trusting the process...

i was typing an email this morning that got me thinking...

i was responding to a comment someone made about not being
able to forgive themselves.

i wondered out loud how come we all have such trouble with that?
and then i got to rollin' out some thoughts.
i gotta laugh......there should be a warning that goes up
before people send me an email....
warning.....this person is prone to thinking out loud.......

i took a walk and thought about it all.

i don't know when you want to say the 'beginning' of my journey was.
cause you could start when i was a kid....

i usually think of the time of my marriage break up as a significant
time where i INTENTIONALLY stepped onto a path of inner journeying.
so that's where i go to start with some of my thinking.

and when i started that path i truly, from the depths of my heart,
felt like damaged goods.

damaged goods.
that was THE phrase.

i'm thinking, regardless of the circumstances, a whole lot of us
find ourselves feeling like that. so i thought this might be a good
thing to throw out there.

for anyone just stepping onto the intentional path who's feeling that
way...

i've been down it now for about ten years.

i remember thinking no one understood. no one REALLY knew
and everyone who told me i wasn't didn't REALLY know what i was.

sound familiar????

if it does, take a moment and see if you can hear this journey
as a possible routine outcome for people on this path...
because i think it is 'routine'...i think we all can find what
i'm about to say i'm finding.....i think it's part of the deal.

what i'm finding is this:
growth.

grinnin' at ya.
yeah, growth.

at the same time i was feeling like damaged goods i chose love to
be the area that i wanted to learn about.

ten years i have been workin' on this really really hard.
three times i can remember completely sitting down and quitting.
about twenty gazillion times i can remember crying and thinking
i'll never get anywhere with this stuff. and many many times i
can remember feeling like i just couldn't release the pain
and i couldn't find the forgiveness inside that i knew i needed
to find.

i figure i will repeat the above paragraph, if i'm lucky,
several times over yet.

i figure it's a forever thing. and that doesn't discourage me
like it used to.

because now, ten years down the road, i can do things like the thing i did
yesterday. i can turn to my sons and say 'hey, i think i'm getting
somewhere with this love stuff.' i can actually see growth. i can
actually SEE it happening. and i know the longer i work at this,
the deeper i go. and i know that there's no end to the depths.

all the wrestling with myself, all the mantras of trust, trust, trust,
release, release, release...all that stuff has made a difference.
and will continue to make a difference.

the process works. the trying, the failing, the trying again,
gets us somewhere.

and i think maybe with the forgiveness.....maybe where i've gotten
with that isn't so much that i'm really great at forgiving myself
things now....maybe i've gotten to the place where i look at what
i thought i had to forgive and i see it different now. maybe i can
understand myself more. and maybe i can offer compassion more. and
maybe i can see myself as a human more.

maybe that's what's happened.
but i don't find myself in need of forgiveness like i used to.
i find myself in need of being seen by myself.

there was a great quote my buddy put up on her facebook page the
other day...i think it was....to understand everything is to forgive
everything.

maybe that's where we'll be led. to an understanding of ourselves.

if you can't find the forgiveness now, just keep walking.
and trying and wrestling and releasing and trusting and slipping
and falling and getting up again.

cause all that means you're growing.
and i think it's in that growth you'll find it......