A belief that has become popular in recent times is the belief that we chose the life we have lived. Some believe that before we were born, we looked at all the possible lives we could live, and chose one of them, including the pain and suffering, because we wanted to learn the lessons that were there; then we were born, and forgot our original intent, and struggled through the trials we had chosen without understanding why.
When you think of it, it is a rather odd belief - why would we choose a difficult life, knowing that we would lose awareness of why we chose it and then suffer in ignorance over our pain?
Most people do not "remember" agreeing to live the life they have lived so far. Most people find themselves in situations they did not expect, often painful and difficult, and have to learn on the fly how to handle it. And, judging from the number of people who fall into resentment, attempts at revenge, self-defeatism, apathy, depression, and suicide because of the trials at life, it appears that this strategy of learning the lessons of life is not widely successful.
If we cannot remember having made a choice, then our experience of suffering is the same as if we did not choose. A choice is a conscious selection of possible alternatives without coercement, and very few people who suffer actually consciously and freely chose to suffer.
We humans created this belief for some reason. Beliefs do not become popular unless they touch something deep inside. One possible reason is that it may help some people cope with the distress of seemingly purposeless suffering. But a more poignant reason may be to fight the feeling of victimhood that we tend to have when life does us wrong, and there is no one to blame. Victimhood is about believing we do not have any control or power to stop bad things from happening to us, and if we embrace that belief, we will tend to live in passivity and blame, rather than in power and love.
But the point is not about blame: it's about taking responsibility for doing something about our situation today. Just because you're responsible for your life doesn't mean that you're to blame for all that has happened to you. We often end up in the situations we're in through no fault of our own; however, it is our responsibility to use the power we have to make the best of our lives.
Let me give you an example. When I was being beaten up by bullies as a kid, I learned to become passive and not fight back. I would let them beat me up until they got bored and went away. It was a strategy that worked to some degree at that time, but does not work as an adult. There is a sense in which I had no other choice at that time. Given my background, my personality, and the religious beliefs I had been raised with, this was really the only option available to me. However, it was still a choice, my choice. I chose to become passive. I actively made a decision on some level of my mind not to fight back. This is the difference between blame and responsibility: because I made the choice, I took power in that situation, and that means that today, I have the power to unchoose that same decision, and no longer be passive. I can choose to act differently today because I own the fact that I chose my initial response back then. There is no blame in this picture. Instead, it is a position of power. By owning the choice I made, I claim power today over my own life.
The confusion lies in when we mix up making a conscious choice with being to blame. If I say it wasn't my fault, they hurt me, I cound't do anything - I become a helpless victim of the situation. And then I tend to live in victimhood the rest of my life. Saying we chose our lives is an attempt to avoid victimhood. But the implications of stating it that way are very dangerous. To say we chose a life of suffering and abuse is a hair's breadth away from saying we were our own abusers. Would we wish a life of suffering on those we love just so that they could learn something from it? If not, why would we do that to ourselves?
There's the possibility that this belief is so popular today because of unconscious guilt, low self esteem, and the desire to blame ourselves for what happened. By making ourselves the cause of our own suffering, we may be unconsciously satisfying a desire to be the guilty one, the one to blame for the suffering we have gone through. Now we have someone to blame, and it is ourselves.
The flaw in this thinking is the belief that if something bad happened, then someone is to blame for it. This is pure denial of the fact is that bad things sometimes happen for no reason at all. The rock that rolls down the hill and smashes your car did not do so because you needed punishment or needed to learn some lesson. The parent who abused you did not do so because you deserved abuse. It was actually not about you at all. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There is often not a reason why something happened, and no pre-planned lesson to be learned. But given what we experience, good or bad, we have the life and capability to learn things from it so that our power is increased by the experience, not diminshed. We can walk out of a situation where we were truly helpless and learn how to gain power so that it will not happen again. The learning comes because we make good out of a bad situation, not because we chose to go through the suffering. There is unlimited suffering we could choose, if suffering were a good thing. It is not. But we can learn from it when it does happen to us.
So, claim your life, take responsibility for making the best out of bad things that happen, and let go of the need to blame or explain why.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
A call to humility
I have heard many, many tales of evidence of the supernatural - phenomena that defy any rational or known scientific explanation. I myself have had experiences which I cannot adequately explain, and which could easily be used as evidence of spiritual forces beyond what is known or provable. Many of the people who believe seem very sure, even adamant at times, of the validity of their beliefs.
