Swimming is a great meditation and source of ideas for me. Something about moving through the water just makes everything flow. Getting into the swimming pool yesterday, I found myself in a state of lane confusion. Each lane had one occupant, and the medium speed lane (where I usually swim) had a very, VERY, slow occupant! Where to go? What to do? Within the lanes, there are directions – you stay on one side of the lane going up, and the other side coming back. But the fellow in the medium lane was firmly parked in the middle of the middle lane. I tried the polite things – like splashing loudly behind him, but he didn’t seem to notice, so I went for the overtaking move. Logically, you overtake on the outside. So I did. And as I did, I caught his hand. He was pissed off, I said something about swimming on the correct side of the lane, and swam off, and settled into my flow. Except it just wouldnt’ come, My encounter with this old boy kept replaying and replaying. I tried doing a forgiveness ritual while swimming along, but I couldn’t swim and forgive at the same time! So in the end I settled for swimming as exercise, and resolved to do the forgiveness thing later. After my swim I went straight to the sauna (I’ve been sauna’ing since I was 16 and it’s another source of flow for me). Sitting in the heat, the forgiveness came easy, the sense of perspective was so clear. And forgiveness done, the ideas started to flow again. But it did make me reflect on how one tiny act of irritation can gum up the works. This was not some major relationship crisis or traumatic incident. This was two people squabbling over a bit of space in the water. But my non-forgiveness blocked all my usual flow and joy that I get when swimming. Ideas ceased. I fixated on the problem (tiny though it was) and it blocked all my creativity, and disempowered me. I’ve forgiven him (I couldnt even see him properly, let’s face it), and in my universe he’s forgiven me, and actually I am rather grateful to him for making me learn this lesson and consider this question. What about the bigger, recurring non-forgivenesses, the ones that really take up time and energy? I don’t THINK I have many of them left now. My partner (who I value more and more with every day that passes) still has the capacity to irritate me intensely, and I do sometimes connect with old memories where there is forgiveness to be done. But there is very little of this big stuff that I am consciously aware of. At the same time, I can remember a time, not that long ago, when I was so bitter, and full of disappointment, grudge and revenge. The weird thing is this. In a business sense, this gave me a drive. I was probably more successful financially when I still did that shit. But in an emotional, personal, and spiritual sense, I am so, so thankful that I have left it behind. (Doesn’t stop me creating new ones though :) ) My hope for you in this forgiveness challenge is that you will able to get a perspective on some of those things you are still holding on to, and start to forgive yourself. Because that really is where it all starts. Forgive yourself for being the less than totally perfect parent/child/sibling/partner/human being that you think you ought to have been, Forgive yourself for not yet having let go of ‘it’ or ‘them’ (whatever ‘it’ or ‘them’ are) – particularly if all rational logic tells you that you should have forgiven by now. When I realised this, it really was a major step in recovering from depression. We all stand at the centre of our own universe. From where I stand, everything is filtered through my filters. From where you stand, everything is filtered through yours. The bad news? Can’t change that. The good news? When someone does something and our reaction is to feel hurt, it actually isn’t about them, it’s about us. It’s always about us. Which means we can change it because, after all, the only person we can change is ourselves.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 11:37:00 +0000
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