is the subject of our next chapter.