Tag: forgiveness

Owning My Stuff

 

“You’ve got to know yourself. You’ve got to know what ignites your magic, what fires your soul into performing majestic acts of love. You’ve got to know yourself so much that not even a hundred voices will drown yours. You’ve got to own yourself, this journey is all yours. All yours. No one can do it and you decide whenever you are ready to embark on it. Unlearn, learn, master yourself and love yourself or else they will define you and that’s a poisonous kind of life. That’s death.”
— Ijeoma Umebinyuo

 

I will not be a victim. Oh there have been times in my life where I’ve been hurt by the actions or thoughts of another and I have faced betrayal. In some cases I saw it coming and I let it happen anyway. Even when I hadn’t tho I learned to move on. I cannot let myself be haunted and poisoned by the actions of others. I have seen that happen too often. Not that I necessarily forgave them. There is for me a space of acceptance in between acceptance and continued self-victimization from the deeds of another. Not so much “I forgive you” as “It happened. You had your reasons and the script was played out. I hurt but I won’t carry the hurt because neither you nor I deserve it.” Finding this space has been a hard won victory for me. Yet for me to live in the realm of past pain is to deny myself both the present and the future. Likewise I have learned that past triumphs neither guarantees nor entitles me to present and future ones. Each moment is a new test of the spirit that requires coming to it as clean as possible.
Blessings, G

 

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Rainbow GoddessRainbow Goddess by G A Rosenberg

 

Wheel on FIreWheel on Fire by G A Rosenberg

 

Who do you allow to live in your head?

 

“Who do you allow to live in your head?”
–Randall Wolfe

 

Every time someone does or says something to us or for us that we think about afterwards we are renting them space in our heads. Sometimes its something simple as remembering with a smile someone who let us go in front of them in line. Sometimes it can be resentments and pain that we’ve held inside for decades. Is there someone growing up, a parent or relative perhaps that hurt you or said horrible things to you when you were a child and made you feel less than you are? Do you think about them every day and try to prove them wrong or worse yet right? Would you want that person as a roommate? Then maybe its time to kick them out of your head. It’s not easy. Part of it is learning how to forgive. Part of it is looking at that person from what you know now about what they were going through. I am not saying that this will make it right. Understanding and forgiveness will allow you to evict them gently so that your life can become better. There are so many people who by example and by deed make much better head mates. If you can’t think of anyone, sometimes being alone with those voices from the past no longer there is alright too.
Blessings, G

 

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Waiting For the MoonWaiting For the Moon by G A Rosenberg

 

UnderlyingUnderlying Chaos by G A Rosenberg

Journey to Forgiveness

“It’s not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you.”
― Tyler Perry

 

I know many people who had very painful childhoods. Either mistreated or neglected by their parents or others, they carried pain around with them for years. I don’t mean physical pain of course but those emotional scars that make intimate  connections with others so difficult. They know the cause of their problems but in many cases they are unable or unwilling to do the work necessary to get past this, Most often because they have  not yet learned to forgive.

Many of them will say they have forgiven their parents or others whom they identify as their victimizers. Many will say forgiven but not forgotten. They then will recount at length painful event after painful event in which they were the victim perpetuating both their role and reinforcing the memory adding yet one more crime to be forgiven, one more link in the chain that connects them to their past. Sometimes there is not even an external person whom we hold responsible but ourselves. This was my situation for years.

Forgiving is difficult. It means using our compassion to put ourselves into the heads of someone we’ve feared, hated or both for years and understanding why the do what they do. It means taking responsibility for our present and realizing that that was then, this is now and we are not going to let our past or the people in it keep us from having the kind of present and future that we deserve. Those are the true first steps to our liberation.
Blessings, G

 

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Masque2Masque by G A Rosenberg

 

Rippling SpiralsRippling Spirals by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 22 2012

“If one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that’s a lie…. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.”
Vincent Van Gogh

And now for something at least slightly different….

Journey Down the Dream Corridor… a story fragment in early draft

In my dream I was standing when I heard a voice, I was uncertain of the gender but it was soft and mellow

“Have you forgiven yourself yet?

I started walking or at least moving like I do in dreams and walked into the next room
A woman was there, unfamiliar and yet known. Heavy set yet short with a face framed by brown hair, looking old fashioned but sweet with eyes that shone like they used to maybe with a touch more weariness

“Rosante?” I asked

“Yes, its been awhile.”

“It’s been thirty-two years since Jan forbade me from seeing you again. Because i…”

“Because you told me you knew about me and Jan. That he would touch me and ask me to touch him. I’ve never seen him so angry and I never felt so shattered. Or maybe so free.”

“He was my best friend”

“He was my brother and my lover. He was also yours”

“No, well only the two times” I laughed tho its the kind of laugh that scrapes glass across your inside.

“You wanted more.” She said softy not accusingly and took my hand. “I knew you didn’t want me for myself but for what I represented. A way to be closer to him”

“No.” i shook my head “That’s not true”. Tho I knew it was.. I felt my surroundings start to spin

“It’s ok. I moved on, got some therapy got myself together. You were kind to me. I forgave you long ago.”She moved over to a window I hadn’t noticed before.

