From Trauma to “Truforgiveness”– Part 2 of Natasha McKenna’s 40-year journey to healing and purpose

You’re listening to Spirit Sisters. I’m your host, Karina Machado, thank you for joining us today, for part two of my conversation with Australian spiritual teacher and author Tash McKenna.

What does forgiveness mean to you? As I publish this podcast, mainstream news sites tell of the Abdallah family from the Sydney suburb of Oatlands, who were invited to share their extraordinary story of forgiveness with the Vatican. On a summer’s day in 2020, the Abdallahs lost three of their six children – Sienna, Angelina and Antony – to a driver affected by drugs and alcohol. The kids were on a walk to buy ice-cream, and their cousin, Veronique, also died.

What caught the world’s attention was the way Danny and Leila Abdallah publicly forgave the driver. They talk about forgiveness as a means to heal and “not retreat into hatred”.

As I honour the Abdallahs and their immense courage, I think of what forgiveness has meant to me over the years. What I’ve found is that where there is unforgiveness, there is no growth or life or flourishing of creativity. There is no progress or joy. We cannot access love from a space of unforgiveness and that must always be to everyone’s detriment.

In part two of our conversation today, Tash McKenna shares how she arrived at her teaching of "Truforgiveness," a tool that she has discovered to be utterly transformational in her journey of trauma to peace.  If you haven’t listened to part one with Tash, please scroll down and listen to that first so that you can follow on.

In the first episode, Tash told us about how, as an eight-year-old trauma survivor, she heard the audible voice of God, an encounter which sparked the beginning of a 40-year spiritual odyssey that led her into deepest suffering.

Today, Tash shares how receiving the teachings of The Treasure Map of Truforgiveness, FAITH & the ‘I Forgive’ Principle, lit a way out of the darkness for her, and her hopes that they may also support others who are struggling.

In this episode, Tash also shares more about her understanding of time, about dreams she had two decades ago that planted the seed for her work today, and about the ways we constantly project our turmoil outwardly unless we awaken from ego identification. As Tash says, “What’s inside of you is what you experience outside of yourself in time.” We also discuss how the work of healing ourselves is essentially what heals us all.

Editing the podcast, it struck me that Tash’s teachings echo the Hawaiian spiritual tradition of Ho’oponopono, which some of you might already know. It too lays out forgiveness as a path to inner peace and teaches that we must forgive within in order to see results without. In the practice of Ho’oponopono we’re encouraged to repeat the words “I’m sorry, please forgive me, I love you, thank you”. As with Tash’s Treasure Map, this mantra is intended to undo false beliefs in our subconscious mind in order to transform our outer experience.

As in our first episode, Tash launches the show with a mini Treasure Map of forgiving within, a rhythmic song of prayer to open our conversation. In my imagination, these words of forgiveness are released like doves of peace into our hurting world.

Again, I invite you to open wide your heart and mind to it and take your time with these teachings, which reference A Course in Miracles. Click here to learn more about A Course in Miracles, which I consider the most extraordinary channelled text of the 20th century.

Tash has also kindly offered our listeners 10 prize packs of The Treasure Map e-book, and a “Course in Miracles Explained” mini course, which includes a meditation and journal prompts. These will go to the first 10 pe