Forgiveness.

Stop placing your growth and peace in the hands of other people.

The past few weeks, I’ve been thinking and feeling about forgiveness and acceptance. It’s also been a theme for my friends, but in different ways, because we are different people. Past relationships, outdated patterns, childhood wounds oh myyyyyy.

Ashley C. Ford, a stunning author who recently published her memoir Somebody’s Daughter (so good, like so so good, read it) writes about forgiveness and finding peace. I listened to her speak on Glennon Doyle’s podcast and literally had to pull my car over to write down this line:

‘Forgiveness is giving up on the idea that it was going to be different’.

My god. If that isn’t the most powerful bit of wisdom you’ve Ever Heard.

To embody forgiveness is to surrender hope that things were going to be different.      To relinquish your grasp from the ‘if only’.                                                                             To accept that it is like this now. Right now is like this.                                                                                 

Forgiveness opens up the space to keep growing.                                                                 It relinquishes the power that the situation or person had on you.                                                        The resentment, the pain, the drama, dissipates.                                                       Wishing things were different now, or had happened differently then, is only creating more pain. 
surrender. to what is, to what was, to what will be.

It’s like this now.

If it could have happened differently, it would have happened differently.

Decide to feel the feelings blocking the road to forgiveness and acceptance, because as we know: you prolong the freedom of healing when you don’t confront what is blocking you.

You’re right to be pissed! Let yourself be so angry you can’t even see! Punch the pillows, scream and rage dance and cry. You’re right to be angry! That was so fucked! I can’t believe that happened they are so wrong how dare they grrrrrrrrr.

You’re right to be so desperately heartbroken that you feel like an abandoned child. Of course you feel that way.

“When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out – because that’s what’s inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.” - Wayne Dyer.

Make sure you’re fully squeezed.

Don’t let that situation or that person impede anymore on your growth and happiness. It is essential for your health that you abandon the hope that the thing you’re pissed about will be resolved from anything other than feeling the feelings in your own heart. It’s our business to choose to feel our way through what’s present so that we can keep evolving. 

And then, the hurt inevitably transforms to something like yeah, that was fucked and also, ok. Ok, that happened. I will not repeat this pattern again. I’m done with this. That was fucked up and hurtful, and also I’m releasing that from inhibiting my life. 

Forgiving feels to me like a fiery resolve rooted in self-worth.

Stop expecting other people to give you what you need, because chances are, what you think you need is not going to come from them. There’s something deeper that comes from within you. Stop expecting you’ll get a heartfelt apology. Stop resisting feeling the hurt that is here, the sadness that maybe your experience will never be validated by the person you think you need it to be validated by. 

Stop placing your growth in the hands of other people. Take that power back, please, for the love of all that is good.

Sit with the question of ‘who have you not forgiven?’ And ‘what parts of yourself and your past have you not forgiven? 
And then go a layer deeper. What are you hoping that someone else will give you? What do you need to give up on? Where do you need to abandon hope?

Forgiveness cannot be forced. Feel your way through, and it will come.

(If you know what a lion’s breath is, now would be a good time to do a few. Breathe that shit out).

It’s like this now. 

xx maggie

p.s. Happy solstice! May you lay down what you’ve been lugging and breathe in the light.