Happy and healthy New Year to you lovelies! It’s been a while and I truly hope that you
are happy and well! If you have a
moment, I would really love to share something with you….it’s sort of my wish for
you and a part of a much bigger project that I’ve been working on for 2018 and
beyond…
Sometimes people say things that stick. About a year ago, my dear friend Paula told
me that “some years are for learning and some years are for teaching.” I had no idea how much truth and comfort
those words would eventually bring me, but I can tell you from personal
experience, and even if you look back on your own life, I think you will agree;
truer words have never been spoken. As
it turns out, I believe that 2017 was a major learning year for me; perhaps THE
learning year above all others. The lessons I have learned and am continuing to
unpack are not always framed in the happiest of contexts, but I’m starting to
realize that after seemingly endless efforts, when the Universe wants to give
you something, be it wisdom or opportunity or even an invitation to change,
rest assured, it will do will do whatever it has to in order to get your attention
My big game-changer lesson this past year has been all about
forgiveness….both given to others and to myself.
When I decided that I really needed to end this year by
sharing with you what I have learned about forgiveness, I asked myself what the
words that I associate with a lack of forgiveness would look like. What would heavy-hearted words like “burden,
grudge and anger” look like if they were suddenly to become tangible items that
we could actually see? The resulting
image is part of a much bigger series of drawings that I have been working on,
but we’ll start here for today… Today it’s all about luggage and the burden of
carrying around so much anger, heartache and anything else that prevents our
hearts from expanding and letting light in.
What you see in my drawing is what comes to mind for me from personal
experience as a result of making the choice (And make no mistake, it is
absolutely a choice) not to forgive somebody or ourselves for that matter. We wind up dragging around and being tethered
to oversized, heavy, beat-up old luggage being weighted down even more with the
heaviest and most cumbersome ball and chain you ever did see! There is no growth, no forward movement, just
mud and weeds. Can you imagine? We literally CHOOSE to drag this old, outdated
crap around with us instead of just setting it down. But why?
I know a person who has actually made a habit out of being
angry, scorned and choosing to withhold forgiveness. She will spend the rest of her life choosing
to be a victim who wears that rage almost like a tragic weapon she can conveniently
pull out anytime things start getting a little too happy for the person who
hurt her! So many other beautiful
emotions just waiting to be embraced and no matter what, this person always finds
their way back to anger and carrying the burden of almost 25 years of
pain. To me, it would be like walking
around with a piece of glass in your foot and choosing not to pull it out…. The
sad truth is, eventually that glass splinters, other people blindly or even
intentionally step on the pieces that broke off and before you know it, everybody
closest to the person originally carrying the glass are walking around with
shards of glass in their feet too….the anger almost becomes contagious and
spreads out into the lives of anybody who crosses its path.
My experience is that it somehow feels safer to stay pissed and
hurt because if we don’t, if we decide to begin the healing process or offer
our forgiveness, than we are putting ourselves at risk that it may happen again
or worse yet, we are going got have to take a look at ourselves during the
healing process too…..and sometimes isn’t it true that the scariest place to
look is really into our own truth-telling mirror.
Healing and the raw truth that comes with it can leave us feeling
open, exposed and vulnerable. Since we
have no crystal ball, unless we cut all ties with the person who hurt us (and YES,
in some cases, this is absolutely necessary) we have zero guarantee that it won’t
happen again. But to be honest with you,
this is not what forgiveness is about.
Forgiveness, genuine forgiveness doesn’t come with
conditions or guarantees or even promises…but it does come with something even
better. Forgiveness comes with freedom. Forgiveness comes with generosity and
benevolence. Forgiveness gives us the
ability to move forward. It leads by example
and brings us into big beautiful healing light versus wallowing in heavy darkness. Forgiveness brings us closer to our Divinity
and our true nature.
In our hearts, we must re-member that people do not hurt one
another just for the heck of it. It may
sometimes appear that way, but peel back all the layers and you’re left with
someone who themselves has been deeply hurt.
More often than not, that hurt never had a chance to heal and so it
festers and winds up manifesting in ways that are not healthy, are often hurtful
and will eventually become part of a pattern if we don’t interrupt the behavior
at its source.
While it is not our responsibility or our job to go around
attempting to fix everybody we perceive to be hurt or broken, we do have the
opportunity to share with them an incredible act of selflessness that may in
fact help to begin the healing process for us too. We never truly know someone else’s
story. We never know what their life
experience has truly been like, we only know what they have allowed us to see
or the story we have created amidst our own perceptions and based on our own
history. But you know from your own life
that everybody has a true back story and not all of them are fairy tales. Perhaps amidst holding on so tightly to all
our heartbreak and pain, we can realize that we have another option; we have
the ability to forgive.
The truth of the matter is that we will probably never forget
whatever it was that lead us to this place of even needing to consider forgiveness.
Going forward, we may not choose to have a relationship with the person who
hurt us or we may choose to work alongside them and do what it takes to heal in
the hope of building an even stronger relationship. The context and outcome isn’t the most
important part of the story…the gift is in the choice we make to offer our
forgiveness.
Think about it, pray about it, journal about it….do whatever
you need to so that you will be comfortable with your decision and in the
meantime, let me promise you this, and I speak from a place of true personal
experience… The right answer won’t be
the easiest one. For a while it may feel
like you were the only one forced to give up something…or that the person you
forgave got off too easy. None of that
is true, and none of it is relevant, those feelings are based in fear and come
from ego.. What you are giving, this beautiful and such selfless act of forgiveness
comes from a place of love….from your heart.
All that matters is that you made a tough but very healthy and
potentially life changing decision for both of you to finally and permanently set
an enormous burden down. By doing so, the Divine light that is always burning
within you will most definitely grow exponentially brighter and may even help
to light the way for someone else! As
the old saying goes; a candle to one, is often a candle to many.
As you go forward into a brand new year, I wish you love, I
wish you good health, bliss and an abundance of blessings but mostly I wish you
the ability to offer a true kindness in the form of unconditional forgiveness
to the person or persons you know need it the most…. May you both know and
share the blessing of a heart that is finally free of the burden of so much unnecessary
weight!
Happy New Year!
Love,
Heather
