On my very first trip to Rome, with more bravado than sense, I made the trek from Fiumicino Airport to my pensione by train, metro, and foot.  Complicating that trip was my 27”, green, two-wheeled suitcase.  It was impossible to put it in the overhead rack on the train, difficult to maneuver into the crowded metro, and a shoulder-wrenching struggle to pull it over the cobblestone streets.  Sweaty and furious, not to mention pissed off with cobblestones, I contemplated leaving the damn suitcase in the middle of the street and simply walking off—unattached, unfettered, un-resentful.

In retrospect, it makes for a great story; nevertheless, it remains a very real memory, though one without the feelings and self-criticism attached.  Were I, or you, able to untether ourselves as easily from our stories (our metaphorical suitcases), those which create so much pain and fury and hatred through an act of self-forgiveness, we empower ourselves to live.  Live, unencumbered and open, with a kindness and a compassion towards ourselves and others.

What is Forgiveness?

The lineage of a word can create a new perspective.  Generally, as with many common words, forgiveness has swaddled itself in street meaning.  For instance, if one perceives that s/he is not the “alpha dog”, there is the survival mechanism of defensive posture.  For others, forgiveness is not survival mode, it is simply abject humiliation of the most personal sort.  Or, we consider the equally charged meaning of forgiving a loan; in effect, wiping the slate clean.

Always, forgiveness implies “wiping the slate clean” within the interpersonal context.  Whether one ceases to feel resentment, anger, or hatred towards another or oneself, there is a process through which we go to wipe the slate clean.  However we begin the surrender of our “right” to get even and move toward the emergence of a desire for the other’s welfare, we are engaged in an act of love.

What and Why are We Forgiving

Every one of us has a story of an incident that has forever changed us and for which our mouths screw up with the bitterness of remorse, regret, and self-hatred when a behavior, an action or a word shows up in our world.  Have you refused to put a pet in great pain to sleep because of your need for them?  Or, have been driving, while chattering on your mobile phone & hit someone’s car?  Then, there might be the vicious words which you used time after time with a co-worker or friend, the acrimonious divorce, the rages directed at a spouse or a child.  Perhaps, it was the time you did not help a friend with the electric bill when they had no money.  Were you too busy to visit a family member when they were dying?  What is it that has triggered such pain in your life?

These are the “whats” of forgiveness, the situations, the events.  The stories, and they are stories, can be as unique as the person suffering and as universal as the race consciousness in which we are all acculturated.  They are the stories, which, over time, have been polished and cherished until they may bear little resemblance to the event that occurred.  What has not changed is the shame and the heaviness and the regret.  In fact it has deepened.

The “whys” of forgiveness are pretty simple if you can acknowledge (1) the medical benefits of reduced stress, anger and depression and (2) the spiritual benefits of living in the present as an authentic being.  If you can agree to these two points, there is just one “why” we need to forgive ourselves.  We release a “story”, a fiction from our past, to engage with today. We own our mistakes and see them for what they are.

Processes of Possibility

Research, religious tracts, self-help books, and not to forget the neighborhood grocery store cashier, have all kinds of advice on how to go about forgiving yourself. I have read and tried quite a few of the methods, yet little seemed to “stick” in my quest to embrace me, accept me, love me. I needed to find a way as Fr. Richard Rohr says, of “letting go…to forgive ourselves for doing wrong.”  I cannot, he notes, “reject the mysterious side, the shadow side, the broken side, the unconscious side” of myself but see them for what they are.

Rohr’s advice coupled with Rev. David Bruner’s observations about the committee members frequently commandeering the streets of his mind and Debbie Ford’s shadow work, gave me my way into self-forgiveness!!

A Breath of Freedom Does Come

Over the span of several weeks, I created my personal Committee Tree, Ancestral Tree, Family Tree (I still haven’t settled on a good name!). During my process, I discovered children of the Light and children of the Shadows living inside. I named them and put them on a tree. I had Bethany the Bully and Ivy the Invisible and Ginny the Generous, etc. etc. etc.  It became freeing just to see who was living inside, who was badgering me, who was hugging me and who was watching me.

Most importantly, I resisted denying and repressing these members by delving into when they were born and why. It was but a step, then, to identify the committee member(s) who held the most power in opening up the pains, wounds and hurts in my past. From recognition, I could then move to welcome and, finally, to release.

By engaging with my many committee members, I am coming a small step closer to understanding what triggered the response in order that I embrace and release that wound.  I am coming to love these broken sides of me and give up any sense of superiority about my woundedness.  I am not certain when it will occur but I am holding out for Rohr’s “I am who I am who I am.”