“The question is have you forgiven yourself”

I thought I had. I had long ago reconciled with the loss of friendship not only of Jan but of Rose as well. I had felt guilty about that bit of innocence, my spoken knowledge and Jan’s anger had ripped from her but I had always thought that it was her that I wanted for herself. Could it have been all about Jan. He had been my first teacher in the realm of magic, spirituality, qabalah and Castaneda. He seduced me, saying he sensed that element in my nature. We had been roommates for a few years and occasionally double dated girls whom Jan worked with at the mall.

Then he introduced me to Rose and told me the story of the sister whom he comforted and held through the tyranny of their mother’s second marriage. The sister whom he took advantage of, describing to me all the times he had disrobed her of the negligees that he bought for her. I met her and fell hard or so I thought. Could it have realy been all about Jan?

Still it had been so long ago. It taught me discretion and that sometimes it is better to not say what you know just because you have shared knowledge with another. I kept tabs for awhile. I found that Rose had started to date Jack, another friend and student of Jan’s so I figured in the long run no permanent damage was done.

Now I realized that I had wanted Rose not for herself but as an object of affection I knew what that felt like . I looked at Rose. “Yes..”
“Goodbye then,” she started fading and where she had been standing was a new door partly ajar

I heard the question again as I reached for the doorknob.

“Have you forgiven yourself?”

There will be more to the story as the Dream Corridor has many rooms and  forgiveness and redemption an ongoing process.
Blessings, G

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Inside the Dragon’s Mouth by G A Rosenberg

Funhouse Corridor in Chapel Perilous by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 11 2012

““The art of living…is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
― Alan Wilson Watts

Each time I left or someone else has. Each time I thought I had it together only to smash on the rocks, each time I hit a new low in despair or thought I had, one thing has kept me going. Life has been so strange, so unpredictable that I just can’t wait to see what will happen next. It’s not the cliche that each day can be the start of something new and different, its that each moment can be. Something precious that can’t and won’t come again. All it takes is a willingness to leave the past behind. That can be a rough one because sometimes the past is not finished with us nor us with it.

I don’t see myself as clinging to the past but the thing about travelling in spirals is that we come around again, if not revisiting an old moment at least gaining new perspective on it. It’s amazing sometimes the things we can learn to forgive ourselves for at least if we are willing to forgive the others involved as well.
Blessings G

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Phoenix Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Greetings From a Fractal Universe by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – February 28 2012

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
— Dalai Lama

In any vision that I can conceive of of a healthy society, love and compassion are crucial. Empathy is a close third. It’s not necessarily a matter of walking a mile in each other’s shoes as being willing to understand why they undertook the walk and perhaps be willing to rub their feet afterwards. Or perhaps that is taking the metaphor a bit too far.
Far too often we willfully misunderstand each other. I know that there have been people of whom I was so sure that I would disagree that as soon as they started talking I would listen carefully until they said one phrase that I could misconstrue as wrong. It didn’t matter to me that I was taking it out of context. I just wanted to prove them wrong. Eventually a friend helped me out of that, by rubbing my face in what I was doing. I gradually became aware of how often it was happening and started working on it. I at least hope that’s getting better.
Where were we? Oh yeah, love and compassion and perhaps allowance. Allowing people to be who they are not just in an embrace diversity tolerance way but in a way that we acknowledge their choices in the same way we acknowledge our own. While we’re at it that might become easier, once we start forgiving our own mistakes and be a bit more compassionate and loving towards ourselves. Blessings, G

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Anima Awakening by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – January 14 2012

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”

— Bruce Lee

So many people I know, myself included find forgiving others  to be relatively easy. Sometimes letting go of the hurt can be a lot more difficult. What about forgiving ourselves? In the past I have put so much effort into covering up my mistakes rather than admitting them that I totally lost site of something key. When I cover up a mistake I’ve made, I keep myself in the mistake, and  it becomes almost impossible to forgive myself. When I admit to  to myself (and almost always that first admission feels necessary) and then others, I can get past it and forge a new reality where that mistake no longer happens. Also the mistake of dishonesty starts getting cleared up to. But deception of self and others will be a topic of another quote and day. Namaste, G

Tomorrow, I will announce the winner of the December Art contest.

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BirdsFlying in a Strangely Angled Sky by G A Rosenberg

Thoughts

I know a lot more than I believe I do
I know a lot less than I believe I do
I forgive me but sometimes its difficult

Just as not all extraterrestrials have the same agenda
the same is true of starseeds
Different groups have different agendas
attributing positive or negative motivations to them may cause errors in judgement

“You are yourself when you feel good in the moment”

I forgive me for doing the things I do until I no longer need to do them. I would hope that it is sooner rather than later
Finding that voice within…Until I learn to listen I can hear it in the voices of others
When I learn to listen, I hear it in the voice of everyone

Loving abstractly is not difficult…Loving each person, feeling love in every moment feels a lot more so…still the more I feel love, the easier it seems to feel it more often .
Lots of clearing stuff coming up of late…Emotions range out of control and then great clarity

More Randomness

Write rite right?

Is true love something we learn
or is it what is left after we unlearn
what society programs into us?
scales fall from my eyes and from my heart
and I see you
and perhaps myself
through new eyes…
Forgiving for living the past
as the future offers such promise
The cynic got lost somewhere along the way
tho sometimes i feel him trying to find his way home
No welcome may be found
tho he looks to crawl in behind my eyes
love and hope block the way

The spiral has been expanding..