But conviction is often nothing more than the inability to consider alternatives, and those who argue with such passion for their conviction often are unwilling to truly entertain the possibility that they might be wrong, that there may be a much simpler explanation for what they have experienced than the existence of spiritual forces.
The world seems to consist of two kinds of people - those who tend to accept personal experience as significant evidence of forces beyond the obvious, and those who prefer to stick to what is proven, scientific, or rational.
The world is full of mysteries that have not been solved, at least not to everyone's satisfaction. From conspiracy theories to the existence of God to the belief that eating certain foods will cure cancer or that recycling will stop Greenland from melting, there are those who seem to want to believe in a world where special, exciting, extraordinary things can happen, and there are those who seem to find comfort in only accepting things that have rational, provable or at least likely explanations, and consigning everything else to coincidence or foolishness.
Extraordinary claims, in my mind, deserve a lot of respect. It is an all too common human fallacy to throw out inexplicable phenomena because it doesn't fit in with what we have already decided is true. The examples of conventional wisdom that turned out to be untrue are numerous. To keep an open mind means to consider everything, and to be very aware of the assumptions we carry that may cause us to discount beliefs that don't fit our comfort level.
But the flip side is also important to consider. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it is definitely more exciting for many to live in a world of angels and demons and conspiracies and dark forces, than one that always consistently follows the laws of physics. Why else would sci fi and fantasy literature and games be so popular, if we did not find them exciting? That tendency can slant us towards believing something that we otherwise might dismiss.
In the end, humility is called for, both in skeptics as well as believers. It is a huge mysterious world, and none of us know it all. The conviction that the mystical is impossible, like the conviction that it is real, may be nothing more than the inability, or the unwillingness, to consider alternatives.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
New Age Fallacy #2: "You can manifest anything you want"
The belief that you can manifest anything you want has become very popular, and has motivated many people to believe in themselves more highly, to take more risks, and to overcome self-doubt. But like many similar grandiose statements, it can also cause tremendous suffering in those who accept it without critical thinking.
Let's start with the obvious. If anyone on earth has ever wanted to manifest flying to the moon, or living forever, or creating a pile of gold the size of a mountain, it is fairly obvious that no one has yet succeeded in doing so, or we would have known about it. If it were possible to live forever, there would be people thousands of years old still alive today. And while these and many other grandiose desires are fairly common among our race, it's pretty obvious that most people do not get what they hope for. Even if we believe these feats were possible, the chances that we will be the first person to manifest such a feat in the course of history are quite remote. Clearly, the belief that we can literally manifest anything we want is absurd.
However, there is a critical spiritual truth buried in this statement which we do not want to miss in our literal analysis. It is well known that having positive attitudes and expectations can increase the chance of certain desires and goals being met. The person who is confident in his ability to achieve what he wants is much more likely to succeed than the person who expects to fail. There are countless examples of people who have succeeded beyond odds at achieving something astounding that no one would have bet on. People have been ridiculed for attempting outlandish goals, sometimes facing scientific or rational thought "proving" it was impossible, only to have the "impossible" happen. And if we limit our beliefs, and give in to "common sense", we may actually prevent the outcomes that we dream about. Life is truly full of these kinds of miracles - people who can dance who were told they would never walk again, people from the ghetto rising to a high position, people creating technology that accomplishes what no one thought could ever be done. Clearly, we do not want to eliminate the possibility of some of the greatest miracles of our lives.
However, just because there is an occasional unexpected miracle doesn't suddenly cause us to have absolute power over the universe to make anything happen that passes through our minds. The person who believes he will win a game of tennis is more likely to succeed in his goal than the person who believes he will fly when he jumps out of a window. The outcome is not determined by confidence - no amount of faith will lift his body one inch above its default trajectory. A probability of zero is still zero after being multiplied by a million.
Miracles are by definition rare, and there are even more examples of people who have tried to accomplish something for years, only to learn the hard lesson that they must let go of their dream, and pursue something that is more realistic than what they wanted. This, too, is reality, and cannot be ignored. One of the hardest decisions for someone to face is whether or not to give up on a dream, or to try yet one more time. There is no one answer that fits all. Our decision is ultimately a judgment call, based on reality and intuition, and when we do finally decide to give up, we can never know what would have happened if we had kept going. It is part of the human dilemma to live with the question of what could have been.
