Forgiving others, forgiving my parents has been much, much easier than forgiving myself. For 45 years, I lived asleep, unaware of the source of the deeper current of pain pulsating within me. I know what it’s like to run smack through life like a blind man, reacting emotionally instead of responding constructively to the inevitable challenges of life. I’ve walked in my parents’ shoes, their emotional shoes, because I myself have worn them, I was programmed by them. I responded to the adversities of my life, just as they did to theirs, with fear, anxiety, worry, doubt, anger, even hysteria. 

So I have empathy. Their toolkit was broken. Or they never even had a toolkit. They did their best with what they had. Forgiving them has been easy. They were ignorant. I was ignorant. I know what that’s like.

But how to forgive myself? Oh gosh, this is so, so painful. God must have sent me a million great opportunities in my life, wonderful people, wonderful schools, wonderful jobs… and I either sabotaged them or turned them down. I was living in so much pain that something else was calling me, pulling me. I needed to heal and didn’t even know it. 

Now, as I slowly awaken, slowly learn to breathe for the first time, slowly begin the discipline of meditation, I am still haunted and taunted by regret, disappointment, hurt. I am having so much trouble letting go of all that I have lost.