A Reminder About Forgiveness

Forgiveness begins with forgiving Yourself first. Sometimes we feel as if forgiveness is given away to others we have harmed or have hurt us. I know in my own experience, my default is to blame and ostracize negative external afflictions. My mindset easily goes to analytical play dough, being constantly shaped and reformed by denial & an incessant need to be vindicated & validated. Eventually, I come around to exhaustedly extending forgiveness to the Other by begrudgingly admitting my own short comings. This is a very dizzying process and not effective in long term forgiveness.

I believed the Other to be the culprit of my own dissatisfaction. Truth is, we have No Control over the “Other” beyond our own Self-Actualization. Forgiveness is about resolving my own insecurities & fears. I felt most free when I focused on the aspects of my own Self that were in need of mercy & grace. I had to trust that the work I was focusing on for my Self would inevitably influence & affect the external reality around me.

Forgiveness is the spirit of self-compassion and the key to unlocking chains of judgment, criticism, & past traumas. A forgiveness practice is self regulated and wields a heavy double-edged sword. One edge is your your responsibility to maintain a regular forgiveness practice. The other edge is the allowance & witness of all feelings that arise in the midst of the process. Furthermore, appropriate boundaries must be recognized and honored lest, your heart falls victim to the entrapment of blame, shame, & betrayal. True forgiveness requires courage.

My Teacher Jack Kornfield writes, “Forgiveness isn’t weak. It’s not naive. It takes a real courage. And to forgive doesn’t mean you forgive and forget. It doesn’t condone what happened, or what another has done that’s caused harm.”

So reaffirm: Forgiveness is not really for others. It is for you. To remove the struggles of hate & hurt in your own life. Forgiveness needs time to set in and there is no rush to finish the task of forgiveness. You are a fully realized and capable being of consciousness & compassion. You do have the capacity to welcome forgiveness into the dense shadows of the psyche. Forgiveness is a practice that can take many forms and is best experienced in regular micro-doses. As your heart begins to open and more space is created, it will only be natural to increase your daily dosage of forgiveness.