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New Beginnings: A Forgiveness Story

10/24/2018

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Not long ago, I was filled with judgment and anger toward a certain person for what I deemed great damage he caused me and my family.  Recently, as I needed help on a new project, his name came to mind.  “He’s uniquely capable of helping,” I thought.  So I reached out. 

The notion that after feeling victimized as I did I would then turn to him for help – and pay him! – astonishes me.  And it also doesn’t.  In a nutshell, here’s my understanding of what allowed me to move from A to B.

Step 1: I began to see what’s true about what causes my feelings and psychological experience.  (Hint: it’s inside out).  Simultaneously, I began to see more clearly what cannot be its cause. (Hint: people, stuff, events).

Step 2: I started paying less attention to what cannot be causes.  Meanwhile, I went about my life as best I could and had a little less judgment when I did have false causes on my mind.

Step 3: The temptation and attraction of the false causes started to soften (sometimes, without my even registering that). 

Step 4: New thoughts (and their attendant feelings) showed up.

In short, he wasn’t cause in my lingering upset.  I didn’t know how to extract myself from the painful, consuming feelings of believing he was cause, but I got interested in what was true about those feelings.  As I did, the wisdom connection God wired into me got less muddled and I began to see and feel differently.

A few caveats. 

One.  I’m not saying there’s no free will or effort involved in such a shift.  It was plenty tempting at times to stay in the judgment and anger loop.  I often did.  To me, my role was to be interested in what was true, to be interested in acknowledging where I was mistaken.  Even still, the shift in my internal experience seems miraculous relative to the part I played.  

Two.  There is such a thing as damaging, inappropriate behavior that one can be a victim of.  I don’t think it wise or “spiritual” not to put an end to or redress damages.   I speak more of the emotional suffering that lingers independent of damages.

Three.  Looking at my words above, I wonder whether someone might feel it lacks empathy, as if a guy’s suffering is his fault and he should just stop blaming.  To that I say:  Suffering is just human.  We don’t go there willfully and if we knew how to end it, we would.  Without respect for a person’s struggle, it’s not helpful to tell someone consumed by pain or anger, “You know, the causes you attribute your pain to are built on falsehood.” 

Four.  I had a fourth thing I wanted to share but forgot it, which just reminds me again of how dependent I am on the gift of Divine thought.

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