what forgiveness reveals

For a dozen days, I’ve risen, fed the dog, grabbed a mug and sat in quiet contemplation to forgive people in my life for past hurts, wrongs, unmet expectations or moving on.

Forgiving the same people day after day is a revealing practice. Here are some of the revelations I’ve experience since beginning my practice:

1. Self forgiveness. On that first day, after I had forgiven 20 others their offenses, I got up from my meditative space, took a few steps, and laughed. It dawned on me then that I needed to forgive myself as much as anyone else. Because I regularly work with clients on self-forgiveness, it might have been obvious to me from the start. The next day, I began forgiving myself.
2. Reflection. When we notice faults in others, it’s a sign we have the same trait, quality or behaviors within ourselves, and that we may have disavowed or disowned this part of ourselves. I was surprised to find how I could as easily charge myself with the same misdeeds, and then forgive the others as well as myself.
3. Patterns. After the first few days, I’d enumerated the major events others had committed against me. I began to allow in whatever thought intuitively arose when I envisioned forgiving a particular person. One day, as I forgave an ex partner for expecting me to heal a lifetime of heart wounds when we’d known each other for just a few years, I realized I’d assigned a different former mate all of my accumulated, unhealed pain: I hadn’t blamed him for it; I hadn’t expected him to fix it; I’d simply and unfairly put his name on it.
4. Judgements. I was forgiving a friend from childhood when I said “for your judgements and narrow perspective.” Suddenly, it dawned on me that I was making a judgement that may or may not be true. That day, I forgave myself for projection, judgements against others and for my own narrow perspective.
5. Meditation. One of the surprising benefits of my practice has been the ritual of sitting in quiet contemplation, regulating my breath and calling in the energy of forgiveness as I begin each day. While I spent nearly an hour forgiving 20 people that first day, I’m down to about 20 minutes these days, and I’m appreciating just how valuable it is to give myself that quietude to start the day. I daresay this practice, once complete, will yield to a habit of morning meditation.

With two and a half months ahead of me, no doubt more insights will reveal themselves to me along the way. I hope you’ll check back.

Follow my forgiveness journey: journey into forgiveness (part 1), forgiving again (part 3)

(c) 2022 Angela Rae Bushman, all rights reserved