I forgive myself and let go

Maybe if we were wiser and knew that to be human is to not know, to make mistakes and tl always be learning we would be more forgiving of ourselves, we would not let the inner critic beat us up as much.. I had one of those mornings after listening to a talk by Joe Dispenza about how living in the past keeps us stuck of not being drawn into my trauma. I even managed my body symptoms by breathing, not contracting, doing a few gentle yoga moves and having a lovely epsom and pink himalayan salt bath with bergamot.. its a little gift of a bath soak I got for myself a few weeks ago.. But later I got to thinking of my sister and the coast and of my ex husband, how in the last email he sent just before Christmas he shared what fond memories he had of the coast house, asking would I be going there for Christmas to which I replied I was not invited.. never mind. I am letting even that go now, but I did start to feel so sad and down on myself for the way my past trauma and traumatic family finally tore us apart. I didn’t weep a lot, it was some soft tears that fell. Then I just sat quietly in my bedroom chair and prayed saying over and over : I forgive myself, I forgive myself. I forgive myself. And oh my how this practice softens and opens my heart to flow and love, it really truly does.

As someone who beats up on herself so much this letting go and forgiving is very new for me. I just re watched the 2007 movie Things We Lost In The Fire it is a movie about loss and addiction and shutting down due to the central female character not really knowing how to grieve a murderous loss.. In the interview about playing the central female character, actress Halle Berry spoke about the hard shell this woman had to erect around her to survive.. but then the breakthrough comes and when it does it is the addict at the center, of the story, Jerry, played brilliantly by Benicio Del Toro, who is there to take the full brunt of it, in fact in the movie he cops a lot of her rage and blame in a very loving and patient way, never reacting or hurting her… always having empathy for her while being confused as to why she is pursuing him and seeking him out.

This movie really resonated with me yesterday.. It showed me how loss or grief can make us hard, and how that hardness is both a plea for healing and compassion as well as a painful resistance against letting in the enormous and overwhelming truth.. At the critical point Halle’s character can say “He is gone!” after the healing flood finally tears down some of her resistance.. showing she has reached the grieving stage of acceptance..

It is similar for me.. I have to accept that my addiction hurt me and it hurt other people. My anger was confusing for them and I am sure many of them felt pity for me struggling so, or even contempt or decided it was too much to be around. But for me I have to accept it in, at the same time as letting it all go along with the realisation that I DID NOTHING WRONG I WAS JUST SUFFERING GRIEF, LOSS AND TRAUMA..

At the moment I do not have enough of a focus in the present day world to really pull me out of the past all of the time. and that is what I am seeing this week (maybe due to Mercury’s retrograde movement opposing my first house Uranus in Leo and moving backtowards my South Node, Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter conjunction) but I also know all is in process…

And we cannot tell trauma survivors to forgive, let go of, or leave behind what they have not yet done the exceptionally hard work of processing and coming to terms with.. For me today I can be grateful.. I prayed a lot this morning and spent some time in quiet meditation.. I lit some candles and made the house soft and cosy with light a its a dark overcast day today.. Gratefully, today I find, deep inside my heart there is love and I feel so so far from lonely….Self forgiveness is a powerful inner critic/beat up anti-dote. It brings me home. It brings me light even as it helps me accept darkness and past pain. It returns me to life. It makes me grateful. It puts things in their right perspective when my perception gets distorted by a colder world lacking in deeper wisdom, insight,vulnerabiity and empathy.. with no tolerance for human frailty..

After posting this I just read Benny K’s latest post.. these words seemed so pertitent that I wanted to share them in closing.

The truth is things go wrong. The truth is life does not play fairly and things will not go as planned. The truth is not everyone is going to like me or you. And not everyone is going to agree. Then again, not everyone is going to dislike us or disagree either. So, act accordingly.

Not everything’s a competition. They say that nice guys finish last. I say this is only true because nice guys don’t need to win the race to have the race become their identity.