My conclusions...

Many thanks to everyone who weighed in on my last question.

It was a dilemma of sorts because, on one hand, I really need to know when it is time to set boundaries on other people ~ and how. At what point do I have the right to say "no more"? How much do I contribute to separation by allowing my ego to demand certain things of others? Decency, of course. Kindness is what I choose in my friendships and I am drawn to people who are kind. I don't care for inconsiderate, careless or thoughtless people. That's not ego. That's simply respect for my own existence. Being a person of grace doesn't mean that we become doormats for everyone else's bad behavior.

In the case of my mother, I have forgiven her. At the same time, I don't sanction her behavior. I don't choose to have a relationship with her. She may have grown a lot in the past 20 years which is the approximate length of our estrangement. What I do know is that she has never approached me.

I behaved similarly for many years. I was a rather heartless person and didn't show much compassion for other people. That was a direct result of my mother's modeling.

She cost me a lot of years because I didn't know any better. It cost me many years that I could have spent in community and didn't because I was such an unappealing person.

The cycle has to end somewhere. We can show compassion to another person without becoming emotionally involved in the outcome. We can do it without becoming attached. If we know that some action will deliberately hurt someone else, then we contribute to the suffering of all of us.

I will acknowledge her in the same way I would acknowledge any other woman who is a mother. It is not my job to be judge and jury, condemning her to something that I know would be hurtful and damaging not only to her but to the whole human community. That isn't balancing the scales. That's punishment.

She will get an email from me. Basically it will say something like "thinking of you". Nothing more. Nothing less. In that simple gesture, I know I am doing the best I can with a very difficult situation. While I can't be hypocritical and express feelings that are not genuine, I can wish her peace. I wish that for everyone.

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Hitting the Wall

"Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among those who love poorly. The hard truth is that all of us love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour - unceasingly. This is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family." -Henri Nouwen

Sometimes I forget that I can be safe. That is especially true when I am afraid of being left behind, afraid of being unloved, afraid of being abandoned. It's those times when I take seriously the idea of compassion ~ even for me. My claws can dig deep, especially when I am afraid.

And in that, I have often hurt other people. I haven't been willing to let go when the time is right. I haven't been able to truly wish them well.

Then I have to remind myself about the expansiveness of who we all are ~ an expansiveness that makes us capable of compassion when we thought it was impossible.

I'm learning that lesson right now as I got some news yesterday from my doctor that I would have preferred to not hear. Due to the actions of others, I have an illness that will never leave. I can't get rid of it. Can't will it away. Can't pretend it doesn't exist. It does and it affects my ability to connect to others in a meaningful way, in a way that comes naturally to most. "It's permanent but it's treatable," he said.

I spent the evening in a slow burn, wanting to exact revenge on those who perpetrated this damage.

Then in the dead quiet of night, I came to understand that I can not expect to be forgiven if I do not forgive, if I do not honor the woundedness that caused the abuse that changed the hardwiring in my brain.

When I think of the people who did this, when I hear other stories of those who have survived childhood abuse, I choose to see in meditation - the perpetrators and me - held by the heart that is larger than all of us ~ and at the same time, a part of us.

I can't help but see on some level that they were both children once, too. They both had hopes and fears. That way it becomes possible to somehow connect us, to make me understand a bit more.

While there are certainly degrees of hurt, I'm not sure there are differences in kind. What hope do I have of being held in that same large heart if I close mine to those who hurt me ~ but continue in my own human way to hurt others by hanging on so tight that it's difficult to let people go when they need to go?

If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Hide and Seek....

Julie asks "Have you kept a secret or have you lied, directly or by omission, about something big? How did you make your decision---did it bring about justice? How did forgiveness fit in (or not)? Would you do it the same next time?"

Interesting question, of course. I'm not even certain how to answer it because the first thing that came to me is that I can't remember a time before five years ago or so that I wasn't living a lie.

Did I do it on purpose, for manipulation or deception? No. It was survival.

For many years, I held each thought, each belief, each experience to myself. Was that lying about something big? Absolutely. I was lying by omission about who I am... because I didn't have a me to share at that time.

The first 50 years of my life were lived in shame. How could I be such a misfit? How could I be so unworthy? My daily experience reinforced that belief. It took everything I had to believe I had a right to breathe.

Shame breeds secrecy. It wasn't so much a question of lying to protect who I am. The lying was to protect who I was not. I used imitation a lot. Since my own core was empty, I would imitate the people around me, even when I didn't like what I was doing. I knew nothing else.

Years of not knowing who we are, let alone how to live authentically, is something that becomes like the proverbial ball of yarn. The threads wind around and around until the core is barely accessible. I lived a life with alligator-infested moats around my true self, with a big drawbridge that flew shut at the slightest sign that the sandbags might get washed away. Because if they got washed away, the whole castle would crumble. To be exposed brought me to unspeakable terror.

