yourintrinsicself

Forgiveness – Defining moment or lifelong maintenance?

In life we have many defining moments. Our first sporting match. Our first stage performance. Our first friendship.

Yet in between, and particularly following these defining moments, our lives are filled with maintenance. Our first sporting match leads to a life of enjoying that sport. Our first stage performance leads to a passion for theater. Our first relationship prepares us for what relationships might follow.

Forgiveness is no different. One might say it comes in fits and starts. I would prefer to say it comes in defining moments and maintenance.

Defining moments of forgiveness are beautiful in that they provide opportunities to breakthrough old patterns. One might struggle for 50 years to connect with their parent, and then have a moment of reconciliation that changes everything.

But it turns out that everything doesn't change at once!

These defining moments are beautiful, but over-estimating them to be complete and all-encompassing is a dangerous trap. The truth is that defining moments of forgiveness, just like our first sporting match or stage performance, are limited by their singularity. They are single defining moments. The maintenance that follows is where the practice builds, where the forgiveness lives, and where the truth lies.

Defining moments of forgiveness are sparks. It is up to me to find the tinder and fuel to convert such a spark into an ongoing flame.

Do you tend toward investing more time and energy into defining moments of forgiveness or into maintenance? Could shifting your focus help you to forgive in a new and more successful way?

Emotional self-righteousness + narrative of everything is OK + belief in automatic forgiveness = trigger for me. When I experience this trifold combination, which is most often perceived as an imposition on my time and energy that threatens my emotional and spiritual self-awareness, it terrifies me. I judge it to be manipulative, unsafe, and inauthentic.

I know fear and anger to be secondary emotions to sadness. I feel fear, which triggers anger, which is intended to prevent me from experiencing the sadness of loss. I fear the sadness of loss and respond with some form of defensive anger.

Socially, especially to a 3rd party observer such as the parent of two children or the referee in a sporting match, anger tends to demand control and repulse empathy while sadness tends to demand empathy and relinquish control.

Thus if I am anger and the other is sad, then I am cash as the aggressor and the other is cast as the victim.

The longer I stay in anger the longer I am seen as the aggressor.

More importantly! The longer I stay in anger the longer I stay stuck defending that which I am afraid to lose. The longer I stay in anger the longer I avoid feeling sadness and letting go of my attachment.

Thus it is critical to know what I am defending. What is my attachment?

If the attachment is worth defending, then the fear of losing and the anger in feeling threatened are both valid and righteous. Valid fear and righteous anger are signs that something is unacceptably wrong. Abuse, harm, etc. If one is truly under attack, if someone vulnerable is at risk, then fear and anger exist in truth and with noble purpose.

If the attachment is unknown, then the work at hand is to get to know the attachment before defending it.

If the attachment is not work defending, then the anger becomes a (difficult!) invitation to let go and move further into truth through sadness and release.

Where in your life are you defending something with anger that you could let go with sadness? What are you afraid of that keeps you out of sadness and in anger? Is your fear valid? Is your anger righteous?

Declaration of peace between free will and discipline

This morning I realized I've been lying to myself for years. I've been perpetuating a war between discipline and free will.

When I was young I tried to train myself to have what I thought to be discipline. But I did not know what that meant. So I created a system where my present self would make agreements for my future-self to do certain things at certain times, in certain ways, or at a certain frequency. I unknowingly lied to myself and called this discipline.

I gave away my free will by choosing to live without free will! My false discipline became an idol to polish. My own ongoing ability to presently chose a future of autopilot. A story that such sacrifice of my own free will would generate the life I was meant for. A way of living that kept me from being present and authentic in the moment.

True discipline is the act of choosing what I want when it is not easy. When I am tempted or distracted. When I don't have a clear plan. When I actually have to choose.

True discipline isn't living by my own strict rules. It's living by my own abundant values.

True discipline is choosing to wake up and exercise and meditate today as I live in the moment. Not forcing myself to work out and sit in stillness every morning for a month through fear and consequence.

