Monthly Archives: May 2024

Forgiveness – The Antidote

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Today I was despairing over the realisation that forgiving someone, whose continuing actions of general douchebaggery knows no bounds, was simply outside my wheelhouse.

I was then reminded by my gorgeous and very wise sister, Lisa, that perhaps the work is to forgive myself.

Truth bomb! đź’Ł

Of course this needs to come first.
If I can’t do this for myself, there is no way I can forgive anyone else.

I must find a way to forgive myself for the part I played in this clusterfu€k of a situation.

For my wilful ignorance…
For giving away my power…
For trusting someone who is simply untrustworthy…
For ignoring all the red flags because they got in the way of what I wanted…
For selling my soul for a false sense of security and the illusion of stable ground under my feet…
For choosing ease and comfort
over courage.

And in the spirit of full transparency, I admit that my fu€king ego liked the status and luxury this new life afforded me.

I was sick of the hustle and the struggle.
So I made what I thought was the “safe” choice over the many braver choices available to me.

I could never regret the choice
I made, however, as it brought two extraordinary humans into the world that I love and treasure
more than life itself.

But the reckoning has come.
It’s time to take this sword away that consistently hangs over my head by finding the courage to face the truth that I chickened out.

That I clung to all the carefully constructed lies he told because it was easier than facing the truth, which would’ve required me to leave much sooner than I did.

Instead I chose a superficial life over a more authentic and connected one.


I chose quantity over quality.

So… where to from here?

I guess this public confession is as good a place to start as any.

I know that shame can only live in darkness, in secrecy, so saying it out loud is the most potent medicine I can apply to the oozing wound of distain that has been festering in my heart these past too many years.

They say resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Insanity at its finest!

So there it is.
My shame, my sadness, my intense desire to release all the cords of disappointment and betrayal that keep me psychically tied to this poisonous union.

One day soon, I hope that I will find forgiveness in my heart so that I can set myself free.

Only I hold the keys to my liberation.

I once chose the gilded cage and now it is time to choose freedom.
To choose trust over fear,
courage over comfort,
forgiveness over judgement.

To choose love above all else.❣️

Lessons on acceptance, resilience and patience…

Inspiration

My life these past few years has been ALL about practising patience and acceptance.

I admit I have spent most of this time fighting and pushing; raging and wallowing in despair; using “positivity” and “high vibes only” to completely bypass “negative” emotions and calling it patience, as opposed to sitting with these feelings and allowing them a seat at the table.

I have shut down and gagged my anger because anger is bad, right? There is nothing worse than an Angry Woman! Or so I’ve been led to believe…. Anger is a sign you’re not in a place of acceptance, which is true, but some things are simply unacceptable. Tolerating abuse is not practising acceptance.

I am well aware of the pitfalls of allowing strong emotions to take over and becoming completely dysregulated. I’m certainly not promoting that. But bypassing them altogether and thinking that makes you more spiritual or some kind of ascending master is foolish.

So, the work (for me) is all about feeling all the feels, and meditating & reflecting on what is really being communicated. Then, and only then, will I hopefully gain some wisdom and skill to know when to act and when to sit still, when to speak up and when to stay silent, and to always question & investigate, and not just blindly trust, especially when my intuition is telling me something is off.

Spiritual practice is a funny beast. It’s the key to unlocking wisdom, compassion, peace, trust and love. However, it can be used as a tool to harm myself and others with shame (“I (you) should be doing more”; “I (you) should not be feeling this way”). Or to avoid and escape the (sometimes) harsh truth about myself and others in an attempt to avoid the shadow work because “that’s so 3D” (read: low vibration). The list goes on and on and boy has many a self proclaimed guru figured out how to exploit this very mentality for financial and power gains!

Today I simply strive to be gentle with myself and others, and gentle with my practices. In gentleness is where I’ll find peace, harmony and forgiveness. And this is where true acceptance, resilience and patience resides.

Below is a beautiful piece of writing I found by author Sukriti Chhopra, which I found particularly relevant today.

Namaste 🙏🏻

“A reminder about acceptance, resilience, patience… three life lessons that have repeatedly been drilled into me.

Acceptance

Acceptance that we neither control the situation nor the outcome.

That control is an illusion and its pursuit will only lead to misery.

That impermanence and uncertainty are truths of life.

That suffering is inevitable.

Life is like a sine curve, there will be crests and there will be troughs and then there will be crests again.

Patience

Acceptance that control is an illusion leads to developing patience.

Things will happen at their own time. Hard work and smart work and passion do not drive results on our terms. That is a capitalistic narrative.

Things may not happen despite practicing patience; that loops us back to acceptance.

My life’s biggest lesson has been that of patience. It is a quality that requires constant refreshers and uninterrupted practice.

Resilience

Once we’ve accepted that suffering can’t be done away with and developed patience to work through the situation without despair, then resilience is the next natural step.

When I am in the midst of a strife or an undesirable situation, I remind myself that this is the trough of the sine curve; the wave will turn and things will get better.

Also, during the good times, I stay aware that this will not last, as the laws of physics (mimicked by life) dictate, the wave will dip. This is not pessimism; this helps us be prepared and to tide over the troughs.

This is resilience.

And with these three tools in my armour, I continue to find joy even in the worst moments and look forward to the next day while living in the present.”

~Sukriti Chhopra