Welcome back! It’s been a good week so far. It’s been busy as usual, but I’m taking a couple of days off for my birthday this weekend – yea, birthday! Anyway, the theme for this week has been fairly obvious for me – I’m going to talk about forgiveness. It’s a topic that has come up over and over in the past four days, which generally means I’m getting beat over the head with something I’d better pay attention to! I’ve been feeling out of sorts with my honey lately, as can happen from time to time. His parents were in town, and then he’d been planning a church service, and he was working and the basketball finals were on and… Well, I wasn’t feeling taken care of. I had some things I wanted him to work on for awhile and he said he would, but they got pushed back over and over, so I was annoyed. Frustrated. Ticked off. Whatever – I wasn’t feelin’ him, you know? That wasn’t really the problem though. The problem was that I couldn’t get past it. I just did not want to let him off the hook. What was that all about? We’ll come back to that…
Nope, not getting off that hook…
This is how the week started. I went to do my energy work and yoga therapy with my healer and we did a lot of meditation on love and forgiveness. There’s a lot going on and all my projects are screaming for attention. I’m giving a talk next weekend on Food As Medicine and it’s coming together, but planning an event always has so many details to keep track of, right? So I’m planning and cooking and preparing. Also, the annual seminar for my kids’ homeschool group was the first few days of the week, so I took off a few days to attend the class. Of course, I still had work to do for the office, so I was working on the September schedule during the seminar and taking notes at the same time, texting back and forth to my office about changes that needed to be made in the schedule this month, looking up recommended curriculum on amazon, and picking out books for the upcoming school year. Yes, it was just as scattered and nutty as it sounds. And I had this dark, mean, angry moment. This voice deep down inside said so clearly to me, “You’re not doing anything well. You’re a crappy mom, a half-baked lead of your group, and you’re a failure as a wife. Why are you even here?” As in, on this earth.
That’s when I started to get clear on where the problem really was. It wasn’t in what my husband did or didn’t do, or whether I had too much to get done, or even if I was doing anything well or not. It was that I am unwilling to forgive myself. For so many things I do, I sit as judge, jury and executioner and the verdict is almost always negative. I often see grace and reasons for forgiveness for other people, but when I’m at my darkest, I’m not going to get any. That is a hard place to be, and it’s certainly not a place where forgiveness is overflowing to others. This is why I couldn’t let my husband off the hook – because I wouldn’t let me be forgiven either.
Not a good place to be…
I wish I could say that I prayed and figured it all out. That I’m all sweetness and light and love and I’m good now, thanks! But that’s not true. Here’s what is true: I’m making progress. I’ve been meditating on the “Be” part of “Be still and know that I am God”. Because I’m a doer, that’s a tough one. But what I’m hearing is that it’s ok to be me. Just be.
Then I was looking at the books for sale at the seminar and there was a book on peacemakers. I started reading bits of it and while I was reading one of the stories of reconciliation, I started to tear up. Actually, I wanted to throw the book across the room. That reaction generally tells me that a chord has been plucked in me, so that’s how I know it’s something I need to read and work through. I immediately bought the book. So I’ll be moving through that soon.
I’m also praying. I made a commitment 18 years ago that I would live in a way that honors God. I’m not even a little perfect (as much as I’d like to be!), but I hate hypocrisy, so either I go forward and learn this lesson of forgiveness or I’m not keeping my promise to God. His forgiveness is perfect, so I have an example to follow! So I’m praying and listening to go the expansive, loving, open and vulnerable way of forgiveness. So far, I have been able to make up with my husband and that feels more peaceful. I’m learning this: holding someone to a place of guilt or judgement doesn’t work. It binds me up, it separates the two of us, and it isn’t my place to make someone else change or do better or differently. That change comes to them when it needs to, when they are ready and Spirit moves them, not when I say it should happen. That’s freeing for me, because now I can take off the black robes and put down the gavel. I get to choose whether I want to live in love and forgiveness. And I like it there, so I’m going to learn how to spend my time in that spirit!
That’s all I’ve got for now. Gotta go work on this talk for next week!
How do you forgive yourself? What do you do to be gentle and loving to you? Please share in the comments below – I need to hear what you have to say!