Powerful Forgiveness

Day 21 of 21 Days of Prayer Outside the Box

I may have repeated this forgiveness prayer more than any other.  It seems when I ask for God to teach me true perspective it is about a relationship with another person that could use forgiveness more than 90 percent of the time.  When I first started learning about forgiveness I thought I only had a couple people I needed to forgive.  I thought I didn't hold many grudges.  I thought I was very forgiving and only had difficulty forgiving a very few.

My first really big aha was when someone told me I wouldn't reach forgiveness with those few people if I didn't allow myself to release the anger I harbored in a healthy way. I had no idea how angry I was.
 I didn't even know anger could be released in a healthy way.  So I started down a journey for many years learning about that.

On the journey I found that actually I spent a lot more time than I wanted to admit in anger.  I found that I needed to forgive.  I learned that forgiveness was not something I did for the other person.  I found ultimately that the person I most needed to forgive was myself.

So here is the prayer my mentor gave me.  I use it a lot like affirmative prayer from Day 5.

I love you.
I bless you.
I release you.
I fully and freely forgive you.
Now be on you way.

I have used it in this way for years.  The last line reminds me of a gentler version of the Day 19 prayer. (Sometimes Day 19 may need to proceed this prayer). Recently I have begun to change the last line to "May your life be filled with joy."  Forgiveness has been a journey and a process for me, a freeing journey and process.

Happy New Year

God Can Take It

Day 17 of 21 Days of Prayer Outside the Box

Years ago I learned that God can take it when I get angry.  In fact, I found that this is one of the best ways to express my anger in a safe and effective manner.  A friend once told me, "God can take it when you are angry.  Just talk to him.  It is okay to express your anger authentically."  At the time, this felt like news to me. It seemed wrong.  I wasn't necessarily ever told I couldn't be angry with God, but somehow I ended up with that belief.

The first time I actually tried it, I remember sort of looking around, afraid I might get caught.  It makes me kind of laugh now, and it also seems a little sad how afraid I was to be authentic with my Higher Power. Today, this is a comfortable and comforting type of prayer for me.

Honoring Sadness

"Perhaps we would bear our sadness with greater trust than we have in our joys.  For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing."  - Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

My mother passed away about a month ago, in this time, I have experienced more sadness than usual.  I found solace in the above quote.  I notice I don't honor my sadness.  When I don't trust my sadness it becomes anger.  In those moments I fool myself into denying I was ever sad.

Some part of me believes a strong person doesn't get sad.  That trickster silently fools me into believing without conscious awareness that anger is my only strength and power. While I know that when I experience healthy anger it is truly strong and powerful, in these moments,  I watch, dumbfounded, as I  begin to destroy everything and every relationship in my path.

In sheer exhaustion and shame I scream inside the hollows of my soul, "What the hell!!"  I am quickly re-minded - Yes, indeed, I have powerfully created my own hell.

In that quiet moment of awareness, Wisdom's voice is heard and I re-member that true Strength does experience anger and is comprised of both joy and sadness.

"Sadness is the soul recognizing change." -M. Night Shyamalon

There is great change happening in my life.  Yes, Great Change.



Journal Prompt:  What feelings do you notice under your anger?

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Creative Discovering Beginnings

I developed an interest in creative journalling in the early 1990's. The images I have shared here were some of the first entries into my journal. They were drawn at a time that was filled with joy and love, and also haunted with sadness, pain and anger. I drew the two entries on the same day, illustrating the roller coaster of emotions that seemed to plague my life.

The awareness that followed deepened my interest in creative journalling, and sparked my inspiration to create Creative Discovering workshops. Still, twenty years later I look at these images that are really quite simple and were drawn in a matter of minutes, and become captivated by the depth of my experience and the accuracy of expression that had escaped words for me at the time.

Today's Journal/Creative Journal prompt:

Over the next few days or weeks if you find yourself experiencing an intense emotion, comfortable or uncomfortable, grab your journal and express........

Our Worst Enemy?

"Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thought." - Buddha

Last year I had a situation in my life that felt incredibly stressful. It seemed like I was being attacked, and I felt angry and scared. As the fear grew it began to consume me and almost every aspect of my life. It wasn't fun to be me, and I am pretty sure it wasn't much fun being around me either.

In hind site, I can see that more than half the stress originated in my thoughts, rather than by the actions of "my worst enemy." I realized, once again, that while the actions of another may feel like an attack, I attack myself over and over with my thoughts of fear, anger, judgement or self condensation.

Today's journal question:

Where do I feel attacked by another? In what way am I attacking myself with my feelings and thoughts about that event?