Did anyone watch ‘The Mare of Easttown’? Everyone? If you haven’t, I highly recommend that you give it a spin. Don’t worry. I’m not about to drop a spoiler. I will share with you that a pervasive theme in the show is forgiveness. I know, I talk about forgiveness a good deal. Or at least I have spoken about it historically. Anyway, the theme resonated with me because I’ve been thinking an awful lot about the concept.
I’m going to share what might be a controversial notion. I know that everyone says you have to get to a place of forgiveness with any who wronged you to move on with your life and get to a place of happy (or even back to even). I agree, but also, I don’t. I know. Eek. Sure, I think forgiving others is a beautiful thing and I think that getting to the place of forgiveness can free you (generally speaking), but I think the most important forgiveness is that which we grant ourselves.
Actually, I’m going to get even deeper here and tell you that I don’t think we can truly and authentically forgive others unless we’ve already forgiven ourselves. I know you might be thinking ‘but I’m not mad at myself, or upset with me…’ Are you sure about that? Positive?
Let me share a story with you because I think it’s meaningful.
When I started writing my stories for this project I have been working on, I had this profound revelation. In addition to carrying around my scars and burdens, I was schlepping along a sort of self-loathing and anger. I had, along the way, created a narrative that was fundamentally structured around all the ways in which I fucked up.
Over the years, I tried to feel my way to forgiveness for some of the men who came into my life at various points, but I never even attempted to do the same for myself. The irony is that the same reasons why I deemed them worthy of clemency could have easily been applied to me, but I didn’t bother. I figured I would just get over it. I thought that each new relationship (romantic or otherwise), each tie that bound me to another human, would slowly break down and erase all the shitty feelings I had accumulated over the years.
That shouldn’t be an altogether foreign concept for anyone, because so many of us live life this way. If only I could meet someone new, I wouldn’t be hurting over the last person who broke my heart. If only I found a job that appreciated me, I wouldn’t feel so inept professionally. We think that the something new will somehow eradicate the shadow of the last (or the old?).
We’ve even come up with a catchy little phrase, haven’t we? Time heals all wounds. Does it? Sort of. Yes. But also, no. Time dulls the pain. Time grants us perspective. Time gives us space. Time doesn’t heal anything. We have to heal ourselves. I know you don’t want to hear that. You’ve lived for years with the understanding that eventually you will get to a place where you feel better all around. Like I thought that I would organically arrive at a place of forgiveness in time. I didn’t.
Here’s the tricky bit though. Are you ready? I thought I did. I felt better. I felt “healed” but then I caught myself in the act of hating myself. This wasn’t some mind blowing ah-ha moment. Not even close. They were sneaky little moments. Like? Like: I don’t get a great feeling about that person but I have the shittiest instincts in the world, clearly so….maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty.
Yeah. I had adopted a narrative that incorporated negative self-talk that punished me for the “mistakes” I had made. This was not positive energy that I was exuding in these little me moments. Oh no. I wasn’t telling myself that I had learned lessons and it was time to apply what I had come to understand. Nope. I was just chastising myself. I was mired and steeped in self-doubt and hesitancy. I was abiding by the axiom of I don’t know what I’m doing so it didn’t matter, and by ‘it’, I mean anything. My stories didn’t lead with anything positive. Not even close. They were more in the realm of ‘I wasted so much time’ and ‘if only I hadn’t done that’.
Don’t get me wrong, I needed to own my part in all my messiest messes. I just didn’t need to take it to where I did. I didn’t need to dig a hole, jump in and cover myself over with dirt so thick and cakey that there was no getting out.
Forgiving ourselves is a tricky game for so many reasons, least of which is admitting that we are flawed and that is human, oh, and we’ll probably fuck up again.
I have friends that tell me constantly that the universe is punishing them for some unnamed or identified issue. They did a thing and therefore, horrible shit is happening to them. What if they stopped thinking they deserve to be punished? How would they perceive the things that happen to them? What would the interpretation be? How would they reconcile and come out calm and peaceful?
Sometimes we cling to our inner rage at our own behavior because that sentiment is actually more comfortable than the alternative. You know what I mean? You’d have trouble accepting the shit that is happening to you if you thought it was completely nonsensical and insane, right?
My point is that we get secure in the knowledge of our own fuck-ups and fuckery and mistakes. We are more comfortable with shrugging our shoulders and calling ourselves broken then allowing ourselves to be forgiven and moving on. Forgiveness means a different kind of ownership and growth. Forgiveness means we need to move through things and figure things out and pave a new path. Being angry with ourselves feels infinitely more comfortable so that’s where we go and that’s where we stay.
Let me ask you something. What would you do with all the new free time you discover once you aren’t spending so much time regretting everything and feeling like shit?
Just saying.
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 