What is being missed here is that we are not the only force in the universe. We are not all-powerful, we do not get everything we want, we are not in ultimate control of how the universe operates. The belief that we are all-powerful comes directly from infancy, when we all had the magical belief that we were the center of the universe, and everything existed for our benefit. It can be a harsh awakening when an infant first realizes that there are forces that his life is dependent upon, which are nevertheless completely outside of his control, and that he is forced to be dependent on an external force that inexplicably tends to his needs. This is where we first learn undeserved love; we are cared for without doing a thing to earn it.
This belief in personal power is promoted partially to counteract our tendencies to feel and behave like a victim; and yet, the fact is, we *are* often powerless in the face of other forces and situations. Why is it so important to acknowledge our limitations? Because, just like the belief that suffering is optional, the belief that we can do anything creates shame, confusion, and self-judgment when something fails to materialize. We think we did something wrong if we did not get what we wanted, or tried so hard to get.
So how can we acknowledge and live with our powerlessness without falling into the trap of victimhood and apathy? By stopping our demands that the universe behave a certain way, and starting to engage in a dance - if we learn about life, we get to know its rules, and we start to discover the opportunities that life hands us, not the power we fantasize we have just because we want to be all powerful. Instead of demanding our way, we can "ask" - we can try, and believe, and move forward with hope, all the while keeping the humility of knowing that we are not all-powerful, and that the outcome is dependent on many things other than our own ego and desire.
We are in a dance with life. We are dancing with an extraordinarily complex and beautiful partner, and we can only experience that beauty when there is respect for both partners, not demands that the other do as we dictate. And when there is a flow between ourselves and life our partner, when we have learned the rhythm of the dance and how to put ourselves in sync with it, then we will know what is truly possible, and we will find ourselves asking only for what life is already prepared to offer us.
Let's start with the obvious. If anyone on earth has ever wanted to manifest flying to the moon, or living forever, or creating a pile of gold the size of a mountain, it is fairly obvious that no one has yet succeeded in doing so, or we would have known about it. If it were possible to live forever, there would be people thousands of years old still alive today. And while these and many other grandiose desires are fairly common among our race, it's pretty obvious that most people do not get what they hope for. Even if we believe these feats were possible, the chances that we will be the first person to manifest such a feat in the course of history are quite remote. Clearly, the belief that we can literally manifest anything we want is absurd.
However, there is a critical spiritual truth buried in this statement which we do not want to miss in our literal analysis. It is well known that having positive attitudes and expectations can increase the chance of certain desires and goals being met. The person who is confident in his ability to achieve what he wants is much more likely to succeed than the person who expects to fail. There are countless examples of people who have succeeded beyond odds at achieving something astounding that no one would have bet on. People have been ridiculed for attempting outlandish goals, sometimes facing scientific or rational thought "proving" it was impossible, only to have the "impossible" happen. And if we limit our beliefs, and give in to "common sense", we may actually prevent the outcomes that we dream about. Life is truly full of these kinds of miracles - people who can dance who were told they would never walk again, people from the ghetto rising to a high position, people creating technology that accomplishes what no one thought could ever be done. Clearly, we do not want to eliminate the possibility of some of the greatest miracles of our lives.
However, just because there is an occasional unexpected miracle doesn't suddenly cause us to have absolute power over the universe to make anything happen that passes through our minds. The person who believes he will win a game of tennis is more likely to succeed in his goal than the person who believes he will fly when he jumps out of a window. The outcome is not determined by confidence - no amount of faith will lift his body one inch above its default trajectory. A probability of zero is still zero after being multiplied by a million.
Miracles are by definition rare, and there are even more examples of people who have tried to accomplish something for years, only to learn the hard lesson that they must let go of their dream, and pursue something that is more realistic than what they wanted. This, too, is reality, and cannot be ignored. One of the hardest decisions for someone to face is whether or not to give up on a dream, or to try yet one more time. There is no one answer that fits all. Our decision is ultimately a judgment call, based on reality and intuition, and when we do finally decide to give up, we can never know what would have happened if we had kept going. It is part of the human dilemma to live with the question of what could have been.
