Inspiration for The Paragate Project

The Paragate Project fills a need for forgiveness workshops led by people who have forgiven others and/or themselves.  While there are many excellent books and programs which offer advice on how to forgive, many people find it easier to work through their questions about forgiveness with a trained facilitator who has personally walked the path of forgiveness.

This was how forgiveness arose for The Paragate Project’s Founding Director, sujatha baliga.   In 1996, sujatha had a private audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in which she shared her desire to forgive her father for having sexually abused her as a child.  By hearing about His Holiness’ personal path to forgiving the Chinese politicians who were responsible for the atrocities in Tibet, she was able to see a way out of the anger and hatred that was wrecking her own life.  sujatha followed His Holiness’ advice on how to forgive and soon forgave her father.  The content and structure of The Paragate Project’s workshops draw on this advice and on the lessons about forgiveness sujatha and her colleagues have learned over the past 15 years.

The Paragate Project is also unique in valuing artistic expression, meditation, and somatic exercises in addition to conversation and journaling.  Most forgiveness models are limited to verbal and written processing.  The Paragate Project recognizes that the greatest internal resources for exploring forgiveness may lie outside the realm of words.