Day 30: Forgive

Last week, in my mid-performance point, I talked about how this self-care project has forced me to realize many truths about myself. This work has been a mirror of sorts for the ways that I have not been gentle, truthful, and loving towards myself in several capacities. These truths have tended to emerge in moments when I find myself completing a self-care ritual only to turn around that same day/evening and do some unself-loving act (i.e. drinking too much, overeating too much, undersleeping, etc.). In many ways these self-care performances have highlighted my daily performances of unself-care. Saturday, December 1st, Day 30, was a real demonstration of this imbalance of self and unself-care.  I had (have) to acknowledge that I have not been "walking-the-walk" of my performance project and I've been trying to get out of painful sensations and work out of a fear of sitting in deep emotions. Day 30 was about forgiveness and learning to let go and this post comes a little later than my normal update because the performance led to an emotionally intense and awakening set of experiences  that I needed to process out and sit with before I could write. Here's how it began:

1.) My godsister Tai suggested forgiveness as a self-care practice several weeks ago. She wrote: I know it sounds cliche, but forgiving myself and others is truly loving on yourself- for me it signifies release/freedom. When you can see other people's shtuff, you can become jaded. Forgiving others allows me to forgive myself for who I used to be.  

Forgiveness has been a journey for Tai that has included several steps including the following prayer that she shared with me: 

 I forgive _______ for ________ or for any perception of wrong doing. I am free and you are free. 

 I read this prayer in the morning and thought I knew exactly how to fill in the blanks but it didn't become fully clear until I took my morning yoga class, which leads us to....

2.) Justine, my brilliant and thoughtful yoga instructor, guided us in a practice whose theme was "forgiveness." I knew last week that our session today would be focused on forgiveness, but I wasn't aware of how deeply emotive such a practice would be (even as I write this I'm feeling all those emotions rise up). We had several ways of entering forgiveness into our practice:

• Think of a person or a situation, recent or long past, that angered you, frustrated you, hurt you, (or what have you) that you want to let go of and need to forgive.
• Observe where in your body that feeling comes up (i.e shoulders, back, hips, etc.), breath into that space and focus on it throughout your practice.
• During our breath and movement work, on the inhale think to yourself "I"  and on the exhale "forgive"

My practice ended up a combination of Tai's prayer and Justine's guided work:

My situation/person: A few days ago I realized that an important relationship in my life was bringing me more pain than happiness and that this person and I were not yet ready to meet each other with kindness, honesty, and all the things that I need in a partnership/relationship. Basically: my heart hurts from a breakup. In Justine's yoga class I inhaled, "I" and exhaled "forgive {E}." I felt my throat as the source of where these feelings were residing, it felt like it was closing up and needed S-P-A-C-E for air to pass through and open it up. I suppose that makes sense---I had thoughts and feelings that needed to be expressed but I never did/felt that I could. 

In addition to inhaling and exhaling, I included my rendition of Tai's prayer: 

I forgive E for not speaking, for not loving me the way I wanted and need to be loved. I am free and you are free. 

There were lots of tears. Lots. Quite tears and sobs. I wondered how this might be self-care and because of the breakup I've been wondering about my own role in being uncommunicative and unready for truthfulness and honesty both with another person and myself. In class Justine reminded me/us: 

Forgiveness is not just about forgiving the other person, freeing the person is also freeing yourself.

It's like she and Tai were in conversation, and I was being asked to let go not just for "E" but for myself. To trust that everything that had happened, was happening, and will happen are part of some grand plan that I can't comprehend and I need to let go of wanting that comprehension---let go of feeling as though I/we failed. 

Day 30 was a  long and emotion-filled day....but I hope it gets me closer to walking-the-talk of this performance of self-care....and I hope that entry makes sense you because I'm still processing.