The Nature of Forgiveness
Forgiveness can be an abstract concept. What does it even mean to forgive something or someone? How do we forgive the unforgivable?
Sometimes we get confused….. thinking it means to forget, to let go, to be done, to walk away, to ‘turn the other cheek’, to bypass, to ignore….
But often we miss something in the process. This isn’t real forgiveness…
This isn’t the Divine Transfiguration that’s possible for us.
The thing about forgiveness is this….
We can’t wish away our feelings. We can’t willfully unbind the knots in our hearts. We can’t betray ourselves and try to live in innocence only to be wounded again.
Those knots are there for a reason, thorny brambles and vast moats, protecting our tender and vulnerable hearts.
Only….. we can’t stay defended and angry forever either……
Anger is a messenger, a pointer to a crossing of boundaries and of balance being lost.
Our anger is a healthy and powerful force. It can help us create the space for healing and wholeness to occur. But it can't provide the nourishment, the foundation or the inspiration for us to thrive and flourish.
And anger, when embodied for long periods of time, is destructive. It is a flame to be lit, it’s light and heat inspiring a new vision and understanding. But that fire, if left smoldering, wreaks havoc on the systems of our body, on our relationships, and in our world.
Forgiveness is a Process, a Cycle, an Integration and Digestion. It has phases and layers and nuance and grace.
-It’s allowing ourselves to feel anger, to define boundaries…..
-It’s allowing ourselves to find spaciousness and perspective, to know clarity…..
-It’s receiving and settling into resource and support, to remember who we are and the capacity of our being…..
-It’s sitting with our wounded parts for long enough, feeling into their experience and knowing, feeling all the feelings, so that they can assimilate the wisdom of past events.
-It’s giving every piece of us the Loving Presence it needs.
-It’s allowing the stable flame of our essential nature to be fed by the beautiful, crazy, messy experience of our human life.
Forgiveness grows us. It makes us Wiser, more Powerful and Compassionate beings.
It Releases, Renews and Liberates us to take directive action towards balance in our life and world.
Allowing us to Honor the Wisdom of our past experience while releasing the burden of the difficult/limiting stories we carry about ourselves and those around us.
It empowers us to create things that go beyond what has been possible before. When we attach to stories of pain we recycle those experiences, our spirits seeking a way to assimilate, integrate and digest the wisdom. That is the mandate of our soul.
When we Truly Forgive, we let ourselves off the karmic wheel, able to powerfully create something entirely new.
That something new, is informed by and directly benefits the arena of our wounds. No longer a victim to them, now a healer for them.
And there are tools and techniques to help us do this. To support us in reorganizing, integrating, digesting and Forgiving. We do not have to do this alone.