Forgiveness. An Ongoing Learning

 I have written about forgiveness before. And now I am writing again. I find that I need to keep reminding myself about it. Because, as soon as I think I have done it I find I need to do it again. It is a Learning and Re-Learning that is badly needed, by me, I find.

And you all get some more of my blatherings because of it 😎

I find that as I get further on in life, AKA older, that my understanding of things gets both deeper and more rigid. I need to shake it out every once in a while in order to shake out the rigidity.

Thus, more of my blatherings.

And why is Forgiveness such a big topic for me? Those of you who have been reading my stuff can answer that. And I am going to answer it anyway because why not.

It used to be because there were people in my life that I needed to forgive. Not for them, not to let them "Off the Hook", not to Absolve them of Responsibility, not to re-establish a relationship with them, not to "Forgive and Forget", not for any of the generally accepted answers about why people forgive that we have in this society.

I forgive others for a very simple reason, the anger that I am carrying around with me, focused on them, does them no harm at all. It only harms me. So, in forgiving them, what I am really doing is releasing the anger, the hatred, that is eating me alive. I am Letting My Self Off The Hook. And releasing the invisible chain that has kept me connected to them for all the whatever length of time it has been.

What that means for me is Forgiveness Equals Freedom. Freedom for Me. It has nothing to do with the person that I am Forgiving and Everything to do with my allowing My Self to be Free of all of that Anger, Hate, Shame, Guilt, and whatever else I am carrying around aimed at them and missing completely to rebound back to me multiplied.

And it looks like I truly get this. To the best of my knowledge I have forgiven everyone and anyone that I ever needed to forgive. I do not think that I am carrying any of that negative stuff directed at anyone outside of myself at all. As far as I am able to tell, and I have tools to keep track of this, I have no one out there left to forgive.

And that is the crux of it then. No one outside My Self.

I find it fascinating that I did not truly see where I was going with this until just now. Oh how well we practice to deceive, and we only deceive ourselves in the end.

Because the only one whom I have left to forgive on this Earth, is me. Damn. I had a very hard time writing that. Actually acknowledging it out loud to myself and others. Oof.

So why do I find this so hard to see, never mind to acknowledge as true? Very good question. Follow along with me and see what Happens as I try to grope my way thru the forest of denial and the darkness of intentional blindness.

I begin with the supposition that deep down inside, where I do my real "thinking", that I still feel like I am not worthy of Forgiveness. That I should not be "let off the hook". That I do not deserve any form of redemption at all.

That deep down I still carry the Shame, Guilt, and Despair of becoming all the worst parts of the people that I used to hate and resent.

That, even though I can forgive all of them and have some compassion for their struggles, my own struggles mean that everything that I did is not forgivable. That I, this person writing this, is truly Unforgivable.

So now we need to look at this person writing. I have found it, not easy, but most certainly possible, to forgive others whom I had thought I could never forgive at one time. In the process of looking at and accepting my life I began to understand, and actually have compassion for, the people in my life. All of them.

So forgiving them was not easy. I won't say that. I will say that it became possible and then inevitable as I kept up the process.

And I have done the same process for myself. And yet I find it so hard for me. Even though I have turned my life completely around, am not the person who did those things and thought and felt those things, although that person does still exist inside of me and will never go away, I have transformed My Self and My Life to almost unrecognizable.

And it would be especially unrecognizable to the me that used to exist and thought, felt, and did, all these things over the years.

So this is an ongoing process. I am still groping my way along here. It is both frustrating and fascinating that I am in this place. There is a part of me that is like "Man, you should be so over yourself by now. Get with it, will ya." And another part of me that is "You are right where you are supposed to be. You know how we know this? Because this is where you are."

I am on a swing, back and forth, with being incredibly hard on myself, and incredibly understanding of things like this. A real pendulum swing.

Talk about a fun ride 😂