Forgiveness and Loving-kindness

This morning I was catching up doing “Day One” of Pompe Strater-Vidal’s 11-Day Meditation Challenge on the 4 aspects of Immeasurable Mind, Loving Kindness, Compassion, Equanimity and Joy, that started yesterday. The message on loving-kindness practice was about how you have to begin by loving and being kind to yourself. I was directed to identify something that I do well, a trait of mine that I appreciate. (You may want to play along with me as you read this and identify right now a trait of yours that you appreciate.)

The trait I identified was sharing freely of my professional skills/knowledge with people that I meet, such as I had done a few days ago with a young woman in the waiting room when I went to have an X-Ray of my back and hip.

The woman volunteered that she was really uncomfortable, needing to urinate. I told her I was sure they had a restroom in this area, as I had not noticed she was pregnant. She went on to say that she was waiting to have an ultrasound so she could not go until after and the baby was kicking. She said she had always loved feeling the baby kick, because she had previously experienced a miscarriage. At this time, the kicks were very uncomfortable due to her full bladder.

I told her how she could place her hand on her abdomen and tell her baby she normally loves feeling the kicks but right now they are uncomfortable and it would be very helpful for there to be no kicking until after the ultrasound. I shared about when I guided our daughter to ask our granddaughter to wait to be born until they could get her room ready. Courtney ended up being induced!

I gave the woman a free download card for my “Welcome Baby!” audio designed for listening during pregnancy, preparing for labor and delivery.

This morning as soon as I remembered the interaction with this expectant mom, suddenly I had a cellular memory of having been in Europe in 2011. On the climb down from visiting the Montségur Monument, we saw an expectant couple. I struck up a conversation, found out they were from the US and were having their first baby. As I remember it, the woman I was traveling with was very critical of my sharing with them about “Welcome Baby!”. She said it was rude and selfish and inappropriate to have an unsolicited conversation with them and then tell them about the “Welcome Baby!”audio.

As soon as I accessed this memory from Europe, I had another simultaneous awareness of a time I had been punished when I was innocent. I was in third grade. The student sitting behind me tapped me on my back asking for help. She was having difficulty sight reading a word in her book. My guesses were very far off sounding out “Can-oh-wee” and “Can-ow” until I put the word into context. When I realized the word was “canoe” she and I both collapsed into a fit of giggles. All our teacher saw at that moment was me, turned around leaning over the other student’s desk, and the two of us laughing.

We were called up front and we both got paddled. To add insult to injury, I was paddled with the paddle I had brought in for the teacher so she could paddle the boys for being bad.

Today I know the core of forgiveness and loving-kindness waiting all these years to come into my innocent heart is my own sense that the boys deserved to be paddled.

I opened my email to read this:

Today’s thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:

We can practice forgiveness each day.

Resentments have a way of creeping back into my psyche even after I have let go of them. I know that holding a grudge is harmful to my emotional health and can threaten my abstinence, but what can I do when I keep feeling anger toward someone?

In the interest of recovery, in my own best interest, I can continue to forgive each day. I may not be able to forgive the person once and for all, but I can do it right now, just for today. With practice, who knows? Perhaps the resentment will disappear.

When I remember that my own track record is far from perfect, I realize I could use some daily forgiveness too, both from others and from myself. True forgiveness reaches across time and touches everyone.

Just for now, I can let go of resentments and forgive. If resentments come back, I can forgive again.
You are reading from the book:

Inner Harvest by Elisabeth L.

I do not have permission to reprint this quotation from Inner Harvest, so I ask forgiveness from Elisabeth L.for sharing it.