the gift

Once in a blue moon, something happens that knocks you for a loop, leaves your head spinning, and your heart in a thousand splintered pieces.

It can be a heartbreak, a betrayal, an earth-shattering loss. The fallout from unforeseen chaos that disrupts your plans and demolishes your half-formed hopes on the cusp of manifestation. The future you fantasized into existence is suddenly ripped out from beneath you for one reason or another. 

These disruptions often occur with no clear cause, no fault— totally unavoidable, unpreventable, and unforeseen. But sometimes it is the actual case that someone screwed you over, was out to get you, and stuck the knife in your back, deepening its bite with one extra sadistic twist. 

In moments like these, you are by definition someone else’s victim. You have been wronged, abused, lied to, taken advantage of, etc. But what’s optional is this: you don’t have to stay that way. 

When you victimize yourself after the fact, the only person still hurting you is actually…. you. 

And I’ve found that we are more often victims of ourselves than we are the victims of others.

Trust me when I say I know this from personal, recent, and repeated experience.

I’ve been in this state of self-victimization for the last three months or so, off and on. In my piece on the abyss, I wrote about swinging across the chasm of chaos on the vine of emotion— neither lingering on the vine, nor succumbing to the fall, but letting go at the exact right moment in the process of grief to move on with your life.

Like so many things— moving on isn’t a once-and-done thing. It’s not like flipping a light switch. 

It’s a process, a practice, an action repeated… almost ad nauseam. It’s like having to keep blowing out those trick birthday candles that keep sparking back to life, whack-a-mole style.

At the time of that writing, it was true that I had let it go— the people, the pain, and the past. I made space in my heart to move on with my life, examined the facts to better understand my mistakes, and worked to fully integrate them so that I may more wisely choose people and live my life. 

But slowly, as the dust began to settle, I found myself feeling angry, becoming more easily triggered by reminders of those who had hurt me, extremely mistrustful of anyone who reminded me of them. Bitterness began to set in, like the long, hacking cough after a particularly bad flu that you can’t seem to fully kick. The kind that gets your throat so dry in a coughing spell that you end up crying, hacking away to the point where you think you might get sick.

That’s the physical equivalent of what happens to me when bitterness tries to roost. 

I would be fine for the most part, until that little patch in the back of my throat gets agitated, sparks into a dry cough, which in turn morphs into a full-on fit. Until one little reminder escalates into a session of rumination or fantasizing to the point that I’m either depressed or enraged, sobbing regardless. 

Until I’m suddenly aware that I’m right back where I didn’t want to be— clinging tightly to the vine, hanging out over the abyss I thought I had just put squarely behind me.

“Ugh, dammit. How the hell did I get here again?" 

What I failed to account for in that metaphor is that sometimes, after we’ve crossed the abyss, we willingly grab that vine that we just released and take another swing on it. And often, we don’t even know that we’re doing it until we’re back in suspension over that terrible, gut-wrenching chasm.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Maybe because we can continue earning pity by maintaining our state of grief. Or maybe because we’re more comfortable being in pain than in safety. Or perhaps because we want to be closer to that which we lost.

Maybe all of the above, or none of the above: it depends on the person.

But when bitterness is in play, there is only one way back to the safe side of the abyss.

It is forgiveness.

Forgiveness isn’t about letting people off the hook. Forgiving someone is an act solely for your own benefit. It does not absolve the wrong that was done; it does not mean their character is suddenly spotless again, or that their integrity is restored intact.

Forgiveness is only about letting yourself move on with your life in such a way that the past does not continue to impact your present, and, by extension, your future. 

Forgiveness does not have to be public. It does not even have to be voiced from giver to receiver. 

When forgiveness is freely given, the giver is actually the one who is truly free of the past (not the receiver, the one whom society typically perceives as being in need of the forgiveness).

Conversely, when someone sincerely asks for forgiveness, they are not seeking absolution from their wrongs— that is between them and God, or Source, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it. Rather, they are inviting the person they have wronged to be free from it. 

The kindest thing you can do for yourself is to forgive those who have wronged you. And the kindest thing you can do for someone else is invite them to forgive you.

And you may have to do both, over and over again. 

I’m still working on this particular spiritual skill, but I strongly suspect that forgiveness is like a muscle. You have to train it, work on it, get the reps in. Keep stretching it and putting energy and focus into it.

In short: use it or lose it. 

And, with time and practice, it will become second nature. 

Once mastered, I will be less derailed by future unforeseen chaos that life will inevitably keep throwing at me.

And when life does leave a mark on me (and it will), I will heal more swiftly and keep moving forward with more grace, even if it’s just one small piece of myself at a time.

For now though, it’s still a work in progress.

As are we all ✨