"First You Must Forgive Yourself"

First...You Must Forgive Yourself”

 

 

06/05/13

 

 

To my very, very dearest friends, and ever-constant, loyal readers,

 

 

I would like to wish for you a most quiet and peaceful Wednesday, free from pain or care.

 

 

 I wish happiness for you and your family, free-at least for today-the worries, or any demonstrated ill-humor, which might otherwise cloud a wonderful day; actually, as all should be as wonderful, save for that which our various complaints would sully.

 

 

How often are we enjoined to keep our voices down and make peace with children running, laughing through the house; of being perpetually late to meals; or a spouse, who would rather retire as soon as possible to a basement lair, to hide in their ‘den’?

 

 

The pure fact of the matter is, often, we just don't care; the house may be in complete discord, with clothes, and pets-under-foot everywhere.  Beds are unmade, and piles of laundry are often ignored; dishes and glassware correspondingly gather in the sink to the ire of our family members.

 

 

At times family members may well-view us as non-contributing, of being selfish, of monstrous pretentions in order to be—in many ways—slackers, lazy, or worse, both unloving and unlovable?

 

 

 

Despite our pain, our weariness, our limited range of motion, or our collective inability to even near in full assume our responsibilities and thus fulfill society’s expectations of our successful functioning within the tribal, family unit, those most close to us often seem to understand us the least.

 

 

How many times do we castigate ourselves as being useless, and as failures?  We would have hot supper upon the table waiting if only we could.

 

 

 

And, how much of this ill-apportioned blame do we so readily take upon ourselves? Because of illnesses, mental difficulties, panic, depression (NONE of which was ever sanely asked for, desired or wanted?).

 

 

 

Society’s pronouncements are hardly any better; what we can demonstrate as, ‘visible’, illness, is the exact amount we can receive as grudging, ‘pity’, by those who really know us not at all.

 

 

But as I ask you to kindly find some quieter moments for mental exploration, I would ask you to more fully consider your present, ‘circumstance’, as being solely and irrevocably genetic, situational, inherited, and otherwise quite beyond our control.

 

 

 

Do you consciously choose to have fair skin or dark?  Straight hair or curly?  A propensity towards substance abuse?  Or—rather—is your unique genome already mapped-out, with, say, mental or physical illness an ever revelatory and unfolding process completely beyond your conscious control?

 

 

Please observe that I not say, ‘utterly’, beyond conscious control, as we have seen demonstrated that frequently, a combinations of therapies, evaluative, cognitive, therapeutic, and medical, to name a few HAS helped so many individuals cope with their conditions, and even often able to assume a more, ‘natural’, life (I patently refuse to say, ‘normal’ !).

 

 

 

That these many treatment modalities to not—as yet—often 100% relief, 100% cure is NOT because they are shoddy, or invaluable methodologies.  One might more correctly call them as yet, ‘incomplete’, methodologies.

 

 

 

But as difficult as acceptance is, either personal, or societal, we fail most—I believe—at, ‘forgiveness’.

 

I see this theme repeated again and again throughout the discussion threads: much more debilitating than a failed degree of familial expectation is that of both familial forgiveness, and personal forgiveness.

 

 

 

And it is personal forgiveness to which I would wish to draw your attention in this entry.

 

 

 

As we all are quite aware, daily living is full of the distractions and, little’, seemingly inconsequential failures with which we who are affected must deal day and day after day. Everyone experiences them: life for us all in the 21^st. century demands vigilance.

 

 

But repetitive vigilance or, societally-conditioned, ‘wariness results in cumulative stresses and the eventual inability to cope with measured wholeness.

 

 

 

Think—please—of even those small slights, and indiscretions, such as having your parking spot ‘liberated' out from under you before you can get it; surely store personnel; car and sirens blasting, etc., all combine to make the average mind wild.

 

 

Stress after stress pile up unresolved, or at least not ever really resolved to our natures or satisfaction.

 

 

There are very real worries about those who make up our most singular family tribe; the safety, education and opportunity of our children.

 

 

 

The necessity of having, in Western cultures in particular, a regular, and spiraling form of income to meet our needs, especially as we—as no other—place more value upon security than we do creativity.

 

 

 

Financial worries come most readily to mind; and with them—since when one financial, ‘card’, folds, so seems fast upon it the deck, and frustrations about security, shelter, food, are fully met as equals with—for example—the ability to make the car payment, or the pay the electric bill.  And, increasingly, how to provide adequate health care for ourselves and our progeny.

 

 

 

 

 

In America—in particular—one is not asked whether the accumulated stresses are too much to bear, one is simply expected to bear them, or drop off the end of the earth.  Our own families expect as much.  As do we, ourselves.

 

 

 

 

We tend to forget that no one asks to be disabled; no one asks for Lupus; or P.S.T.D. Nor could you so arrange your genes and chromosomes in such a fashion, that I would make you ill, afraid, despairing. Often with pain that makes you cry...or pain that ties you to your bed...or pain, that frequently reshapes every life vector that you may have. Until you often feel exhausted and undone.

 

 

 

Where is the love?  Where is the kindness?  Where—my very dearest friends and ever-loyal readers—is the forgiveness and the acceptance that should follow.

 

 

 

 

The answer springs from love, fully as it does for trust, for regard, valuation, commitment, and joy!

 

 

I would hazard a fairly certain guess that each of us at MDJunction (and, elsewhere), have already plumbed the depth of their own illnesses, their own fear, pain, despair, and basic ability to cope.

 

 

 

What I ask of you (and, really, your family members as well), is to look within—not the body, for its symptoms are easily evident—the heart, wherein lies all felicity for hope, comfort, appreciation and love, and to forgive yourself.

 

 

 

Never ever—at any time you can recall from memory—did you ask for unutterable illness, jarring, and insensate pain, mental anguish that seems so able to transform a life of purpose, into one of hopeless, and a kind of most unhealthy and unending a life of sickness and tired martyrdom.

 

 

 

Fortunately for us, the America that expects so much from us is also—I believe an America that is generous, and friendly, even as we are inheritors of vast freedoms and discovery and privilege. We have—despite difficult times—remain a giving and helping Nation.

 

 

 

There remains a very great need for heightened awareness, both from our Society, our neighbors, friends, and family members.

 

 

It is to be most fondly hoped that from out of this awareness and knowledge, caring, compassion, and...forgiveness will follow; this is in part the great Epiphany to which each of us strives.

 

 

 

Only in that way can we more fully celebrate the special commonality of Man, a greater, and more proactive sense of self, but in, ‘forgiving’, of others AND ourselves we are somehow, elevated, made more temperate, and somehow brought closer to an abiding sense of personal peace, tranquility, and happiness, which may—itself—ease what would otherwise be unbearable suffering.

 

 

 

And—for those many who have such leanings—forge a new, and joyous harmony with the Creator. And as we tend to the contents of our souls....only then, may we be better in full as can be to contemplate the many, diverse, miraculous and possible conjugations of others’.

 

 

I wish for you, my dear, and dearest friends, a measure of inner peace and accord; of satisfaction; I wish for you certainly days of lessened or of ‘no pain, or contention.

 

 

And if, upon an evening you offer up your thanks--in being thankful to others--never forget to be most kind to yourself, for healing, for a quietness of the mind, for a general ease, and for liberation of the soul.

 

 

My very, very dearest friends, please know that I think of you so often, and that I love you dearly!

 

 

‘Zahc’/Charles