Forgiveness … It is a difficult topic, and a difficult definition.
What does it mean really, who need to apologize? Who needs to forgive? Does anyone really? The old axiom: Forgive and Forget … is that for us? Or the people we are in contact?
It is all of the above. Forgiveness is a way to break our own personal chains and barriers. It is us in relationship to our own soul purpose and how we allow, or we hinder that from expressing fully in ways that are healthy and meaningful to our experience and journey.
In my life there have been two very stark occasions where friends … after many years … have come forward with an apology. In both cases I had no idea until the apology the perspective of my friends and how much their perceptions and their feelings about themselves in their experiences with me and our friendship had affected them through the years. In one case I didn’t even know my friend felt that there was a reason to apologize. I had no idea that my friend felt less than adequate or less. I had no idea that my friend had allowed experiences in our friendship to allow tension within his own heart until I received a very beautiful and heartfelt letter. That letter allowed for a wonderful discussion on how I had never felt hurt or slighted in any way, and in effect, my friend was giving himself permission to move past childhood and into a new him without the guilt of what ifs.
In a similar way I was confronted with an explanation of events from years before from another friend’s perspective and why there had been a silence of many years. I had never known the thoughts, issues, family drama and perceptions that had taken place then. I only knew that friendship faded off. In this case as well, my friend had decided that circumstances and understandings at the time needed to be shared, as way of an apology and as way to heal and move forward from events.
How we choose to forgive or not forgive is as much for us as it is for other people. How do we see ourselves? How do we recognize that our experience in any situation isn’t good or bad … it just is? It is learning. How do we allow the past not to interfere with our future?
It is not easy. Being honest with ourselves and those around us seems sometimes to make it harder. Not everything in this existence is black and white. Not everything is a clear cut wrong or right. Our roll in both apologies and forgiveness have as much to do with perception as it does with awareness, sensitivity, personal relationship with Creation, and our ability to be honest with ourselves and our own healing process.
It is true that forgiveness in any form needs to start with us, even when we feel the most victimized. To find forgiveness for another, to allow our heart to heal and our soul to send out the reality of our forgiveness goes a long way in allowing our own personal relationship with Spirit to flourish. It is not always possible to offer forgiveness or apologies directly to the person, people or situations we have either damaged or felt damage, and yet the soul work in these situations is paramount in allowing healing for all.
Start with yourself today. One thing, even a little thing that you choose to forgive yourself. Tomorrow, allow healing for a situation. Build to sending that letter, or making the call. Allow all to be, the response, the awareness … and feel the Joy of Creation sharing the moment with you, that you chose forgiveness over guilt/hate/anxiety and fear.
Blessings! Good Qi!
