As I began my day, getting back into some rituals that I established about a year ago, I pulled one of the Healing with Angels cards and the title was on Forgiveness. How appropo - I had just revisited self-forgiveness a few days before, with a cleansing sob along my bike ride and had just returned from an amazing family weekend, seeing folks that I had not seen either since my second wedding or the memorial for my second husband's passing.
My circle feels more complete as I shed the anger, disappointment, and sadness for what was not - and my orientation has always been to learn from, to understand and see the purpose of all the "shit" that happens in life.
Let's begin with a trip down memory lane on self-forgiveness. I had just received partial info that my labs were still not great - the ups and downs of the "report card" as I have so frequently called it over these years. Over this past month, I had also met with an astrological psychologist to look deeper into the places where I remain stuck - some over-arching themes that have been just so hard to transform - and learned so much more about my make-up and purpose in this life and what lessons I came to learn. What has been a common theme coming from all of my alternative and intuitive treaters is that I need rest, quiet time, and time to retreat into a more contemplative mode. The other very striking theme (all were quite profound however!) was that I see the good in people, their potential, and thus often choose relationships based on seeing this and when my partner is either unable or unwilling to live up to his/her responsibility, I become drained, over-worked and unable to sustain my center. This is not a blame on the other, but an observation of knowing what relationships will be sustaining for both vs draining for both.
It all started to make sense now. I began to sob on my bike ride, seeing myself as the little child trying to make up for dissension in my family, over-working in order to achieve (and that was a very strong ethic from my Dad - Good Better Best, May We Never Rest, Until the Good is Better and the Better is Best!), and choosing partners who were brilliant, talented, fun, charismatic, while having such unresolved issues that the relationships became unsustainable.
For years I had blamed myself for it all, and while cognitively I "got it", I remained stuck in repeating patterns that were self-destructive. Once I finished sobbing, I found myself at Chandler Hovey Park - the lighthouse park overlooking the harbor - and I was calm, comfortable and felt a loving acceptance for that inner child who had been wounded for so many years.
This feeling of forgiveness lasted through the weekend when I was seeing family from my second husband who passed away 15 years ago, not knowing what people knew, thought or felt about me. While I had resolved much of my challenging past with my husband, I did not know how others were feeling. And what is most important is that I did not care. Instead, I was excited to see people, to hear about their lives and to share in the happy occasion of my cousin's engagement. It was a wonderful time on so many levels - a happy occasion of the engagement and more importantly, the feeling of love, resolve and forgiveness for self and others.
Over the years, I have looked at challenges in relationships as opportunities for growth, to understand the larger meaning of the supposed "failure" and where I remained stuck, was while feeling some anger outwardly - the normal human evolution or recovery from hurt - it was the anger pointed inside that was most lethal. It festered, grew and for me, morphed into physical illness.
Physical illness is comprised of the emotional and spiritual self as well as the physical body. As you face challenges that appear stubborn, dig deeper for the place where self-forgiveness is needed.
Namaste,
Julie
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