ST Healing Love-IntoBalance October2022 - Flipbook - Page 25
Forgiving my mom, I had to
learn to forgive myself, too.
My mom called me mean.
I didn’t realize it - I was
actually offended by her
characterization but then I realized I
was consciously mean
to my mom when I knew
what she wanted and I
didn’t give it. She wanted
validation and a gesture
of love. I purposely withheld
that. I’m not proud of that.
She wasn’t the kind of person
I could have a vulnerable conversation
with, so now that she
has transitioned to the next life, I am
coming to terms with this regret on my own.
So far I have thought deeply about where did that impulse come from? I wanted
her to feel what it’s like to have love withheld. I was aware I was withholding
something she needed because I felt like she did it to me as I was growing up. What am
I to do with this sense of perpetrator’s grief? To make amends, make it right, to do
something… I can’t go back. I can’t say I’m sorry to her now that she has passed and
try to fix that. What I can do is break the pattern: forgive myself and truly see and
understand me, learn to be better and to do better. Feel all my feelings - let the regret
and the grief go deep, so the hole that is dug and be filled with the joy that goes in
place of the grief. Put love in the world myself and with others. Sing in harmony! When I
feel myself being asked to give and my response is to withhold - pause. Check myself
- what’s going on here? Try and understand what that person needs from me and why
they need it from me. Consider what I can give freely while staying
true to my own need to have boundaries. Talk about it with that person.
Expanded wisdom allows forgiveness to happen, and authentic actions
can follow. This is my lesson as I have zoomed out to see I wasn’t
just mean, but withholding with intention.
—Audrey
Healing Love: Into Balance | A Brown Paper
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