What is being missed here is that we are not the only force in the universe. We are not all-powerful, we do not get everything we want, we are not in ultimate control of how the universe operates. The belief that we are all-powerful comes directly from infancy, when we all had the magical belief that we were the center of the universe, and everything existed for our benefit. It can be a harsh awakening when an infant first realizes that there are forces that his life is dependent upon, which are nevertheless completely outside of his control, and that he is forced to be dependent on an external force that inexplicably tends to his needs. This is where we first learn undeserved love; we are cared for without doing a thing to earn it.
This belief in personal power is promoted partially to counteract our tendencies to feel and behave like a victim; and yet, the fact is, we *are* often powerless in the face of other forces and situations. Why is it so important to acknowledge our limitations? Because, just like the belief that suffering is optional, the belief that we can do anything creates shame, confusion, and self-judgment when something fails to materialize. We think we did something wrong if we did not get what we wanted, or tried so hard to get.
So how can we acknowledge and live with our powerlessness without falling into the trap of victimhood and apathy? By stopping our demands that the universe behave a certain way, and starting to engage in a dance - if we learn about life, we get to know its rules, and we start to discover the opportunities that life hands us, not the power we fantasize we have just because we want to be all powerful. Instead of demanding our way, we can "ask" - we can try, and believe, and move forward with hope, all the while keeping the humility of knowing that we are not all-powerful, and that the outcome is dependent on many things other than our own ego and desire.
We are in a dance with life. We are dancing with an extraordinarily complex and beautiful partner, and we can only experience that beauty when there is respect for both partners, not demands that the other do as we dictate. And when there is a flow between ourselves and life our partner, when we have learned the rhythm of the dance and how to put ourselves in sync with it, then we will know what is truly possible, and we will find ourselves asking only for what life is already prepared to offer us.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
New Age Fallacy #1: "Suffering is Optional"
A popular statement going around in new age circles is "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional". As with many clever sounding statements, it catches the attention - who wants to suffer? If suffering is optional, who wouldn't want to choose to avoid or eliminate it? It appeals to everyone, because everyone suffers sometimes, and this promises hope of delivery from that pain.
And yet people continue to suffer, and often suffer horribly. If suffering is optional, it makes it seem that those who are suffering are suffering needlessly, and thus foolishly. If suffering could truly be easily eliminated, who would not eliminate it?
This belief can cause much more suffering than it relieves. Tell someone dying of cancer that they are suffering needlessly. If they make the mistake of listening to you, they may wonder what is wrong with them that they continue to suffer when they don't need to. They may wallow in guilt believing that they could do something, and they should know how to do it, and thus are to blame for not stopping it. If one believes that continued suffering is the result of something they are doing wrong, the suffering is compounded. To suggest to a suffering person that their suffering is needless is horribly cruel if there is in reality little that can be done.
There is, of course, a truth that this philosophy is trying to express, although it does so very poorly. Sometimes, our suffering comes from beliefs we hold about the world or about ourselves, and it is very possible to free oneself from that suffering through letting go of our story. In some situations, it may be true that all of our suffering around a particular situation comes from our own beliefs and attitudes, and letting go of those beliefs can create instant relief and freedom. This is indeed a precious and wonderful truth to learn, and the person who learns this can live a much happier life.
However, it is a bit absurd to claim that "suffering is optional", which implies that all suffering is optional. Even when our beliefs are the cause of our suffering, beliefs are often deep, unconscious, and difficult to change, sometimes difficult to even discover, and it is a rare thing indeed that anyone achieves a mindfulness that causes no suffering whatsoever. And as for other conditions like cancer, eliminating suffering through mental control is a herculean feat that very few people will ever accomplish.
Suffering is a natural part of life. There is no reason to blame ourselves or others for suffering - some suffering is normal and inevitable. Too often we blame suffering on the victim. Sometimes, it is true we do cause our own suffering, in part or in total. Sometimes, suffering is just a part of life, and we have no control over it at all. But glib statements such as "suffering is optional" are at best misleading, at worst horribly cruel. Pause and think before you spout your favorite one-liner to someone whose pain you do not fully understand.
And yet people continue to suffer, and often suffer horribly. If suffering is optional, it makes it seem that those who are suffering are suffering needlessly, and thus foolishly. If suffering could truly be easily eliminated, who would not eliminate it?
This belief can cause much more suffering than it relieves. Tell someone dying of cancer that they are suffering needlessly. If they make the mistake of listening to you, they may wonder what is wrong with them that they continue to suffer when they don't need to. They may wallow in guilt believing that they could do something, and they should know how to do it, and thus are to blame for not stopping it. If one believes that continued suffering is the result of something they are doing wrong, the suffering is compounded. To suggest to a suffering person that their suffering is needless is horribly cruel if there is in reality little that can be done.
