Forgive Everyone, Everything.
Ever notice how your pets don’t need much to forgive …you can leave them at home or yell at them for messing up and within a short amount of time they come around with a kiss or climb in your lap or be willing to go out and play. I have terriers who are relentlessly happy and have no time for grudges…they are my teachers on letting go into a new definition of forgiveness.
As we close 2021, I have a need for this new definition of forgiveness. Usually, we take it to mean that we overlook something in another person – or we get over some incident that hurt our feelings or in some way created an appearance of harm. After the holidays with family; even the family we could not see much in the last 2 years, something can arise that reminds us of why we never liked Uncle Harry. (how could I have forgotten how irritating he is). If you have watched any part of the news in 2021 you can find something that needs this new definition of forgiveness.
So here it is…”Anything that disturbs your peace” is the qualifier. Uh oh – how much peace did I have in 2021? Obviously we can begin with ourselves – all the ways we made life harder for ourselves and increased our stress levels– just now take a moment to forgive yourself for everything you thought, did or wanted to do…then we can move on to the people we believe are responsible for provoking all that misery (think Washington, the airlines, the CDC)…and from there we get to the personal assaults on us from so called friends and family
So, by now you must have something in mind that you can apply this way of forgiving everyone, everything towards. Step 1 – recognize that losing your peace of mind is a decision. It doesn’t look that way in the nano second, we move from responsive to reactive but nevertheless if we are honest, we see that we decided to forgo peace for conflict. Next step – know that you can decide to keep the peace no matter what. (in other words change your mind) Third step – release the entire story, situation or issue to the wisdom within …the place in you that knows that no one can take what is innately yours already. I have learned that Peace like many divine faculties is already my design -that all my years of pursuit brought me back to where I started…with my own wise, intuitive self.
As we enter 2022 it feels like a giant opportunity to clean house in our minds…to start fresh with no hangovers (figurative or literal) -and for me the best way to do that is to notice where I still have no peace in my heart around something, and allow my wiser self to rule. For all of us, I wish a peaceful transition to the New Year and a freedom to begin again.
To err is human, to forgive-divine. Alexander Pope
