Hi dear friends and followers. Today I wish to share some thoughts with you about forgiveness. Thank you for visiting my blog.
Almost 3000 miles I’ve pounded out with my own two feet. That’s what it took to get to the destination of forgiveness.
You’ve heard that bullshit about forgiveness, haven’t you?
If you’ve ever been hurt or angry or hurt and angry or brought to your knees, then someone somewhere has certainly lectured you on forgiveness…and how light and happy you’ll feel when you forgive…and how not forgiving is like carrying acid inside you that eats away at your center instead of the center of the one who hurt you…and how forgiveness is something you do for yourself…and how forgiveness is about setting yourself free…and how forgiveness is not about condoning the awful thing done to you…and if you’ll only forgive, then you’ll find a peace in its place in your heart.
Yeah, that bullshit.
And if you find yourself being lectured, it’s usually coming from someone who isn’t still nursing a gaping, gushing wound that is daily yanked open and salted. They may have deep wounds but not the same as yours. Yours, to them, is so much easier.
But no one sees this kind of wound and they weary of even knowing it exists. Their response to your trauma becomes a secondary wounding. If it were a shotgun blast to the heart, they wouldn’t say, “Just ignore it.” They wouldn’t say, “Just let it go.” They wouldn’t say “Just forgive and move on.” No, they’d put their hands on the hole in your flesh to keep your insides from spilling out, and then they’d help you bind it up, carry you to a physician, sit up all night with you until you stopped moaning, check in on you for days/weeks/months/years to make sure you’ve healed. Not this kind of wound. This kind of wound you have to nurse all by yourself, in your darkened closet, in silence.
They wouldn’t tell you that that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger because you already know the heart will never work the same way again, and that its ability to trust may never be regained. It may still pump life, but there’ll now be a certain kind of caution in its mechanics so that it will never bleed for anyone again with the same abandon.
It’s crazy what you could’ve had. It’s crazy what you could’ve had.
I need this. I need this.
So let me tell you about that bullshit about forgiveness, and what isn’t bullshit and what bullshit is. Because this is a story about healing and getting there when I couldn’t have dreamed it possible in the the last year and much more. This story comes with epiphanies, both before and after the act of forgiving, but it doesn’t come with handy on-off buttons for forgiveness. It comes with understanding, releasing, and release, all without a manual from the wide audience that demanded letting go.
I’ve walked (and run, jogged, and sprinted) hundreds of miles since the fall of 2011 for my health and leisure, but since I was brought to my knees, I have gotten back up and walked almost 3000 miles, sometimes stumbling and sometimes running, but always pounding out my sorrow and confusion in every one of those footsteps on an almost daily basis. That’s how far I had to travel to the destination of forgiveness. Almost 3000 miles. In freezing cold, in sleet, in warm rain, in thunder and lightning, in heat waves, at sunrise and mid-afternoon and midnight. Almost 3000 miles to reach a place of peace.
It’s crazy what you could’ve had. It’s crazy what you could’ve had.
I need this. I need this.
It’s hard to explain this wound to anyone, especially those family and friends who love me. They’re all so good at reassuring me that some people aren’t worth my tears. It’s not that I disagree, but my feelings were real and not something I could just “get over” in a few days’ time. It was the worst I’ve been hurt in a lifetime of many hurts.
But it’s a heavy burden to carry, both loving and hating someone and feeling those feelings swirling every day. At times I’ve described it as an open wound but that’s perhaps not the best metaphor. It’s been more like being cast into a sea of water 6 feet deep, just barely over my head. Being held to the murky sea bed by a cement block around my ankle. No matter how much I stretched, I could not reach the surface. No matter how often friends on the banks either cajoled me to “let go” or berated me to “let go,” I couldn’t release myself the weight holding me down because the weight would not release me. The top of my head, my intellect, was above the waterline. My hands, flailing, reached above the surface. But I was still underwater, still weighed down, unable to rise above it. I could not float. I could not splash and swim and buoy myself up. I was just below the surface but could not reach precious air and…breathe. Anytime I came close to breaking through the surface, I found water splashed in my face or someone stepping on the weight and pulling me further down.