If we're lucky, something happens that unravels it all, sometimes brutally, sometimes gently, but it is what finally lets us out of the prison of lying.

Still, the fact remains that I did harm to others. Each person, including my ex-husband, who got involved with me did not have access to the real me. They had access to the Potemkin image I'd created.

Eventually the Potemkin image was revealed. I groped around in the dark for a very long time to uncover what would become the me I am today.

Most of that occurred, of course, in Thailand. While I write and wax poetic about the place, it is also the place where a lot of my carefully constructed walls were broken down. I shed more tears than I like to admit while I was there but finally finding a place where the buried me felt safe to stop lurking led to a lot of healing.

The lying was the first to go. For me, finding a place to belong saved my soul. There was strength in the feeling that these are my people and this is my place in the world. This is where I am safe to be all that I am. What was born there in that place is what I brought back. The me that people seem to like and respond to in such a positive way was born in Khon Kaen. In that regard, my history has been rewritten.

So.. forgiveness. There's plenty of it to be had and to be given. Hurt is like anything else. It spreads like a virus and ultimately affects everyone it touches. Did my lying hurt people? I'm certain of it. Have they forgiven me? I doubt they even know.

This inevitably leads to the former questions of forgiving fate. In the final analysis, I suspect my life has gone just as it was intended to go, even the hard stuff. I don't feel the need to forgive it. My job is to accept it and grow from it.



Peace,


~Chani

The Tree of Forgiveness....

This post is about forgiveness and receiving forgiveness (which I call lovingkindness), prompted by Julie's question of the week.

When I received lovingkindness in the past, I didn't recognize it as a gift. In my immaturity, I believed it was the same as absolution, the same as saying my actions were okay, that I wouldn't be held accountable in this life or the next.

When I was in my early 20s, I was not a person anyone in their right mind would want to know. I was a low-functioning alcoholic with some pretty serious emotional issues.

My boyfriend at the time, Dan, and I were living together.

To put it as honestly as I know how, I treated him horribly. I was unreliable, unpredictable, unappreciative and exploitative. So, yes, I do know what it is to be a rotten human being. And without qualification, that is what I'd become. Rotten, selfish, inconsiderate and completely without regard for the feelings of others. Blaming the booze would be a cop-out. I think the booze just allowed me to reveal the darkest parts of me. You know, we all have a dark side but we choose how to express it. There are acceptable ways to do that.

I never chose an acceptable way.

I used Dan. These days, I can admit that. He provided me with security, gave me money, took care of me and demanded very little in return. Sometimes I look back and think he was experiencing what some women do when they are drawn to "bad boys". There was an excitement in being with someone as emotionally labile as I was, someone who created more drama than Paramount Studios and who just plain abused him.

I think he wanted to "save" me.

That is probably fairly close to the truth. I can say that with a degree of confidence because when I got sober, he lost interest in me. That's fairly standard. The dynamic of relationships change when one person gets sober.

When I'd been sober for a few years, I called him. He seemed legitimately happy to hear from me but also cautious.

The first thing I said was, "I've been sober for two years now..."

That was to assure him that I wasn't calling to create more drama.

Within my limited understanding of the concept of forgiveness at that time, I recited my wrongs to him like a litany and asked for his forgiveness.

In sobriety circles, it's called doing the ninth step. "We made direct amends to people we'd harmed, except when to do so would harm them or others."

Truthfully, I didn't know what the hell I was doing because I was still living on the edge of my own insanity. The only real difference is that I wasn't drinking. That doesn't mean my behavior was that much better. It was better controlled but certainly not eliminated completely. I was still very dramatic and immature. Everything was over the top.

Now when I look back on it, I realize what a gift he truly gave me. And it wasn't absolution. He was willing to put aside my imperfections, to understand that I'd made serious mistakes but in admitting them was making a commitment to change. He knew I didn't know exactly how to do that but the willingness meant something. The recognition that I needed to change was a relief to him. And he was smart enough to not even consider any further relationship with me. But he wished me well ~ and that meant a lot.

I'm very grateful for all the lovingkindness I've received in my life. There's no doubt that my background is one that is filled with quite a history of bad choices and equally bad behavior. Now that I'm older, I recognize what it means to be forgiven. I know how hard it is to put aside the wrongs of the past and let them go. Now that I have been in a position to offer lovingkindness to others, I know what it takes to give the gift I was offered freely and ill-deserved without conditions.

It may be just about as close to "godliness" as we humans can possibly get.

To let go.

To believe in another person enough to forgive.

To recognize our own frailty enough to know that lovingkindness is essential.

Yeah. Godliness. That's it.

Peace,


~Chani
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How does everyone like the new look around here? Isn't it beautiful?

It was created by TTQ. She talked with me by email to find out what I would like, read a lot of my archives to see what kind of person I am and designed this for me. It is just incredible to have someone make that much effort, to be that considerate, that caring about what I would like. For the record, I love it! Thank you, Linda. :)

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