"Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed." --Oprah Winfrey

Lately I feel like I have been confronted with the understanding of forgiveness. With the recent things that have happened in the last few years of my life, I feel like working to not spread and implicate suffering while not beating myself up at the same time has been a challenge. How do we undo the wrong that we have suffered or have felt that has been done to us? How do we make right what once was or used to be or even yet, should have been, "should" be?

I used to believe that if I ate it all up, put all the responsibility, blame and guilt on myself that maybe I could handle it. I could do it all on my own. The last few years I have learned that that is not true. When you take on the pain and suffering of others, you take away their learning, and the possible gift of understanding of the consequences of their actions, what they are creating. This is coming from someone who has taught herself and in other ways learned a form of codependency, and a need to "fix things" in order to feel safe. But at the end of it, the suffering I didn't want to spread or "put on anyone" still hurt me. And when I hurt I realized I couldn't be my best self and express that accordingly. In turn I realized other people I felt I needed to protect would hurt too because I believe we are all connected in a deeper collective way.

So after many years of being a certain way, where would I go from here? I would decide that I was tired of the old way of suffering. I would recognize that suffering was like a wheel, a cycle, a pattern of behavior. Round and round and round, neverending, with no hope of ever getting off.

When I saw this, I realized how easily we are privy to getting on, getting drawn to the wheel of suffering. In Buddhism, this is called Samsara. In my life story, I know how long I have experienced this ride and so have many others I know. In their own ignorance some have drawn me into the same pain thinking that theirs was somehow different, not realizing it is all the same, that at the core this pain and suffering is Universal, and part of the human condition.

Yet as I prayed the other day, for grace, and through prayer created the intention for something more Divine. Seeking freedom, I saw a place where one could move farther from Samsara, "the wheel of suffering", and transcend into a different space. This is a place of compassion. To me compassion is an important quality that helps one move forward from the pain that one experiences via duality, judgment, envy, anger, fear, hatred. Compassion has a welcoming and encompassing energy that swallows all things and absorbs the darkness of ignorance and brings them back to the Source, which is Light.

Through my process in understanding forgiveness I used to think that if I took the pain caused me unto and into myself that I would be able to make up for what was done. I have learned that that is not true. I cannot take the actions of another and try and make up for what their choices were, out of their own ignorance of the nature of things and the consequences of their actions. I could not take away their suffering that way. I could only choose, now that the seed of suffering had been planted in me, to decide whether or not I would nurture the seed and what would I nurture it with to see what and how it would grow. Would I water it with anger, fear, revenge, hatred, ignorant repetition? Let it grow and grow so that it would express such qualities? Or would I tend to it with a sense of awareness knowing what it was so that I could decide to grow something that would inspire and create beauty? I would try as I might to tend it with love, with light, with prayer, with awareness. Yet it would not be so easy, it would require going deep into the depths of those dark places, scary uncomfortable places where one would test her faith, inner conviction to find Light. It was believed where there was darkness, there was light.

And so in a part of this process, a gem of wisdom was uncovered along the journey. A wonderful quote about forgiveness. One did not have to question one's worth, or place blame, but to accept the pain and choose to move forward. To fully accept the wrongdoing without knowing why and to know one was better and wiser and had the power to choose different. One could choose to see the pain and suffering of the past for what it was and choose to walk away and be freed.

"Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past can be changed."

my truth

i believe i do not need religion to have a relationship with God.

i love the freedom this provides me.

i can release dogmas and schools of thought, come and go as i please in my consciousness and desire.

and know ultimately i am responsible for my own life, i co-create this life.

i am not a victim, i am a child of God.

who is All Powerful and All Knowing

and I who is a part of this Great Thing

need only recognize that I simply am,

which is simply that.

A Part of Something Great.

everyday i live remembering and honoring this knowledge as best I can, beyond all the dramas and stories that unfold around me.

"It is a weakening and discoloring idea that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time but that it is too late for us. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha's bodhi tree."

--Annie Dillard, from the book For the Time Being

life is not about being right and/or wrong;

or what is right and/or wrong,

but being honest with ourselves.

as we are, we can be honest with others.

and that is truly the freedom we have always desired.

move beyond labels, distinctions, parameters and boundaries,

and scary as it can be, pursue limitlessness, expansion

the unknown.

listen to your heart.

i pray that is something i create here and now.

-jl

"A diamond is a piece of coal that stuck to the job."
--Michael Larsen

healing

a prayer for self:

I release my unconscious need to self abuse through my inner dialogue, in the form of thoughts and feelings. any negative thoughts and judgments i have about self i choose to release now. There is nothing I "should" be doing. I always have a choice in any given moment. I decide. I know I am a Beloved Child of God, Goddess, Universe and I embrace the knowing and remembrance of this truth.

In this perfect moment in time, I embrace who I truly am and let myself Be.

In the Name of Love and all things Kind and True,

Amen.

a prayer

((breathe and center))

I set an intention, NOW, in this very moment that whenever I think of someone, good or bad, I easily release and relinquish any judgment and place within it a seed of prayer full of Goodness, Love, and Light and realize and focus on the core spiritual service of sending, sustaining, cultivating, and expressing Love. I easily allow the illusions to fall away, all judgments about myself and others and find in this wonderful unfolding, enlightening, and blossoming process we truly all are free.

Amen.

-Janice

"Finally...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." Philippians 4:8 NIV