There is, of course, a truth that this philosophy is trying to express, although it does so very poorly. Sometimes, our suffering comes from beliefs we hold about the world or about ourselves, and it is very possible to free oneself from that suffering through letting go of our story. In some situations, it may be true that all of our suffering around a particular situation comes from our own beliefs and attitudes, and letting go of those beliefs can create instant relief and freedom. This is indeed a precious and wonderful truth to learn, and the person who learns this can live a much happier life.
However, it is a bit absurd to claim that "suffering is optional", which implies that all suffering is optional. Even when our beliefs are the cause of our suffering, beliefs are often deep, unconscious, and difficult to change, sometimes difficult to even discover, and it is a rare thing indeed that anyone achieves a mindfulness that causes no suffering whatsoever. And as for other conditions like cancer, eliminating suffering through mental control is a herculean feat that very few people will ever accomplish.
Suffering is a natural part of life. There is no reason to blame ourselves or others for suffering - some suffering is normal and inevitable. Too often we blame suffering on the victim. Sometimes, it is true we do cause our own suffering, in part or in total. Sometimes, suffering is just a part of life, and we have no control over it at all. But glib statements such as "suffering is optional" are at best misleading, at worst horribly cruel. Pause and think before you spout your favorite one-liner to someone whose pain you do not fully understand.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Many healing paths
I am often dismayed at how much negativity there is in healing communities towards other healing paths. I recently listened to a conversation putting down the Landmark Forum. I did Landmark, and while I did not find it remarkable, and did not like the pressure, there are certainly good things to be learned there, and I have many friends who point to the Forum as the significant changing point of their life.
Likewise, 12 steps programs, as tame as they seem to me today, were my turning point, and I will forever remain grateful to them. It was the first time in my life that I was ever really heard, and it transformed me, perhaps more than anything else I have done.
There is a tendency to develop a loyalty towards whatever system has provided us with healing, and we forget that there are many paths out there, any of which can lead to healing and transformation.
Another story from my fundamentalist past - when I was growing up, there was a controversy in my church about Bible translations, and there were some more liberal translations being circulated which our church railed against because some favorite verses had been changed. We actually went out and told people not to read "The Good News Bible", one of those translations we didn't like. We even spent money printing "tracts" that told people why they shouldn't read it. Get that? A fundamentalist church discouraging people from reading the Bible? You would think we would be glad that people read *any* version of the Bible, but no, we were too stuck in our little world to be able to see that. It had to be our way, and none other.
I've known so many wonderful healing systems, including RC, New Warrior, Shalom Mountain, Seven Oaks, New Culture, 12 Steps, on and on, each of which think they are the only ones with the truth, or the best truth, and the only ones saving the planet psychologically, each of which has wonderful things to teach, but each of which sticks to themselves because no one else has the truth like they have it. Healers wind up isolated from each other, ignorant of the other methodologies out there, unaware of the huge mass of people on this planet all working for healing, thinking their little group is the world's only hope.
How much better if we could just see and acknowledge the huge force for healing and growth that is inherent in us as humans, and that comes out in this wonderful variety of ways? How much more connected would we feel if we understood our little group was not the only one doing good on this earth? How much more hope would we have if we could see so many "competing" systems as really all wanting the same thing - the healing of humankind? Yes, we have all been wounded by systems that haven't worked for us - but they have worked for others. Let's heal from our prejudice first before we tear others down.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Integrating Death
Whenever I think about death, or serious illness, or being disabled, or some other tragedy striking me or someone I love, I feel a lot of distress. Most people would feel distress from these topics, I suppose. Yet it struck me today how odd this is.
We know from a fairly young age that any of these things, and many other tragedies, are possible, and do actually happen, and while the depth is often not driven home until we personally experience it, still there is a reaction that I would consider normal - fear, perhaps, or even anger.
What I discovered in myself, however, was a feeling of shock, as if I really had never believed these things would happen. If I hear of someone who had just gotten the news that they had terminal cancer, it would not merely be sad to me, or stimulate fear - each time it would be like a nasty reality that had rudely invaded whatever set of beliefs I had been carrying.
