FORGIVENESS IS A PROCESS...........

Living in an unsafe world......how do we practice forgiveness in an unsafe world??
Forgiveness seems so theoretical and how do you apply it IN REAL LIFE?

I've been pondering this alot lately...because....over the summer, a deranged madman tried to kill my daughter. He actually killed three women and lucky for me and my daughter, and all the other people who escaped "unharmed" (physically). But not so lucky for the others. How do their families put together the pieces and forgive, if they do at all?
You know, you see these heartwarming stories on The Today Show, about radical forgiveness.....people who have lost family and friends to murderers and they forgive.....So, theoretically, I think....yeah, that is good, it is healing, it makes sense. Until it almost happened to me...and my family....

FORGIVENESS IS A PROCESS.......

I start to forgive.....the therapist in me kicks in and I understand why people become so desperate. Then something reminds me....of HIM, that awful night....I go back there and I feel numb.....

FORGIVENESS IS A PROCESS......

I become impatient and less tolerant of others. This is not like me. I entertain negative thoughts about others instead of self-correcting.

FORGIVENESS IS A PROCESS.....

I start to calm down, think it through rationally, return to "life as usual". Now the nightmares have returned. Two nights ago I had to get up out of bed. You know when you have the dreams that you can't shake? You have to get out of bed and clear the foggy feeling? I had some hot chocolate and went back to bed. Still the dream images haunt me......In a building, this time it was a warehouse, danger is coming, coming, coming and I am locking the doors over and over and over. There are people with guns and I HAVE TO LOCK THE DOORS TO PROTECT MY FAMILY. This time I was using huge, thick beams to barricade the warehouse doors......

FORGIVENESS IS A PROCESS.

When I am overly emotional, and can't sleep, and am distracted in my work because of HIM, the DERANGED GUNMAN, I feel less numb and more angry (for brief moments), and I want to scream at him..."HOW SELFISH COULD YOU BE?????"

FORGIVENESS IS A PROCESS.

Forgiveness, of course, is an inside job. It starts with me. It is a conscious choice and an active decision. I am going with it, I am IN THE PROCESS of forgiving. It's better some days than others....It works in layers....some progress, the more reactivation of the HORROR OF IT ALL, then there's another opportunity for forgive, ONCE AGAIN.......

FORGIVENESS.......IS.......SUCH.......A.......PROCESS.....

The world is a picture into my self

I've been focusing alot lately on projections. Here's what I do (and hate that I do)...I have these automatic thoughts about someone I see or know or interact with, like "You're a jerk", or "she is fat", or "what an idiot!". Sometimes I entertain those thoughts. Sometimes I catch myself and say "wow...I hate that I have that thought", then I change it to something compassionate. But, what works best is to look at the projections, or rather to LOOK INSIDE MYSELF. It's not fun or easy. So I ask myself, "what is it about myself that I don't like that I am seeing in that person?" wow...there's almost always an internal knowing. That's what I can work with then. I try to see my annoyances and "judgements" of others as "gifts", opportunities to self-correct, to grow as a person, to heal.
Yesterday I had the realization that I am having many more annoyances and impatience with people, and many more judgements than I usually do. So I realized it was time to beef up my looking inside. I see the picture on the "screen" (event or observance or interaction in the world), and I remind myself that the picture on the screen is a projection into myself. So I watch the movie in a different light - it is a STORY OF MY INTERNAL LIFE.
Example: Yesterday I went to see my holistic practitioner. he is a very kind, caring person but he sometimes has this edge of irritability to him. As I was driving home, I thought about this some more. I thought about our conversation and his judgements of others and realized he was reflecting to me my own recent increased concern about my own judgements. wow...what I focus on and struggle with is played out right in front of my eyes!...it is like watching a MOVIE OF MYSELF. I recalled that times that I am not struggling with judgements, he can be his usual self and it doesn't particularly bother me "that's just how he is, that's just an aspect of his personality, that's not the total person" is how I think of it at those times.
I keep realizing that I have a choice in every moment - To externalize and judge, or to self correct and heal. Neat.

I can change my mind

I'm an expert at changing my thoughts - I'm a therapist and I am a survivor. As a therapist, I teach people how to change their thoughts and that by changing their thoughts, their experiences of life change. I am also a survivor, having grown up in a dysfunctional family. My mother was bipolar and unmedicated. My father coped with her insanity by withdrawing into workaholism. So, many many of my internal childhood experiences were of loneliness and I became an expert at a very young age at changing my thoughts. It became second nature.
When I was a kid, I changed my thoughts by saying "I don't love you, I don't need you, I don't need ANYBODY". As an adult, I learned to change my thoughts by saying "I love you, I need you, I love people". It was reprogramming. It took time.
Advance to today.....I see every day as a miracle because I see the miracles in each day. It's fun, it's like doing magic or rather, seeing magic occur right in front of my eyes.
So....I'm thinking if I write about the everyday, mundane and not so mundane experiences, I have a running log of my experiences finding the magic, the miracles in every day. Some days it may be my musings and wonderings, other days it may be my rantings and ravings, other days simple experiences. My challenge to myself is to find the magic in all of this. And, in part, the magic transpires when I change my thoughts......Here we go......