Over the years of my healing and awakening I have learned of the intimate relationship between grieving, forgiveness, acceptance, laughter, joy, compassion and love. Life is brim full for each and every one of us with countless opportunities to sit in judgment of ourselves and others or to allow our hearts to break open and emerge as even more compassionate human beings.
Many who know me today for my smile and my laughter do not know of the many years when tears were my near daily companion. In 1983, and after over 30 years of disassociation and distraction, I began to thaw out and travel that long distance from up in my head to settling into my long neglected heart. I did not even know I was asleep! I did not know of my ocean of tears or the rage, shame, terror that permeated my being. I also had no reference points for comprehending mindfulness and authenticity, connectedness and belonging, intimacy and vulnerability, surrender and letting go, or true joy, compassion, and lovingkindness. It is hard to access any of these qualities with consistency and depth without first going through the doorway of our wounds, fears, addictions, losses, betrayals, shame, anger, and grief. Giving up the safe ground of familiar territory and the old distractions that have kept so much at bay for so long is not an easy task. And yet, nothing could be more worth it.
This post, as with so many, is something I need to write because I need to listen to and remind myself of the wisdom and love which I believe is threaded deep within us all. I am aware of my need yet again to open to forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion. There are so many who have in some way assisted me in discovering and rooting into a path of heart. In the early days when I was first discovering the truths I had long buried deep within myself, the grief, rage, and horror of it all so overwhelmed me that I thought I could never forgive. Not ever. There was just too much, too much.
Then, among others, in 1990 I began to read Clarissa Pinkola Estés' Women Who Run With the Wolves. This is the only book I have ever read twice back to back. I was so hungry, so starved for the soulful nourishment I found here. Among so much more, I discovered hope. Maybe forgiveness is possible. Maybe cleansing and letting go and joy are possible. Dr. Estés writes:
Now I'm not going to tell you a big, fat lie and say you can cleanse all your rage today or next week and it will be gone forever. The angst and torment of times past rise up in the psyche on a cyclical basis. Although a deep purging discharges most of the archaic hurt and rage, the residue can never be completely swept clear. But it should leave a very light ash, not a hungry fire. So the clearing of residual rage must become a periodic hygienic ritual, one that releases us, for to carry old rage beyond the point of its usefulness is to carry a constant, if unconscious, anxiety.
Sometimes people become confused and think that to be stuck in an outdated rage means to fuss and fume and to act out and toss and throw things. It does not mean that in most cases. It means to be tired all the time, to have a thick layer of cynicism, to dash the hopeful, the tender, the promising. It means to be afraid you will lose before you open your mouth. It means to reach flashpoint inside whether you show it on the outside or not. It means bilious entrenched silences. It means feeling helpless. But there is a way out, and it is through forgiveness.
...Forgiveness has many layers, many seasons. In our culture there is a notion that forgiveness is a 100 percent proposition. All or nothing. It is also taught that forgiveness means to overlook, to act as though a thing has not occurred. This is not true either.
A woman who can work up a good 95 percent forgiveness of someone or something tragic and damaging almost qualifies for beatification, if not sainthood. If she is 75 percent forgiving and 25 percent "I don't know if I ever can forgive fully, and I don't even know if I want to," that is more the norm. But 60 percent forgiveness accompanied by 40 percent "I don't know, and I'm not sure, and I'm still working on it," is definitely fine. A level of 50 percent or less forgiveness qualifies for work-in-progress status. Less than 10 percent? You've either just begun or you're not really trying yet.
...The most important part of forgiveness is to begin and to continue. The finishing of it all is a life work. You have the rest of your life to work at the lesser percentage.... To truly heal, however, we must say our truth, and not only our regret and pain but also what harm was caused, what anger, what disgust, and also what desire for self-punishment or vengeance was evoked in us. The old healer in our psyche understands human nature with all its foibles, and gives pardon based on the telling of the naked truth. She not only gives second chances, she most often gives many chances....
And so here I am once again faced with choosing between bitterness, anger, righteousness.... or the work of forgiveness and compassion. I choose the work of embracing my pain, as best as I can one day at a time, rather than projecting it onto others. I do this imperfectly. I am human and life is messy. I get that. I also get the cost of ignoring, putting off, denying, disassociating from when I have caused harm or harm has been visited upon me and/or others. Always there is the choice of becoming mindful in an ongoing way of what I am feeding and growing bigger within myself. I choose, over and over again, to allow my heart to break open in order that more space may be cleared for love. The doorway of my sorrow is the same doorway to my joy. And so it is.
Namaste ~ Molly
****
“There
is a time in our lives, usually in mid-life, when a woman has to make a
decision - possibly the most important psychic decision of her future
life - and that is, whether to be bitter or not." ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
"Everything we think, feel, and do has an effect on our ancestors and all future generations and reverberates throughout the Universe. Therefore, our smile helps everyone." ~Thich Nhat Hanh
"The more we love, the more real we become." ~ Stephen Levine
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