Sunday, January 23, 2011

Making Myself Share

I have been woefully uninspired to actually write lately. What's more, I've had lots of stories I tell myself about my life and the world around me, but I haven't wanted to share them. I've censored myself feeling like the things I'd like to write about are too elementary, too naive too full of angst or too full of those you had to be there feelings.
Life has been really satisfying lately, but who wants to read about how excited I am to be outside picking up horse poo in unseasonably beautiful January weather? I relish my time in the barn, with the doors wide open. Rain, or shine, I find myself immersed in rain drops or bird calls, and am filled with joy.
I've been thinking on several ideas lately, in the solitude of the barn. One subject was clarified a little more for me today, through conversation with a friend, and for that I am grateful.
I've heard the term "no regrets" bandied about a lot lately, and I had to really sit on it. At the same time I was still sitting on the idea of no regrets, I stumbled across an affirmation someone I admire very much wrote: Please love yourself. Forgive yourself and know there is no thing really to forgive. You have done nothing wrong.
I thought I could understand this on one level, but on another level, I couldn't wrap my mind around it. At the time I was presented with these ideas together, I was walking with someone through a deep pain, caused by someone's wrong actions toward them. I was stuck on the person in the wrong.
I've wrestled with these two seemingly disparate thoughts for a while now. The thought that we have done nothing wrong, and the state many people are in. How is it that we can have done no wrong when people are desperately hurting?
I have come to realize, these words, these ideas are not to free people from owning their actions or from loving one another, but to free people to love one another.
It is not our place to worry about other people's actions, it is our place to worry about our own Being. Here's my theory: if we live in regret, we are likely to continue to make the same choices we regret. If we live in the place of hurting others, we are likely to feel so badly about ourselves we cannot help but continue to hurt others.
Don't get me wrong, the ideas of no regrets and you've done nothing wrong are not permission for those who live to step on other people; they are the truths of redemption. We can be redeemed. We are redeemed. When we move forward in redemption, we are granted a new choice each moment. We can choose to live more fully and openly. When we shed the guilt of regret, we can step out in love, and at the end of the day, all you need is love, love; love is all you need.