Awesome Joe, forgiveness truly has amazing potential to be a tool of self-empowerment. It is unfortunate how the term has been "corrupted" by religion over the years and has been made into the opposite of it's real potential to have us give our power away to belief systems. On the other hand, that in itself is something we can change through forgiveness of ourselves for having considered for even a moment that we must suffer in judgment, guilt and shame in the name of a higher authority and that we have not realized ourselves as that authority.