Turns out discipline can unlock free will instead of sacrificing it.

Where is your discipline false? Where is it most true?

More Peace = More Pain

Could it be possible that we've had it backward all along?

That hiding does not keep us safe. It keeps us at risk.

That stillness does not bring us escape. It brings us truth.

That truth may set us free, but only through excruciating transformation.

Could it be that by finding our inner peace, we also find our inner pain?

Must we wrestle match toward truth in most profound faith?

In this wrestling, must we must gnash each of our teeth, and down to the bone of our jaw, as we chew threw the shackles of ignorance?

Could the most peaceful among us be the one who feels the most pain?

Could the space created by peace and stillness be the very capacity of each of us to feel both pain and pleasure?

Perhaps abundance is both gold and shadow.

Perhaps more peace means more pain.

Inner fire

I have a certain energy inside me, and sometimes I describe it as a fire. Often I have contained and focused this fire into work, projects around the home, exercise, dieting, etc. At the present I am exploring how to cultivate such fire energy to grow instead of containing and focus it.

How can you expand the reach of your fire, passion, and energy in your life?

Fear hides

It hides in my sadness, my anger, my guilt and my shame.

But most of all it hides in my diligence, my overly focused spotlight, my desire to get it right.

Where can you let go of fear?

Relationships

I used to believe I was looking for just a couple abstract attributes like intelligence, passion, and abundance in relationships. Looking back, I believe these were often patterns of seeking in another that which I was struggling to cultivate in myself.

Today the following attributes feel important to me for anyone, romantic or otherwise, that I invite into my life through relationship.

Faith (in some form) that looks like beliefs, humility, confidence, self worth, and joy. Curiosity that looks like learning, growing, openness, analysis, deep listening and communication. Love that looks like generosity, compassion, caring, kindness, and laughter toward oneself, others, and the world. Courage that looks like non attachment, adventure, and motive power.

Overall it feels like a revelation to be aware that relationships should be a source, not a drain, of energy in my life.

Where could you create more space for relationships that enrich your life?

Taming the Wild Horse

I have recently been reading a Western academic interpretation of an ancient Daoist text titled, “Taming the Wild Horse.”

Among many fascinating insights and contemplation, today I encountered a discussion on the difference between naturally wild and wild in response to domestication.

It makes me wonder when in my life I am truly natural, intrinsic, and when I am in a certain form of rebellion. I believe the intrinsic wildness is more authentic than the responsive wildness.

Where are you rebeling when you could be engaging more deeply and freely with your intrinsic self?

Abstract specificity

It is critical to understand the abstract specificity of any situation.

I might believe it takes hard work to graduate from high school... but it actually takes 120 credit hours.

I might wonder how many miles I can wait before changing my oil... but 3,000 miles or 3 months is a precaution not a rule.

I often get too abstract or too specific. Sometimes I even bounce back and forth. The equilibrium between is not perfect, but it's an exceptional guide.

Where could you benefit from finding abstract specificity?

Reluctance to forgive

There have been times over the past few years when I have screamed “Why!?” to the heavens, as a woman I once loved attempted to isolate my daughter from her Dad. It has been unfair, brutal, and transformative.

For many months I have been practicing forgiveness toward my daughter's mom, while still carrying resentment and pain. I kept trying to forgive her for all the little things (refusing to tell me where my daughter lives, ignoring my parenting time, accusing me falsely of myriad wrongdoings, etc.) without forgiving her for the big things.

Truth is she acts against my daughter's interests, broke my heart, and is changing all our lives. Truth is she is not malicious or evil – she is struggling and suffering (just like me).

But the hardest truth to accept is that she set me free.

In order to forgive her for the big things I have to let go of getting it right, making things fair, and understanding what is going on. I have to fall forward into faith.

I resist furiously at times because it means eventually I will be thanking her.

Where are you resisting forgiveness?