to forgive and not forget

Everything I'm about to tell you is true.

First, I am a delight. Second, "I know hope, it has wings." (hat tip to Trevor Hall)

"I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn’t live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it would get ‘em in serious trouble." - Utah Phillips

We are all a little broken, and none of us are perfect. To err is human, as the saying goes, so why is it that we have such a hard time with the concept of forgiveness? Now before y'all come at me in the comments saying words about not forgiving horrible things, know that I don't participate in stuff such as forced positivity or negation of mental health. That influencer junk isn't what I'm saying here - it's more about finding grace and ease with uncertainty from my perspective.

And being real honest here, I'm not sure how to share my life experiences with all y'all here on the inter-webs. First, I do like a good ramble - you know, just letting those brain squirrels out to play until they tire out and go home to rest. It's not because I lack direction, or the ability to stay on one topic, but more like my thoughts find connections to other thoughts while my fingers are moving along the keyboard.

Second, it is very important to honor every person's path. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander (as the saying goes). Just because my work with forgiveness was helpful for me, doesn't mean that it will benefit others. There are a lot of people out there who feel very strongly that their way of life is how everyone should be, which is not how I roll.

Forgiveness is about allowing healing for circumstances that are beyond my control, and for those situations where my broken parts engaged in uncomfortable behaviors. When I decided to set some goals earlier this year, I found myself stewing a bit on too many thoughts. If you've read some of my past posts, there's some vestiges of that when I get a good yarn going about the artificial nature of being online. Sometimes my brain gets a little cranky at things that have nothing to do with me. Yelling into the void isn't helpful, neither is complaining about Al's Gorithms and The Bots. Plus, that's not what I want to give my energy to on a daily basis. But I will say that it did feel good to get all that off my chest.

The other bug tussle here is that the brain just loves holding onto memories - even if we think it isn't. You see, there's a huge supercomputer in your skull that is constantly taking in information so that it can help you stay upright. If it senses something might be hazardous for you, which in reality makes it kind of a self-serving organ (which could be its own post), you get a flood of information that hopefully helps you make a better choice. Just like the elephant, your noggin never forgets.

Let's say you've done a lot of work to forgive someone for not returning a phone call that was important to you. With a little time we realize that we are not in control of everyone, but that emotion hangs out a bit longer influencing other parts of your life. Now you have this feeling just wandering around without direction, waiting for an opportunity to show you what it thinks is a pattern. Then one day you trip over something your housemate left on the floor, making you angry at the fact that no one ever pays attention to your needs.

So...yeah...we've all been there, and it's never any fun when it happens.

For me to move forward in my life I had to stop allowing little things to pull me off track. That meant taking a full inventory of the times my feelings were hurt, as well as the moments where I upset others. This week seemed like the perfect time to do this, so I took a fearless moral inventory of all the times life seemed really unfair. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, because the list went deep down to the marrow of my core memories. Looking at the pages of these painful blips of my history, I just felt the need to draw little hearts around all the words. My soul felt heavy with sadness for those who had hurt me (or my family), and my being was remorseful for the times my actions were hard for others. After that I wrote out this sentence: "May all be forgiven, and may I forgive myself, too."

Then I cried.

See, the thing here is that I'm never going to forget any of those events/situations, but I can stop letting them pester me all the time. Those emotions aren't going to be metaphorically stuck to the bottom of my shoe anymore, and the steps in my journey will be lighter.

The side effect of all this was being able to see where my boundaries needed more work, as well as being a little more careful where I share my energies. I don't know, y'all, it was just a whole thing, and trying to put it into words here is like trying to nail water to the wall.

So I'd like to do something here that is important for me as a creative and spiritual person.

If I've upset you in any way, I offer a sincere apology - and am here to talk about it if you find that helpful. To those that have hurt my family or me, you have my forgiveness. If I have crossed a boundary in your world, I am sorry. For those who have crossed the boundaries of my family and me, you are forgiven - but please know that we reserve the right to refuse your presence due to past actions.

With that, y'all, I've got some things to take care of today - I'll get back to my wild and full of multitudes content later in the week. Until then know that I see you out there shining brightly as the Sun.

Much love,
~ KEU