april forgiveness
...what even is forgiveness? In this climate? In this economy?
Last month forgiveness meant totally releasing expectations by not releasing any YOH content (...oh, except that notes app apology). Forgiveness was catching up on rest and showing up with what I had which was emotionally and mentally absolutely nothing. It wasn’t how I intended to end the first month of this Year of Healing, but it’s what I had and I had to accept that.
Forgiveness, in the context of this Year of Healing, is about reflecting on what we intended, noticed, and worked on in the prior 3 weeks and integrating these lessons into our maps of past and future. The themes and reflections I pose always shed a light on my own toxic thoughts/feelings/actions from a year ago. And if I don’t acknowledge this change--this gap between what I knew then and what I know now--I would harbor shame, guilt, and resentment towards myself for not being “right,” the first time I traversed shock or tension (or anything else) in terms of Covid-19 (and life).
This shaming of emotional reactions or personal growth, often gets in the way of making any real change or letting the healing in. That’s why we’re here now, in the week of forgiveness.
And acceptance is part of forgiveness, right? We accept the fact that harm was caused (to ourselves or to others), and we focus on what we can do now by contextualizing the past within our present knowledge and future opportunities to improve and keep progressing.
To heal is to feel, to witness, to learn, to try again, and to keep forgiving, releasing, and accepting any expectations we thought we had about this whole process. It’s never really what we think it will be. Healing cannot be sold and bought in a face mask or bubble bath. The self-care industry might’ve created the most tangible (marketable) “healing” we’ve seen, and yet I really think it only touches on this last leg of the cycle--forgiveness, of rest and acceptance, soaking in the presence of who we are in this moment.
Forgiveness is taking a moment--however long you need--to see what happened, how you reacted, and how you’d like to behave moving forward. And the final straw seems to always be releasing expectations around what any of those processes even look and feel like.
So how will you send compassion and forgiveness to your past, present, and future selves on their journey(s) with tension?
I thought I’d have some more tangible suggestions and reflection questions, but I don’t want to project any of my shame-spirals onto your healing process. I think the best thing to do for all of us this week is to revel in self-compassion, self-love, self-trust, and a whole lotta self-acceptance. Extending these well-wishes to our own imperfect selves will make it easier to meet other people exactly where they are and not some idea of them we’ve judged into existence in our minds.
I love you a lot and I hope you feel at ease this week and always.