Well I’ve been having a few of those lately. With the most recent coming today as I listened to one of my lectures.
We were discussing the Nine soul lessons and today’s topic was #2: Forgiveness.
Forgiveness of your parents…abuse…men…women…the world…self. I did about 10 years worth of therapy to learn to forgive my father…and then my mother because of my father…and then men, in general. Eventually I made my way around to forgiving myself for simply existing.
For several weeks now I’ve felt the need to write an apology of sorts…asking for forgiveness…from Thing 1 and Thing 2. I kept shoving the thought out of my mind…telling myself it wasn’t necessary. But after today, I think it is. Clearly there’s something I’m hanging onto…something I need to forgive myself for. So here goes…
Dear Thing 1 and 2:
I want to start by telling you that there wasn’t anything wrong with you. You…me…we were all doing the best that we could and unfortunately, our best wasn’t good enough to make our relationship work. Plan and simple.
Sure we can place blame if we chose to do so. We can point to specific circumstances and situations where one person treated the other far worse but when you boil it down, none of us are inherently bad people. I’m not a bad person…I just made some bad decisions.
At the time that we married, I was doing my best to move my life forward. I was still dealing with the effects of my childhood…many which I hadn’t even begun to understand or release. So when you married me, you married all that baggage. It’s a weight that I couldn’t withstand so it’s no wonder you couldn’t…our marriage couldn’t.
To make matters worse, I was living in such denial of the pain I was in. Of how scared I was to be alone…to be unloved…that I jumped into relationships as a broken person expecting the relationship to be anything but. I now know it doesn’t work that way. Life doesn’t work that way.
Not only was I not whole…not only did I not love myself…not only was I scared of facing my truth…but I never let you in to help me. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. Intellectually I knew my issues, but emotionally I was numb. My heart was closed off in order to protect it…which meant I was never able to fully give it to you. For that, I’m so truly sorry.
I’m sorry for any issues…for any traumas…it may have caused you. For anything that I left you to deal with…on your own…because I was incapable of helping you or myself.
I realize sorry doesn’t heal your wounds, but I hope the acknowledgment that I was the one holding back…pushing you away…hiding…does bring some relief. And that it’s not because of anything you did or didn’t do. It’s simply because of the situation.
To be honest, I needed these failures to finally get to such a low point that facing truths was the only way out. I’m just sorry if you were hurt…with any lasting affect…as a result. I’m hopeful that any lessons learned came much quicker for you. That you found yourself in a better place without me…and because of me.
You are a good human…with a good heart. I hope you have…will…can share that part of yourself with someone deserving. I hope you’ve been able to forgive the mistakes. If not, me…at least the situation.
I’m forgiving myself…and you for any blame I attempted to place at your feet. We deserve peace…to live and love to our fullest potential…and to do that requires complete release of that old energy.
Wishing you all the best.