on forgiveness
I've been turning the concept of forgiveness over in my heart and mind pretty regularly throughout my life. It's probably because I am someone who makes a lot of mistakes while stubbornly walking around the world with a wide-open heart.
With the holidays coming up and more and more people getting back together with their extended families, it seems a good time to talk about forgiveness.
Maybe it's because I'm nearing half a century in age, or maybe it's eclipse season and all of this churns to the surface for everybody, or maybe I'm just so tired of the bitterness I've seen in my family of origin, but whatever the reason I'm spending this season reaching deep into my heart and excavating unnecessary resentment and dissolving my own shadows with forgiveness.
I believe that forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves. It doesn't require action or acknowledgment from those we forgive. That's doesn't mean it's easy. We have to make a conscious decision to begin the process, or what we're doing is simply forgetting. Instead, forgiveness is a release of bitterness, anger, and resentment, but only once we've allowed it all to pass through us. Sometimes, those feelings run through us so often, they smooth a groove in our hearts like a river over stone.
I know if I've been holding on to some hurt or resentment for a long time, hopefully, I've learned and grown from the experience. Whether I've learned, changed, let go, or held a grudge, the experience becomes a part of my life's story.
We have to let go to forgive. We don't have to forget, but we do need to exhaust the attachment of the emotional charge associated with whatever or whomever it is we want to forgive.
Perhaps paradoxically, I believe that to be forgiven requires as much openness and consideration, and it necessitates our willingness and ability to receive. Being open to receiving forgiveness might even be more challenging than forgiving someone else. Perhaps that's why it's so difficult to forgive ourselves?
Forgiveness can lead to repairing a relationship, but it doesn't replace the repair. Maybe this concept is what my dad was trying to teach my sister and me when we were children. Whenever we'd apologize, he'd reply with, "Don't say you're sorry, just don't do it again." While I agree with the sentiment, I think the message is lost on a child or anyone not familiar with the concept of being responsible for their own half of any relationship.
On Twitter, about a month ago, I read a story that beautifully communicated the difference between apologies and repairing a relationship. In it, the author talks about how when his child was very young he used to say hurtful things (as kids do) but didn't understand that apologies don't immediately and completely erase the damage done. You can read the lesson that stuck with his son here:
How do you deal with forgiveness? Do you find it easy to forgive?
How about yourself? Can you forgive yourself?
I think the responsibility for only our own half of any relationship is best and most clearly articulated in a book that changed my life twenty years ago, The Four Agreements by donMiguel Ruiz. It's such a quick read; you can finish it before the next big family dinner if you start reading soon.
My friend Harumi and I saw the author's son speak in person here in Seattle a couple years ago (2018?), and his messages resonate as much today as they ever did. I recently ran across some notes I took during the event. I'm grateful I wrote right inside the cover of a book, so I could rediscover them later. Here are a couple of the notes:
“A moment of clarity followed by action is a pivotal moment in our lives. Without action, that clarity is simply another thought passing with the wind.”
&
“We heal with our own permission.”
In this time, when we are healing ourselves and our ancestors, forgiveness is crucial for moving forward with lightness, self-awareness, and personal development. It can help us see what's worth bringing forward into the future, with a clear mind and a soft heart. Can we give ourselves permission to heal?
Decoupled from emotional attachments to the past and the hurt it contains, we can plant new seeds from old trees in the fully nourished ground.
I'm wishing you a beautiful holiday season, no matter how you spend it; with relatives or with friends, by yourself, or in nature, with a book, or a set of paints, or at work.
