According to David Barrett et al, editors of the "World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200," there are 19 major world religions which are subdivided into a total of 270 large religious groups, and many smaller ones. According to this source, over 75 percent of the world's population is a member of the religions of Christianity, Islam or Hinduism, with the remaining population being members of other religions including Judaism and Buddhism.

While I have not read the teachings of all 19 major religions of the world, I am familiar enough with the teachings of the top 5 to know that one thing stands out as a major common denominator; each one teaches about the power of forgiveness!

Many years ago when I first began my own journey of breaking free from self-sabotage behaviors I was open to trying just about anything that might relieve my self-induced inner torture. One evening I was attending a course called Whole Life and the leader of the course said something that reminded me of the teachings of Jesus in the Christian bible.

Having grown up in a traditional Christian home, I recalled that in the book of Matthew, there is a parable of an unforgiving servant who asked Jesus how many times he should forgive a person for sinning against him. Jesus' response was to tell the servant to forgive seventy times seven. (I am paraphrasing of course.)

Upon recalling this teaching, I thought to myself, "Wow, that's 490 times! I wonder if I can forgive 490 times!" I started by writing a list of everything I could think of that I felt angry or hurt about and every person I felt angry or resentment toward. (I was startled at how long the list was.) Then I created a forgiveness journal and I began my journey of writing "I forgive ___ for ____" for everything and everyone on the list.