I am realizing that within my mind, I am busily constructing a story about life and the universe that does not include many of the facts of life - I am constructing a fantasy of how life is, despite my solid knowledge of pieces I now realize I am leaving out. I am systematically ignoring certain facts of life in building my story, so that I am continually shocked when one of these nasty facts hit me in the face.
The oddness of this is that, one would think that we as natural creatures, existing as the current end product of a long line of natural processes, with our intelligence and understanding, would have long ago integrated the basic facts of life into our story; that just as a dog or a bird knows instinctively how to live his life, and how to respond to normal occurrences of life, that we, too, knowing these facts, would have come up with a world view that had so incorporated them that they seem normal, natural parts of life, even if they are not desirable. It seems that healthy creatures who have lived in an environment where death and pain have existed for millions of years, would have somehow learned to integrate those facts into how they live life, and would expect these things to happen. A tragedy would happen, and while we might be sad, we would not be surprised or shocked, or have our world view shaken in any way, or lose our faith, or become full at rage at the universe, if these normal occurrences had truly been known and integrated.
Yet, how many people are totally unprepared for a death or a disability to strike near at hand? How is it that so many of us come out of these experiences shaken, even destroyed? Why is it that we, the most intelligent species on the planet, seem to be the only creature who has difficulty accepting the natural elements of life and death in the environment in which we live; indeed, the only environment we as a species have ever known?
"So, I'll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall."
I would like to know life as I would a lover - to know her good and bad sides, to accept her in all of her aspects, so that it is she I truly come to know, and not an illusion.
We know from a fairly young age that any of these things, and many other tragedies, are possible, and do actually happen, and while the depth is often not driven home until we personally experience it, still there is a reaction that I would consider normal - fear, perhaps, or even anger.
What I discovered in myself, however, was a feeling of shock, as if I really had never believed these things would happen. If I hear of someone who had just gotten the news that they had terminal cancer, it would not merely be sad to me, or stimulate fear - each time it would be like a nasty reality that had rudely invaded whatever set of beliefs I had been carrying.
I am realizing that within my mind, I am busily constructing a story about life and the universe that does not include many of the facts of life - I am constructing a fantasy of how life is, despite my solid knowledge of pieces I now realize I am leaving out. I am systematically ignoring certain facts of life in building my story, so that I am continually shocked when one of these nasty facts hit me in the face.
The oddness of this is that, one would think that we as natural creatures, existing as the current end product of a long line of natural processes, with our intelligence and understanding, would have long ago integrated the basic facts of life into our story; that just as a dog or a bird knows instinctively how to live his life, and how to respond to normal occurrences of life, that we, too, knowing these facts, would have come up with a world view that had so incorporated them that they seem normal, natural parts of life, even if they are not desirable. It seems that healthy creatures who have lived in an environment where death and pain have existed for millions of years, would have somehow learned to integrate those facts into how they live life, and would expect these things to happen. A tragedy would happen, and while we might be sad, we would not be surprised or shocked, or have our world view shaken in any way, or lose our faith, or become full at rage at the universe, if these normal occurrences had truly been known and integrated.
Yet, how many people are totally unprepared for a death or a disability to strike near at hand? How is it that so many of us come out of these experiences shaken, even destroyed? Why is it that we, the most intelligent species on the planet, seem to be the only creature who has difficulty accepting the natural elements of life and death in the environment in which we live; indeed, the only environment we as a species have ever known?
"So, I'll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall."
I would like to know life as I would a lover - to know her good and bad sides, to accept her in all of her aspects, so that it is she I truly come to know, and not an illusion.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Confessing and Forgiving All
When a hurtful incident occurs between friends who want to be reconciled, there will be something left undone if there are motives left unspoken, stories left unsaid, feelings left untouched. Yet sometimes we fear telling the other what really went on inside of us, for fear that will make it worse. We withhold, trying to make it less difficult; and we resent, feeling our pain has not yet been fully heard.
This does not work. Somewhere inside lingers the hidden shadow pieces that we don't want to share, the parts of us we do not love enough to let them be seen; and the connection between us is of necessity weakened, since we must now filter everything we share.
How can an incident ever be truly cleared, if we have not both confessed all, and forgiven all?
This does not work. Somewhere inside lingers the hidden shadow pieces that we don't want to share, the parts of us we do not love enough to let them be seen; and the connection between us is of necessity weakened, since we must now filter everything we share.
How can an incident ever be truly cleared, if we have not both confessed all, and forgiven all?
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