Time is a salve that heals all wounds, if we are open to allowing it to work its magic. The Ego tends to favor hanging onto old hurts that it views as part of our identity, when the truth is we’re ready to release old wounds that no longer serve us.
My first love contacted me out of the blue a few months ago after we hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty years. I’d fallen head over heels in love with him at sixteen, and we’d shared some of our most formative experiences over several years that included plenty of highs and lows (that’s us, above, on prom night, his nervousness in anticipation of meeting my mother for the first time).
He found me by way of my website and was compelled to send kind words and encouragement for my writing. I was touched and flattered by his gesture, especially now that he’s a fellow steward of the written word as a high school English teacher and university professor of all things. I marveled at why the Universe had reconnected us after all this time.
In due course, I surprisingly realized that I still harbored anger from having my heart broken all those years ago. The funny thing is, I don’t even remember exactly why we’d finally gone our separate ways during college.
Try as I might, I likewise could no longer feel the anger or the pain of rejection that had once seared my tender teenage heart. The anger I thought I felt was phantom pain that time had healed. My mind automatically went there because she still thought this old way of reacting was how I was supposed to feel at his very mention.
This realization helped me see that it was high time to forgive not only him, but also myself. We’re both good people who did the best we could with what we knew as kids, stubborn self-righteous teenagers who’d each held our own beliefs to be right. He did not fail me, nor did I fail myself. In retrospect, I now know it’s difficult enough to be certain of what we want and need as adults, let alone as teenagers finding our way in the world.
I released a tremendous weight I didn’t even know had continued to burden my heart after all this time. I feel lighter from the space I’ve freed opened, readier than ever to receive love that is rightly mine, love that is our very birthright.
To forgive doesn’t mean we have to condone one’s actions. It is for giving ourselves release from negative sentiment we hold around certain actions so that negativity can’t close off the heart from feeling all that is good and right in the world.
Forgiveness is a gift of generosity to the recipient and to ourselves because it frees both of energetic bonds that serve neither.
Are you clinging to any resentment, pain or anger that you’re ready to release?
Give yourself the gift of forgiveness, and witness the space that opens up to let in greater things that do serve you.