That was my life during that very long time. Every. Fucking. Day.
It’s crazy what you could’ve had. It’s crazy what you could’ve had.
I need this. I need this.
I prayed often for more than a year that this burden would be lifted. I needed it to be lifted. And part of me didn’t want it lifted because I missed him so much. Missed the man I knew back then. Or thought I knew. And because if I could somehow understand why he’d hurt me, then maybe I could find a reason I could live with. And if the burden was lifted, then I might not ever know or understand. I thought I had to understand first.
And I did. I needed to understand. Somehow understanding could make it okay, I knew. Some logical explanation that renewed my belief in honor and honesty. I was always desperate to understand, and yet I was prevented from talking to him about what he’d done and from getting closure. If there was understanding to be had, it wouldn’t come from him. It’s the cruelest thing when you are barred from healing in the ways you know to heal. But I needed healing. I needed closure. And there would be none of it from him. It had to come through my own hard work. For myself. Alone.
I had to find my balance. Forgiveness was a part of that, but I couldn’t see how I could ever do it. I couldn’t unmarry the love and hate that were tangled into one knot. And I’d lashed back at him out of hurt and anger–a frantic attempt to hold onto the one thing I had left in my life.
But this was the final act of a long spiritual endeavor and the most difficult personal evolution I’ve faced out of many difficult experiences. Figuring out how to forgive.
If you’ve ever been hurt or angry or hurt and angry or brought to your knees, then someone somewhere has certainly lectured you on forgiveness…and how light and happy you’ll feel when you forgive…and how not forgiving is like carrying acid inside you that eats away at your center instead of the center of the one who hurt you…and how forgiveness is something you do for yourself…and how forgiveness is about setting yourself free…and how forgiveness is not about condoning the awful thing done to you…and if you’ll only forgive, then you’ll find a peace in its place in your heart.
Yeah, that bullshit.
And if you find yourself being lectured, it’s usually coming from someone who isn’t still nursing a gaping, gushing wound that is daily yanked open and salted. They may have deep wounds but not the same as yours. Yours, to them, is so much easier.
But no one sees this kind of wound and they weary of even knowing it exists. Their response to your trauma becomes a secondary wounding. If it were a shotgun blast to the heart, they wouldn’t say, “Just ignore it.” They wouldn’t say, “Just let it go.” They wouldn’t say “Just forgive and move on.” No, they’d put their hands on the hole in your flesh to keep your insides from spilling out, and then they’d help you bind it up, carry you to a physician, sit up all night with you until you stopped moaning, check in on you for days/weeks/months/years to make sure you’ve healed. Not this kind of wound. This kind of wound you have to nurse all by yourself, in your darkened closet, in silence.
They wouldn’t tell you that that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger because you already know the heart will never work the same way again, and that its ability to trust may never be regained. It may still pump life, but there’ll now be a certain kind of caution in its mechanics so that it will never bleed for anyone again with the same abandon.
It’s crazy what you could’ve had. It’s crazy what you could’ve had.
I need this. I need this.
So let me tell you about that bullshit about forgiveness, and what isn’t bullshit and what bullshit is. Because this is a story about healing and getting there when I couldn’t have dreamed it possible in the the last year and much more. This story comes with epiphanies, both before and after the act of forgiving, but it doesn’t come with handy on-off buttons for forgiveness. It comes with understanding, releasing, and release, all without a manual from the wide audience that demanded letting go.
I’ve walked (and run, jogged, and sprinted) hundreds of miles since the fall of 2011 for my health and leisure, but since I was brought to my knees, I have gotten back up and walked almost 3000 miles, sometimes stumbling and sometimes running, but always pounding out my sorrow and confusion in every one of those footsteps on an almost daily basis. That’s how far I had to travel to the destination of forgiveness. Almost 3000 miles. In freezing cold, in sleet, in warm rain, in thunder and lightning, in heat waves, at sunrise and mid-afternoon and midnight. Almost 3000 miles to reach a place of peace.
