Freedom of Forgiveness

As I continue to explore the quality of compassion, I am continually brought into the powerful reality that there is no way I can be free of old wounds that keep me feeling disempowered and victimized if I don’t forgive others. To hold onto the idea that someone is a perpetrator, is to also hold onto the reality of victimhood. This is one coin and it is impossible to just throw one side away. So, as I choose to empower myself, shed old self-perceptions of being wounded, I also choose to release others from my projections, judgments and beliefs that they are anything but perfect. It has been difficult at times and for the more intense relationships that have come to completion under painful and challenging circumstances, it has required repeated attention and nurturing.

When I was 13 years old, my mom’s sister, Sharon, someone who was vibrant, full of child-like enthusiasm for life, and someone I delighted being around, was murdered by her husband. He then committed suicide soon afterward and it was such a shock to my system I couldn’t even understand what had happened for quite a while. As I have experienced my relationships with men, I have come to realize that there was a fixed, almost frozen stuck, part of myself that had crystallized around the idea that men want to harm women, that it is just an innate experience. I hadn’t consciously thought it, but that shock I had so many years ago was never fully grieved.

It is common, in the midst of serious trauma and tragedy, for us to work at quickly picking up the pieces and moving on as though we are fine and nothing has happened, and in doing so, I think we end up holding on to hardened, petrified grief in our psyches and our physical bodies and on subconscious levels, it informs us and influences what we draw in and manifest for ourselves. I recently did yet another ceremony to release my uncle from the perpetrator role, and consciously asked for a release of that stuck part of myself that has held onto this idea that men will always harm women in some way or another, and have found that I am releasing that old story from my body. It is coming out in tears, and finally grieving what hit me so many years ago, and I am seeing how my beliefs (as they pass out of my mind and allow a more expanded way of seeing) had kept me in a repeat pattern of calling in (or at least perceiving) destructive behavior from men.

I see how easy it is to only see one small piece of the whole when looking from inside the hole of an old wound, and how much more liberating it is for me and the relationships in my life, to allow something bigger and love-filled to show up.

Whether we believe the “other” deserves a pardon or not, WE DESERVE A BREAK from being held down by the labels of victim, wounded, broken, and we have to let go of the whole story all together if we want to be free from this heavy mantle.

In the prison of judgment, both inmate & prison guard are behind bars. Forgiveness is the key to liberate yourself. Are you ready?

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