Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
BSFF Forgiveness Procedure
To release held resentment toward specific people (and toward oneself) by working through them one at a time, tapping the little-finger and index-finger points while repeating scripted forgiveness statements three times each, until the charge around that relationship eases.
BSFF forgiveness in 5 lines: Take one person at a time. Tapping the little-finger nail point, say 3×: “I forgive you, [name], you did the best you could / didn’t know what you were doing.” Tapping the index-finger nail point, say 3×: “I forgive myself, I did the best I could.” Re-check the charge, repeat or move to the next name. The forgiveness (decision + reframe + self-forgiveness) is what helps — that part is well-supported; the tapping is inert ritual. Don’t force it, don’t confuse it with condoning, and get support for abuse history.
What it is
Within Larry Nims’s Be Set Free Fast, the forgiveness procedure is a discrete, repeatable practice for releasing held resentment — toward other people and toward yourself.
You take one person at a time, tap the little-finger point while repeating, three times, a scripted forgiveness of them, then tap the index-finger point while repeating, three times, a forgiveness of yourself.
Nims treated clearing “unforgiveness” as a major goal of the whole method — something to revisit at every level of the work — because, in his model, withheld forgiveness keeps emotional charges locked in place. Stripped of the tapping, this is a structured, decisional forgiveness contemplation of exactly the kind that forgiveness research supports.
The Method
Faithful to the BSFF forgiveness instructions:
- Name one person. Bring to mind a specific person you hold something against — a parent, ex, colleague, friend, anyone. Work one person at a time; don’t generalise.
- Notice the charge. Briefly feel the resentment, hurt, or anger toward them. (Optionally rate it 0–10, BSFF-style.)
- Forgive them — little-finger point, three times. While tapping the corner of the nail of the little finger, say or think, three times: > “I forgive you, [name], you did the best you could,” or “…you didn’t know what you were doing.” (Use whichever clause fits; the point is a genuine, decisional release, not approval of what they did.)
- Forgive yourself — index-finger point, three times. While tapping the corner of the nail of the index finger, say or think, three times: > “I forgive myself, I did the best I could.”
- Re-check. Notice whether the charge toward that person has softened. If something remains, repeat steps 3–4, or aim at the specific residue (e.g. a particular incident).
- Move to the next person. Make a list and work through it one name at a time over your sessions — including, where relevant, yourself as the “person.”
- Integrate as a recurring step. Nims folded forgiveness into the closing of ordinary BSFF treatments (see cross-links) and returned to it repeatedly, treating leftover unforgiveness as the thing that lets problems “come back.” (The finger points, the “I forgive you… you did the best you could / didn’t know what you were doing,” the “I forgive myself, I did the best I could,” and the three-times repetition are Nims’s documented instructions, attributed. Faithful paraphrase, not a reproduction of his copyrighted manual.)
Source & Lineage
Dr. Larry Nims (clinical psychologist; d. 2017) built BSFF from Roger Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy in the 1990s (; cue-word successor at ).
The forgiveness module grafts a long religious and clinical lineage of forgiveness practice onto the tapping frame. Its decisional structure — choose to forgive, reframe the offender as limited/unaware, then forgive yourself — parallels evidence-based programs such as Worthington’s REACH Forgiveness and Enright’s forgiveness process model, and echoes the forgiveness steps in Hawaiian Ho’oponopono and in many prayer traditions.
The Traditions' versions
REACH Forgiveness (Worthington) — Recall, Empathize, Altruistic gift, Commit, Hold on; the empirically tested cousin of this practice. (Forgiveness research.)
- Enright forgiveness process model — uncovering → decision → work (reframing the offender) → deepening; clinically studied.
- Ho’oponopono — “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”; relational/self-forgiveness release.
- The Lord’s Prayer / metta — “forgive us as we forgive”; loving-kindness toward those who harmed us.
- BSFF body — the elimination protocol this forgiveness step closes.
Common refinements
Forcing premature forgiveness. Real forgiveness is a process; declaring it before you mean it just papers over the charge. Re-run as needed; let it be genuine.
- Skipping self-forgiveness. The index-finger half (“I forgive myself”) is doing real work — don’t drop it.
- Confusing forgiveness with condoning or reconciling. Forgiveness = releasing your resentment. It does not require excusing the harm, staying in contact, or trusting an unsafe person.
- Trusting energy-tests. They track expectation, not whether you’ve “really” forgiven.
- Mass-forgiving. Work one person, even one incident, at a time; vague blanket forgiveness rarely lands.