It’s crazy what you could’ve had. It’s crazy what you could’ve had.
I need this. I need this.
It’s hard to explain this wound to anyone, especially those family and friends who love me. They’re all so good at reassuring me that some people aren’t worth my tears. It’s not that I disagree, but my feelings were real and not something I could just “get over” in a few days’ time. It was the worst I’ve been hurt in a lifetime of many hurts.
But it’s a heavy burden to carry, both loving and hating someone and feeling those feelings swirling every day. At times I’ve described it as an open wound but that’s perhaps not the best metaphor. It’s been more like being cast into a sea of water 6 feet deep, just barely over my head. Being held to the murky sea bed by a cement block around my ankle. No matter how much I stretched, I could not reach the surface. No matter how often friends on the banks either cajoled me to “let go” or berated me to “let go,” I couldn’t release myself the weight holding me down because the weight would not release me. The top of my head, my intellect, was above the waterline. My hands, flailing, reached above the surface. But I was still underwater, still weighed down, unable to rise above it. I could not float. I could not splash and swim and buoy myself up. I was just below the surface but could not reach precious air and…breathe. Anytime I came close to breaking through the surface, I found water splashed in my face or someone stepping on the weight and pulling me further down.
That was my life during that very long time. Every. Fucking. Day.
It’s crazy what you could’ve had. It’s crazy what you could’ve had.
I need this. I need this.
I prayed often for more than a year that this burden would be lifted. I needed it to be lifted. And part of me didn’t want it lifted because I missed him so much. Missed the man I knew back then. Or thought I knew. And because if I could somehow understand why he’d hurt me, then maybe I could find a reason I could live with. And if the burden was lifted, then I might not ever know or understand. I thought I had to understand first.
And I did. I needed to understand. Somehow understanding could make it okay, I knew. Some logical explanation that renewed my belief in honor and honesty. I was always desperate to understand, and yet I was prevented from talking to him about what he’d done and from getting closure. If there was understanding to be had, it wouldn’t come from him. It’s the cruelest thing when you are barred from healing in the ways you know to heal. But I needed healing. I needed closure. And there would be none of it from him. It had to come through my own hard work. For myself. Alone.
I had to find my balance. Forgiveness was a part of that, but I couldn’t see how I could ever do it. I couldn’t unmarry the love and hate that were tangled into one knot. And I’d lashed back at him out of hurt and anger–a frantic attempt to hold onto the one thing I had left in my life.
I’d done two ho’oponopono rituals in 14 months, both with eerie images shown to me, and I understood from both that I still maintained my own light and we were still connected and I was still sharing my light and energy with him. The first ritual had been beautiful and astonishing, the light and love between us. The second one had been vines reaching out from his etheric body to mine, dead and brown vines that turned green at the tips where they planted themselves in my flesh, like vines that propagate by rooting in promising earth. The bonds had been too deep to fade after two releasing rituals. He was still connected to my heart in a way I couldn’t sever.
At my Winter Solstice Burning Bowl Ritual, I announced to my spiritual circle, friends, and family that I was tired of carrying this burden, that I was ready to release it, that I wanted to be able to talk to him and it be decent between us, that I needed to end this feeling of hostility and pain that emerged with every thought of him. My intentions were met with anger and surprise, and more than a few quips of “How can you even still think about him? What’s wrong with you that he still means anything at all to you?”
But this was the final act of a long spiritual endeavor and the most difficult personal evolution I’ve faced out of many difficult experiences. Figuring out how to forgive.
End of part 1 Part 2 continued tomorrow
Thank you very much again, dear friends, for visiting my blog. Please share your thoughts with us, if you will. Have a great day.
✿ڰۣ❤In Loving Light from the Fairy Lady❤ڰۣ✿
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