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It is a new year; 2024. How are you bridging from 2023? Or do you have some stepping stones?
I want to share my morning musings as I walked and wondered about how to cross the 8-10 ft creek that runs through my farm. My husband and I are planning to have a bridge made. But, in the meantime, we have large stepping stones strategically placed at clearings where we cross.
Without these we would be, in this case, in cold water. But a form of “hot water”.
In this brief blog, I want to share one of a number of “bridges” that can help us succeed in bridging from 2023 to 2024. This bridge is forgiveness. We know the word. But do we live the word?
Let’s think about what makes forgiveness a bridge.
Picture someone in your life, including yourself, that you have, need to, or are forgiving.
Fix that person in your imagery….Name this person…..
Where are you within the process of forgiving this person?
I think of someone that I’m actively working to forgive. (Notice how I frame this sentence.)
Forgiveness is work. It is choice. It is sustained shifting from only self-protection. Yet it requires a differentiation from the one being forgiven. A stepping back to see the stage with you and this person on the stage. A non-judgmental frame on the view.
What else? Ohhh, tis a willingness, a readiness to no longer poison myself with thoughts and intentions toward harm or denigration of this person (if it be me or someone else). But it is more than that. I must get to a place where I vow to not harm either player on the stage. When I forgive I am kind and gracious. I see the world from a place of harmony, seeing good and wanting good for each of us. I accept the isness of the situation or relationship, confident that an unseen order is the party in charge here. I do not have to convert or make this anything it is not. I must see it clearly as it IS. I can accept the Isness as a circumstance that has come for the growth and development of each of us. I become aware of my energies….at what frequency am I vibrating? For at my core, I am LOVE! Love is a very high vibration….I must own that the power to choose my responses, my present state of being has been entrusted to me. I CANNOT escape this freedom! This is one of the paradoxes that LIFE brings me, us.
To forgive means seeing this relationship with Life and the giver of this Life as both a tremendous responsibility as well as an awesome opportunity.
Now, this takes some humble audacity!
Am I up for this much LIFE? Forgiveness begins with my owning my place within such a BIG field of possibilities, that there is no room for arrogance, shame, doubt, anger, or fear. I can only deal with it as I avail myself of the very wisdom, power, and love that has been placed at my core from my very beginning, even before I was in my mother’s womb…..
Whew! Takes me to a very still place to accept this. And, as Meister Eckhart said hundreds of years ago, the beginning place is gratitude and awe. Without this self-centeredness, forgiveness is impossible. On the other hand, when we accept this gift and commit to honor it and its giver, we are on our way to genuine forgiveness which includes sound decision making, bravery, inner strength, people competencies, and a deep awareness that this same scenario is that of the one I am having difficulty forgiving.
Ultimately, forgiveness is a process of letting go. Of not being a controlling person. It happens when we are confident in an Unseen Order Omnipresent to, for, and within us. When we are open to and willing to own our own power to act with wisdom, power, and love. And when we are given the transcendent yet intimate “Go ahead” to let go of need to convert or bring the other person over to “doing it my way.” This is the time, during the process of forgiveness that we act with agency, saying goodbye to any external forces in order to generously let go in order to live this lifetime that we have been given. This frees us from being controlled by another.
As Viktor Frankl learned when imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, the Nazis could take his family, his belongings, his clothes, and even shave the hairs from his body, even take his physical life, but they could not take his inner self. That, Frankl learned, was his to be! This is when we say Yes to being Present and living our unique dreams forward while saying No to any pressure to violate our own core values, mission, or life purpose.
Forgiveness is the emotion that accompanies our being merciful, seeking peace, accepting the isness of just that which is presenting itself to us while we detach from any external pressures in order to transcend our past or present as we build our dreams out into a new isness/reality.
Remember this: Not forgiving is like continuing to drink poison while the other person/s move on with their lives.
Hopefully, today’s blog stimulates more thoughts, questions, and decisions that spur you on to live the life that is yours to live!
Watch for “forgiveness” to pop up in most if not all the programs that colleagues and I offer through this website and other avenues.
With confidence that together, we are the ones for this place and time to be midwives to a whole new future, waiting to be born,