forgiving again

I’m forty-some days into my 90-day forgiveness practice and still having revelations, insights and surprises.

Many days I can sit down, get into a meditative space, and go through my routine in 15 minutes. Today was not that day. I sat and struggled for more than an hour my as attention drifted from forgiving that ex-boyfriend for not taking me with him to the White House to meet President Obama to what seemed like a million other things.

I thought about:

• that Chastity Brown song I can’t get out of my head
• how Prince Edward Island oysters are always the best
• how I should have worn different shoes to the club for dancing the other night
• the lovely walk along the river yesterday while temperatures were unseasonably warm
• how nice it feels to make out with the man in my life
• the fresh blueberries awaiting me once I completed my practice
• and more

I nearly got up more than once, having forgotten what I was there to do in the first place! And then I brought my attention back to my forgiveness practice, envisioned the four individuals remaining on my list one at a time, and forgave. Here are some of the things I’ve learned:

• When you’ve been called to forgive people in your life for multiple days in a row, you give yourself permission to chip away at it, coming up with some really small, petty stuff, e.g. “…for that time you made me wear that hideous jumper.”
• I could tell I’d truly moved on when, instead of forgiving, I found myself expressing gratitude to an ex for ending a relationship. After all, it was an ending that opened the door to a magical new beginning.
• It’s still difficult to forgive big wrongs. Each day, I replay the same scene as I forgive or attempt to. I know this practice is for me, and I’ve transcended it. Yet there is a younger me whose boundaries were not respected — and she is still angry, and I have found that I perhaps have yet to re-integrate this younger me back into the whole of me.
• Even when I can’t get there fully, I go through the motions. Yes, maybe this means I fake it until I make it. But I still say, “I forgive you” in my mind and hug the other person.
• It’s incredibly humbling to continue to recognize that, at least in a general sense, I am guilty of everything with which I’ve charged another. Those boundaries of mine that were overrun? I’ve done it to others, likely in myriad ways. Which brings me to…
• I still need my own forgiveness.

Thank you for bearing witness. If you’re curious about the why of this practice or my process, please see my two earlier posts on forgiveness: journey into forgiveness (part 1) and what forgiveness reveals (part 2).

(c) 2022 Angela Rae Bushman, all rights reserved