Forgiveness – Step One – Becoming Clear
On Monday I wrote a little story about how a young lady became aware of her conscience and began to realize the effects of her actions – when they began, where they came from, what was really happening, who they were harming, and why she was doing them. I called it step # 1 from the book -”Finding Forgiveness” – however it was more like step # 1 in living. As the Buddha would say, the most important act we will choose in our life is the act of becoming aware. – AWARENESS!
Today I will begin to explain how in my life I have applied the act of awareness to – “Finding Forgiveness.”
Step One – Becoming Clear from – Finding Forgiveness by Eileen R. BorrisÂ
My first challenge was to understand and accept what forgiveness really was. For me forgiveness – is best explained in a simple prayer – The Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
For me becoming clear first required that I understood that my view of life was cloudy and that I needed to return ownership of some of my guilt and shame to the appropriate owners. This didn’t require me blaming or talking to anyone; it just meant that some of my dysfunctional thinking was my willingness to accept that I had taken on some of the distorted emotions of others as my own. I guess another way of looking at it would be that I needed to become willing to set personal boundaries and to be honest with myself as to what in life I could and couldn’t change.
Once I undertook establishing boundaries I was able to see more clearly who I was and who others were and I could begin to undertake the task of understanding what forgiveness meant to me.
For me forgiveness means finding inner peace and the physical and emotional calm that accompanies the release of my ego’s distorted judgment of others through harshness, anger and hate.
In addition I believe that forgiveness is all about me loving me – about me finding personal forgiveness and accepting that I am human and that my errors were actually exactly what I needed at the time, so that I could make better choices that would lead me to becoming a better person. This doesn’t mean I’m condoning, pardoning or accepting my behavior or actions that harmed others as OK or that the actions or behaviors of others that harmed me were Ok – BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T – in fact I must now be willing to go back and to be accountable for any harmful actions and make amends for them all. I’m also finding that this accountability and ownership of my behavior and actions also provides me with additional peace and serenity – BECAUSE – now that I own them I can control them and change them.
