Hello Everyone,
This week we read up to pg 195, Wherever Possible. We had a very involved and vulnerable discussion around forgiveness and the difference between forgiving others and forgiving ourselves.
I mentioned seeing those you need to forgive with a big bandage on their foreheads to remember that they are hurt people too and hurt people hurt people.
Who in your life wears the biggest bandaid? Could it possibly be yourself? I know that for a lot of people in recovery, self-forgiveness is often the hardest practice. Still, it is at the very core of forgiveness because if you can't forgive yourself, it's difficult to truly forgive others.
Who in your life deserves your forgiveness more than yourself?
I know that for me, this was a foreign idea when I came into recovery. I thought that I was such a fuck up that I didn't deserve anyone's love or forgiveness, especially not my own. Through stepwork, inventories and meditation, I came to see that my "unskillfulness" was just my humanness and my disease and not the core of who I truly am, and that made it easier to try and bring some forgiveness and compassion to myself. This then allowed me to truly bring it to others from an authentic heart, not a codependent one.
What about you?
