Hello Everyone!That's Paul's photo at the top of the post today. It shows the sun breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm shot from the front porch of the property we live on right now. I think it's gorgeous and a great visual metaphor for the theme of this month's newsletter—forgiveness.
We want to remind everyone again that we have new sliding scale fees -- $50-150 / hour -- and half hour sessions if desired. You do NOT have to ask in advance what you should pay. Choose the level you can afford.
And we very much want to thank, again, all of you who offered to be references for us in our search for a new place to live and provide our services. It was a nice long list and we truly appreciate it! (If you're new to our list and don't know what we're talking about you can read our last newsletter online to find out more.)
Love,
Sheryl and Paul
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THE HEALING POWER OF FORGIVENESS
by Sheryl Karas
One of the recurring themes in our practice has always been the issue of forgiveness. That's a tricky issue for a lot of people, sometimes it's tricky for us. But healing always leads to our original state and that state is not hurt, resentment, anger, fear or hate.
A lot of people feel like forgiveness is a gift we bestow on someone else and, yes, it can work that way. Others feel like forgiveness can't or shouldn't be bestowed until "justice is served" or reparations have been made. But that may never happen. Meanwhile the pain we hold in our bodies and in our minds is sitting there, waiting to be released, hurting us.
According to a study by Everett Worthington, Jr. people who hold onto grudges and refuse to forgive have more stress-related disorders, lower immune-system function, and worse rates of cardiovascular disease than the population as a whole. They are also more likely to experience divorce. People who do forgive report fewer episodes of clinical depression and anxiety, have longer marriages and more friendships. Evidence is mounting that the healing forgiveness provides is directly correlated with better health.
But how can we forgive when every part of our being is shouting "Never forget! Don't let them get away with it!"?
We don't forget. But we can reduce the intensity of pain from the memory and free our souls to create healing in the situations that appear to bind us.
Let me give an example. Paul and I were still living in Santa Cruz, CA when Proposition 8 (the ban on gay marriage in California) passed. We were livid about this—we have a lot of gay friends and family members. Supposedly, one of the largest supporters of this ban, perhaps the biggest supporters, were the Mormon community and most of them lived out of state. Less than one month later guess where we wound up being? In a town that's 51% Mormon, 94% Christian (mostly Evangelical Christian) overall.
This is obviously going to be temporary place for us but we're here now...think we haven't had a few issues we've needed to work out of our own? :-)
Recently, I went through a difficult time—the economy combined with this choice has been a bit frightening for me—and I was inspired in the middle of my own healing to forgive the Mormons for Proposition 8. Now trust me, that's not what I expected to have to do! But I've learned a lot of things about the Mormons since coming here. First, we've made some good friends with members of this community, some of the most loving, open-hearted people we've ever met, and some of the most vulnerable, too, because of it. The Mormons used to be a severely persecuted group. The founders of their church were imprisoned and killed for their beliefs, Mormon families were literally driven from their homes, their farms and places of worship repeatedly burned to the ground, until they packed what they could into covered wagons and joined the pioneer movement to settle the deserts of Utah and Arizona. That's how this town came into being. It was settled by Mormon pioneers, most of whom died in the process. But the persecution didn't end even then. They were hounded in their new homes until they recanted a key distinction of their faith and way of life—what was considered an alternative form of marriage, pluralistic marriage or bigamy, still illegal throughout the United States.
Now you would think that a people hurt by a ban on their form of marriage would "know better" than to pass that hurt onto anyone else. (And some do and feel awful about it.) But that's not what this article is about. The fear expressed in those Proposition 8 ads said it well enough—they don't believe they should be forced to allow their children to be exposed to laws that directly oppose the precepts of their faith. Whether you agree with them or not, on some level that's what this was all about.
So in the middle of the night, not too long ago, I dug into my soul and said "I understand about the need for religious freedom—I was raised Jewish!— and I can forgive you." And then an amazing thing happened—my shoulders instantly dropped half an inch. I did it again and felt my body let go a little more so I kept going until all the terror I had been feeling dropped away. It didn't change anything in my outer life—my circumstances are still the same—but I feel ready to leave this community now. Not desperate to leave (like I felt when I first realized where we had come) but complete, like an essential part of my well-being was addressed by this experience. I'm still processing what that means.
Interestingly enough, part of my healing process involved forgiving myself. I needed to recognize how much I have held members of my own communities at bay, and how much pain and recrimination I heap on myself. We all do things or neglect to do things we regret. We all hold the pain of those memories inside and consciously or unconsciously recriminate ourselves for all kinds of presumed "mistakes" or "wrong-doing." Paul and I have done several sessions with people who presumed their task was to forgive others but had not even conceived of the fact that they might need to forgive themselves. Forgiveness is a healing balm for the soul. When we recriminate ourselves we are literally heaping abuse onto sorrow, terrorizing ourselves and undermining our own ability to make positive changes.
One of the most helpful things a healer ever said to me was that anyone who had experienced what I did growing up would act or feel the same way. This is a very important thing when it comes to forgiving someone else's behavior or your own. Believing that the person who committed a particular offense must have been hurt similarly or worse doesn't make the behavior acceptable but it does serve to bounce one out of "they must be evil" or "they should have known better" styles of thinking. That's just an excuse to justify revenge and refusal to forgive as a form of "retribution."
It's okay NOT to forgive right away. Jumping to forgiveness too soon for some people can be a form of self-abuse. Acknowledge the pain of what has happened, express it! But there comes a time when you need to let it go. To move on and be fully healed, forgiveness is the key.
Sometimes forgiveness is the first step towards reconciliation. There's a new video about marriage equality and religious freedom being distributed by the Courage Campaign (http://www.couragecampaign.org/) in which all the participants are wearing a white ribbon, the symbol of marriage equality. The white ribbon is also an LDS (Mormon) symbol for forgiveness. Coincidence? I don't know but if it isn't maybe it's a sign. There are beliefs that the LDS and the Gay community should never be expected to agree upon but if you look at their history these two groups have way more in common than not. Staying in opposition keeps people in polarized positions. But seeing the humanity in one another, recognizing and respecting our humanness, can help people let down their guard so a better solution for all concerned can come in.
Forgiveness is an expression of that respect, it's a form of compassion—"I recognize your humanness. I feel sorry that whatever happened to have you view me as a threat has occurred. And I forgive you for the actions you took that led to hurting me." It's not the same as saying "it's alright." Forgiveness is saying "If I grew up in the same situation, with the same history, cultural mindset and beliefs, there's a possibility that I could have done the same thing."
Forgiveness is compassion for another person or group of people and it's compassion for ourselves. What is compassion? It's our original state of being, the purest form of love.
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RELATED and NOT SO RELATED BLOG POSTS THIS MONTH
The Mormon Temple and Marriage Equality... (includes the Courage Campaign's video on Marriage Equality and Religious Freedom)
Terrorized by the Livestock
The Livestock is Terrorized by Us?
Not Planning to be a "Twit" Anytime Soon
Shadows
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MAMA LOVE NEWS
Not much new with Mama Love this month but if you want to see some photos of Sheryl making her displays check this link-- it's kind of fun.
Visit the Mama Love website at http://www.mamaloveproducts.com .
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