Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an underused agent of healing for the symptoms of grief, so writes Sarah York in Remembering Well, Rituals for Celebrating Life and Mourning Death (2000).  It is not about forgetting. It is not about fairness. It is not about justice. It does not change the past, but it wholly transforms the present and future.  Many people confuse forgiveness with exoneration.  Forgiveness does not excuse someone from doing something wrong.  It does not alleviate their guilt or lessen their transgression.  Instead forgiveness accepts the past as it was, embraces the present, and faces the future.  Forgiveness is about self -respect, wellness, and enriching community. (Ira Byock, The Four Things that Matter Most) We do not have to wait until someone we love is dying, has died, or we ourselves are dying to practice forgiveness. 
Sogyal Rinpoche asks "Can you truly forgive yourself?  That is the real question. Your feeling of being unforgiven and unforgivable is what makes you suffer so.  But it only exists in your heart and mind.
For those who question the Divine's forgiveness he suggests " God has already forgiven you, for God, is forgiveness itself". York states that forgiveness is in the realm of Spirit-it is not controlled by reason or human will. And because of this mercurial nature of forgiveness you can not touch it and say this is the moment it happened., but you can intentionally enter into the moment, this moment, with a wholly irrational love of what is.  Like Ebenezer Scrooge waking on Christmas Day. Make amends where you can, clear misunderstandings, tell  and show people you care, live generously. The mending we do in our own grieving hearts will heal and bless us in our relationships.  And it will do more than that:  it will reconcile us with the holy order of the universe.  It will heal and bless the world. (York, 2000)

The Best Way Out is Always Through

This Robert Frost quote is the core of the foundation of what it means to do good grief work.  Good grief work, I believe, leaves us transformed. The Buddha stated "if your heart does not break a bit everyday, then you are not fully awake" (paraphrased).  The trick in grieving is to be able to feel your pain AND feel your joy. Oriah Mountain Dreamer in The Invitation, wrote "We are afraid of pain-emotional and physical-and we want to believe there is a way around experiencing our own sorrow, that we can avoid the pain and lose nothing of the fullness and joy of living. It's simply not true."  We try to anesthetize ourselves to avoid the pain. We move toward the healing without understanding and embracing what is actually lost. There are a number of numbing agents employed- food, drugs, alcohol, work, television, physical activity, sex, religion, doing good, arguments...
Mountain Dreamer continues "But I do breathe, allowing the sorrows of the world to break my heart over and over again, letting the joys make it whole again.  Knowing how to do this, finding the courage to take another breath and not close my heart to myself and to a world where there is pain, is what I seek to learn-how to love well.".
Starting today, in what ways can you take loving action, heal old and new wounds, breathe...embrace your broken-hearted humaness?