Forgiveness 🙌 Resentment

Forgiveness comes when we release resentment of people (or self) for not having been what we wanted (someone) to be.

For me, this is a new take on “forgiveness”.

It works with the assumption that I wanted someone to be a certain way – they weren’t and I resent them for it.

To forgive then means to release the resentment.

And to release the resentment leads to greater well-being.

To resent …

It is Louise Hay in her book 📖 “You can Heal your Life” who introduced me and us to this idea.

Louise believes holding onto resentment makes us ill.

And releasing resentment heals.

Gabor Mate, Mario Martinez, Gladys McGarey they are all in agreement with her.

I am too.

When I am resentful or full of resentment, it is hard to be at-ease.

Then I am at or in dis-ease.

And as I release resentment, dis-ease dissipates.

My dis-ease can be depression or ADHD or blood pressure, ulcers, heart-dis-ease, there’s quite a list.

Kerry Howells says: The meaning of the word resentment comes from the Old French word resentir, which means “the re-experiencing of a strong feeling.”

She says: “Two distinguishing features of resentment are that it causes us to ruminate—that is, to go over and over the situation in our minds—and that it lingers over time.”

Lingering feelings.

Howells refers to research that indicates resentment & unforgiveness lead to heart dis-ease & cancer.

Quite existentially Louise Hay believed this long before scientific research started proving it.

She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at around 1977, at about the age of 51 and believed that her dis-ease was rooted in feelings of resentment towards among other the neighbour who raped her when she was just 5 years old.

What do we do with that?

Especially since, according to a New York Times article she denied herself any standard cancer treatments and rather focused on releasing her lingering resentment and her cancer went into remission.

For the following 39 years until she peacefully passed away in her sleep at the age of 90.

And I sit a moment and think of resentment – who do I resent for not having been who I wanted them to be.

And I am astounded at the faces that come to mind.

And I do a meditative exercise in which I walk through my own life, and wherever I meet someone who was not what I wanted them to be, I touch them kindly and say: “I do not resent you, I did, I used to, but now I release the resentment and I do not resent you anymore.”

I say this to my Mom who passed me on to the care of Elsie, when I was barely one year old.

I didn’t realise I resented her for it.

I say this to my Dad who was unable to cope well just when my sister was born and my mom was teetering on the edge of death and my brother was ill and I was 5 and hoping to be seen as well.

I say it to the old man with the grey goatee and leathery skin who sexually abused me when I was six and seven.

And I say it again to my parents who were so busy with the Church and with my siblings, that they did not even notice.

I say: “I do not resent you, I did, I used to, but now I release the resentment and I do not resent you anymore.”

I say it and I mean it.

For if I hold on to these feelings, then I allow the destruction of what was less than it should have been, to continue destroying me, to bring dis-ease into my life and feed dis-ease.

I’d rather be at ease.

At peace.

And as I walk through my life – from one incarnation of me to the next, I release resentment again and again.

Sometimes for silly things.

Maybe if we start resenting, it becomes a default response?

And just as I think I am done – I hear someone calling me.

The voice is far away.

But clear enough that I can follow it.

Which I do.

All the way back to when I was 5.

And there I am.

It is I calling me.

“Please don’t resent me for not being who you wanted (me) to be?”

Who did I want (me) to be?

Worthy.

Welcome.

Able.

Embraced.

Adored.

And I hear another voice calling.

It is I calling me.

I am just passed my sixth birthday.

I am a little broken.

My anus hurts.

And my legs.

I am a little fearful.

“Please don’t resent me for not being who you wanted (me) to be?”

Who did I want (me) to be?

Safe.

Smarter.

Able to get away.

Not afraid.

And I hear another voice calling.

It is I calling me.

I am 10.

I am 14.

I am 18.

I am 22.

I am 29 and I am holding my son.

I am 30 and I am holding my daughter.

I am 32 and I am holding my second daughter.

I am 41 and I am holding my fourth child.

And I hear my voice: “Please don’t resent me for not being who you wanted (me) to be?”

And I forgive myself.

For not being what I wanted (me) to be.

And I forgive Zuko.

And my children.

And I ask their forgiveness: that they will release their resentment of me in those times when I were, just like my parents were, not why they wanted me to be, what they needed me to be.

And as I release the resentment of self, the dis-ease dissipates and I come to be at-ease.

Surprised that in me there was so much resentment.

Me, who loves so unconditionally and so easily.

And I see that all is stacked in my favour.

All is woven to my advantage.

Elsie taking me in her arms and folding me in a warm blanket and kissing me softly in my neck and singing to me: Sleep softly my little baby, sleep softly as I rock you.”

Her arms and voice weaving pristine love into my life.

All is turned into good for me – even fierce destruction creating a fierce inner spirit that will rise again, even in the face of the worst evil, clad in weathered grey leathery skin.

And I see where I am, and where I was all is well.

Also for my children and my Zuko whom I could so easily have destroyed.

That’s what we do, isn’t it?

We mimic.

We copy.

We see it in the big pictures of history.

Jews, once almost destroyed by anti-semitism, visiting the same upon Palestinians in anti-Islamic fervour.

Afrikaners, robbed of freedom, held in concentration camps, holding Black People and Colored People and Indian People in massive segregated concentration camps and stealing their soul, their life, as migratory workers who are robbed of worthiness.

On the North American continent devoutly religious people hunt Native Americans and kill their children, fiercer than they were hunted.

And we resent each other and resent anew.

And in new ways.

I release you, for not being what I wanted you to be.

Please release me.

Let’s release each other.

And heal.

As individuals.

And families.

And nations.

And countries.

I can start with me.