Forgiveness

A man struggled heavily down the street. The people of the town who watched him knew well of his bitterness, he didn’t make a secret of it. The man had been hurt – badly. His heart had been broken and his spirit destroyed by people he loved. It had happened many times. He dragged another heavy step towards the far end of the street. His tattered clothes spoke of his daily battle with his pain. The roads were filled with ruts from the repeated journeys.

One day a stranger came through the town and joined the group of people as they stood watching the man labour wearily from one end of the town to the other. The stranger saw familiar looks on the other people’s face although this town was new to him. Being a curious man by nature he turned to the woman nearest to him and enquired about the sad man’s story.

“Oh,” she replied, “he was hurt so many times in the past. Poor man; he just can’t get past those times. The memories are always with him.”

“Has he ever tried to let go?” the stranger asked gently, because he didn’t want to upset the routine of the town with a loud voice.

“Let go?” queried the woman, who by now had turned to look into the face of this peculiar visitor with the smooth voice. “How can we ever let go of what hurt us? We have to remember the pain – it’s made us who we are.”

It was at this point that the visitor looked around the woman and saw why she was standing there, she had a similar load to the man walking up the street, it was on the ground beside her. All the people watching had the same type of weight attached to them. They were not stood there watching, they were all waiting for their turn to take their fight with their memories into public.

The woman shook her head at the stranger and shuffled nearer to the kerb as someone else stepped off and followed the first man into the road.

“Excuse me,” said the newcomer to a younger woman who was sat on the ground near to him. She looked wistfully into the distance.

When she heard his voice she turned her head slowly and held his gaze for a second before looking down at his feet.

“Can I offer you these,” he said, handing her a pair of scissors.

“What’re they for?” She squinted up at him.

“Oh, they’re forgiveness scissors,” he smiled as she frowned up at him.

“So, what do they do then?” Her curiosity was raised.

Reaching out she cautiously took them. A sudden spark of light hit her eyes as she weighed them in her hands.

“They don’t look like much. Do they work?”

“Yes, they really do. I give them out all the time. Try them...”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

He watched her as she grasped the thick heavy cord to her side and let the blades slip through them like a hot knife through butter.

The laughter that rose from her throat made the other people in the town look and stare. That was a strange sound – the sound of happiness. They had forgotten what it was like or what it was for.

The young woman grabbed for more scissors and passed them to the people gathering around her.

“Forgiveness scissors really work,” she bubbled, “I’ve cut my load and now... look at me!” She even skipped a few steps to prove her point.

Curious eyes turned to the young man as the group surrounded him.

An old man with a full head of white hair spoke to him from the back of the crowd.

“If we use these,” his voice was tired and cracked as he slowly measured his words out, “does it mean we never remember anything?”

“Oh no,” assured the stranger, who had now emptied his bag of scissors to the eagerly outstretched hands, “you remember but ... you don’t have to be attached to the weight of your pain any more. These scissors let you leave that behind. You can let it go.”

“Does it really work?” someone else whispered in a desperate voice.

“It sure does,” he beamed. “I did it myself a while ago and now I walk anywhere because I don’t carry that load with me anymore.” In a quieter voice he added, “I did it for me really, I needed to forgive myself for holding on for too long. My pain was heavy.” He paused for a few seconds as he wiped a lone tear away from his cheek, “I feel so much better now. I no longer fight with it every day ... I still remember, but in a lighter way.”

Emotions and their message

I could wax lyrical on each of the 10 negative emotions that are action signals shouting for a change in our lives ... but I’ll try to resist. Instead of taking each one in turn, and blogging at length about my experiences with them, I will, instead, go at this list in two halves. The first one now, the second 5 in a post coming to this space soon. You see, although I am keen to unveil them, I am more interested in getting to the next part of my journey. I want to share more about another group of 10: those are the 10 emotions that have enhanced my life. So with the promise of some joy in the near future I’ll return to my first 5:

1. Uncomfortableness

2. Fear

3. Hurt

4. Anger

5. Frustration

Don’t scream ‘argh’ at the screen and run away. You’re possible thinking that this is the same old, same old. You know it all already. You may well be right and if you are then, unlike me, you won’t need the help to make a change. I knew it all too, but I didn’t do anything about it. Having the knowledge and not using it is as useful as being in a room with an unexploded bomb, a manual to diffuse it and a clock that is ticking away the seconds to the inevitable explosion. It is akin to not facing the reality and running away. I guess if you did evade the reality (like I used to when confronted with an uncomfortable situation i.e. dealing with my emotions properly), then you’ll never really know how to get out of that rut.

Ruts are made deeper and more difficult to escape from when do you don’t do anything different. Time just wears away the prospects of an easy change. If you see something and stay where you are then there is a huge possibility that you will see the same thing again – because you are immobilised. Nothing new and life enhancing will happen if you don’t make a positive change. But worse things can happen to hold you down right where you are if you do nothing in the face of a dangerous situation.

Anyway, back to the list. The message I received when I feel uncomfortable or afraid is that I have to prepare to deal with something; I may not always know exactly what it is, but I do know that it is impending. When I experience the sense of being emotionally hurt I now know it originates from a perception of loss. I remember feeling hurt when I failed at something I had set my heart on and also when my expectations were unmet. I generally only feel hurt with people when I have a real relationship with them, one that has an implied or actual contract of trust and behavioural expectations. It is not often that I tell my deepest thoughts to people (despite the contents of this blog, there are still many aspects of my life that are only revealed in person and after a considerable time) and when I have shared these thought with people, and then, somehow, for some reason, they decide the intimate facts we had shared are for casual consumption, then I do feel hurt. Occasionally I have also felt anger (also on this list) because I have experienced a sense of a violation in my standards and in something important to me. With both the hurt and the anger I have had to search long and hard to discern what within myself I need to change in order to be free from those emotions. There is always something I can, and have, changed that reduces the possibility of feeling the same hurt again. Something that is positive for me. It is amazing that even these situations that start out painful can have a valuable and positive outcome – because they teach me something that helps me to grow.

The frustration (the final emotion on this half of this randomly created list) usually happens to me when I feel hindered or held back in some way. I have learnt that when I am frustrated I either need to become flexible to the situation that caused this emotion to raise its head in my life like the Loch Ness Monster or to change my approach. I am happy to say that both methods have been used with great success. And the monster quickly retreats to the bottom of the Loch. It’s not gone completely; it’s just submerged for a long while. And during that time I will enjoy the respite and focus on the emotions that occur in my life that enhance my life. Because there are many more positive emotions that negative ones I’m glad to say.

I can say that with a smile and a sense of happiness, because it is so true in my life.

Daily court is in session

We do not react too well when others judge us … as drivers, friends, parents, lovers. What happens when we judge ourselves? Are we harsher than others or too lenient?

For the past three weeks I have been thinking about being my own judge. I know that I give myself a hard time. And that’s even with knowing more about me than others do!

Judgement – whatever source it comes from - always seems unfair, harsh and painful. When I examine myself and find fault (as that’s what this judgement session seems to be about) it always hurts.

I think that if I find an area of my life that I am not entirely satisfied with then I will examine it – rather than judge myself – and find a solution to make things better. Instead of castigating myself I will encourage myself.

I know that this will produce a quicker and more positive change rather than feeling the self-imposed burden of being condemned as wrong. Condemnation, personal or not, often has the feeling of a large boulder falling on me, one that I can never move, so I stay prone under the weight of the hurt.

Encouragement is like the multiple strong levers placed under the obstacle to remove it and to make a clear path for forward movement.

So on this day I promise I will be fair and kind to myself. I will encourage myself … forward.