I have been learning that being strong has had to mean learning how to be soft. In my biography, I decided that I needed to become mentally strong in order to survive because I wanted to survive. Eventually, when I began my yoga practice, I became strong physically, in order to survive not only that same biography, but additional trauma which I was working actively to heal.
But what I began to realize was that I was NOT healing, I was simply managing and surviving.
As I embark now on what will be my fourth surgery in two years, I realize that what became a body I relied upon in strength is tired and has been screaming out for a different way to live. To stop muscling through everything.
I understand now.
I fell to my knees a few weeks ago and had my deepest realization around forgiveness, which has been an active and ongoing practice for me. But what I realized is that I have not made sustainable progress for a very big reason. I have moments of beautiful seeing. Beautiful moments of clear and deep forgiveness. But then I find myself right back to a deep place of suffering and seeking forgiveness all over again.
This may be obvious to many, but it took me falling to my knees and seeing this clearly within myself until I could really get it. Not getting it through hearing it from someone else, not getting it in any way but really deeply understanding it through my own process.
There is no real forgiveness until you can recognize the place inside of yourself that possesses the same exact behavior, (that place inside of you that has the capacity to behave in the very same way) which you are having difficulty forgiving. Truly no real forgiveness unless this awareness becomes an acceptance inside of you. I fell to my knees and I saw my own humanity and I began to sob and I began to have mercy for the deep places of pain which live inside of my body... for every place of hurt, for everyone who has hurt me who I have been sending lovingkindness to every single day for years and years and YEARS!!!! Only to have been met with MOMENTS of forgiveness which I simply could not sustain. But I am her and I am him and I am you and you and you and you. I AM!!!!!! AND IT IS SOOOOOO SOBERING AND PAINFUL TO WAKE UP TO THAT, BUT IT IS THE TRUTH. And first I have to face it and forgive myself for those qualities which I too, possess... and only then, can I forgive ANYONE. Only then.
And now... it can begin.
And now I can find that softness in order to become strong and maybe even stronger.
God bless us all in this process. It can be a long and windy road back home... but GPS or not, I MUST find my way. I must.
With tender love and a soft heart.
8.8.12
Jill Bacharach
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