Warmest new year wishes to you, dear reader!
My gosh there’s a lot going on. Saying that feels like the understatement of the year. We are approaching one year of quarantine and it is incredible to look back and review what has happened in our collective lives over the last 10 1/2 months. Jobs and lives have been lost and ways of living have been forever altered. We are still working through intense division within our country and for some, our families and personal relationships. One thing is for sure - life as we know it has changed.
So what comes next?
How I would love to have an answer for that!
When quarantine kicked off last year, I kept having this thought about the need for us all to pause. Our world has been moving at increasing speeds with more information being processed than ever before both by humans and technology alike. This mounting energy can feel exciting and even seductive at times, but what’s really happening when we allow every moment of our days to be filled with information?
Prior to quarantine, how many of us actually sat still for long periods of time? How many of us allowed ourselves to look at all of our relationships across time and get really clear on the nature and energy of our many relationships with family, friends, romantic partners, or colleagues? How many of you have had relationships change forever because of political views, morality, or views on health and science? How many relationships have either changed shape or ended entirely?
Sitting still is not what our 21st century minds have been trained to do. Sitting still with discomfort and pain is something we have been trained to avoid at all costs. Nowhere in our society do we talk about and then follow through and enact healing with these painful eruptions and wounds that have risen to the surface. We don’t have a lot of models of how to move forward and heal, and I feel the path forward is very simple.
Understand that your path may not look like anyone else’s, and that other’s path will not look like yours. There is a beautiful term for this - sonder - which means “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own” (merriam webster). Everyone has their perfect path to learn and engage with their learning in their own time. It does not make them higher/lower/better/worse than you - they just are, just as you are.
Forgive everyone.
Now, I realize that the first point may be easier to take in than the second one, but hear me out.
When we recognize and accept that everyone has their own path to walk in this lifetime, we get to come home to our own bodies and emotions. If grief or sadness comes up, that is something to honor and give voice to. If anger comes up, please know that anger is what is known as a secondary emotion, that there is another emotion beneath the anger that is pushing it up. Anger can be holy, but it can also make you weak in every cell of your body if you choose to hold onto it. I think of anger as a gas pedal that, when pressed, compels us forward into action. I hope that the action is rooted in peace and justice and not in violence, but that’s just my prayer.
Which brings us to the second point: forgive everyone. This is simple but profound. I’m still working on this one myself. Forgiveness is the great erase, the mechanism by which we free ourselves from the bondage of pain that we carry in our bodies. To forgive is NOT to forget. It’s not a magic little pill that gets taken and poof everything is ok. This is medicine that we get to walk with every step we take.
Some people are easier to forgive than others. That bully from 2nd grade who you later found out was being abused at home? Easier to forgive than say, your ex who you caught cheating on you, or the best friend who lied to you for her/his/their own personal gain. These are just a few charged examples, but all of which are equally deserving of forgiveness.
Forgiveness, as one of my teachers said, is the highest and hardest thing we can do as humans. Why high and hard? Because forgiveness is rooted in love - unapologetic, radical love that says I love myself enough to give me freedom from these burdens.
It’s not easy work. In fact, it is some of the bravest work I know of. Anything rooted in love and honoring love’s presence is the most courageous work any of us can do.
You deserve to be free from pain. You deserve to reclaim your light and life from those who have tarnished them. You deserve to have a clear, calm heart so that you can make your magic happen during our brief, precious time here on earth.
There are ways to begin to play with forgiveness. One is to repeat to yourself “I forgive ___” and honor all the feelings that come up by letting them out - crying, yelling, sobbing, hollering - whatever the emotions are that want to rise up to be heard and held. Another is to take this to your journal and make it a written exercise for added impact. Yet another way is to bring it into your heart by creating prayers, affirmations, or intentions that welcome forgiveness into your physical, emotional and spiritual bodies. Forgiveness is an inside job and it all starts with a choice.
So what do you choose?
If you’re someone who wants support and accountability with your forgiveness journey, I invite you to join me for my upcoming Forgiveness Lab where we will be taking this work practically and seriously with the sole intention of progress, not perfection. Forgiveness can be a long journey, but it is one of the richest we can ever take.
To learn more about The Forgiveness Lab, click here. It begins March 2nd and runs until March 23rd.
Here’s to being being courageous and saying yes to love - because you’re worth it.