Summer is coming into its final weeks and what a summer it has been. We had our final class of the first year of spiritual direction training last night and all I can say is how grateful I am for all I am being reminded of and all that I am learning. Who knew this would be such a rich and rewarding experience?
Life is full of surprises, and I am grateful for that too, even the ones that are a little uncomfortable. This morning’s little aha (or maybe not so little) had to do with forgiveness. I don’t often feel there is anything I need to forgive others for, but I think that’s partly because I wasn’t recognizing my anger and just how much burying the anger also closed my heart. I’ve known for a long time that I really have to work at keeping my heart open, not getting lost behind my well-developed defenses but I wasn’t always connecting the dots about how much of it was connected to the hidden anger. I realized this morning that my heart was feeling kind of stony, and I recalled how upset I had been yesterday about a situation that made me nervous and angry. I was very happy to be able to welcome the anger and feel it all the way through rather than do the bypass, but I still had another step to take, forgiving the person and the situation. How in heaven’s name would I not have connected this better years ago? I guess if you don’t admit to yourself when you’re angry with people you aren’t all that likely to forgive them either.
The good news is having opened my heart to this awareness and doing the forgiveness work is so very freeing and I feel much lighter and loads of gratitude. I also feel super grateful for the group that attended my prayer class yesterday. What a wise and wonderful group of women once again. I love facilitating these classes and I can’t wait to get into the Universal Christ classes I will be leading starting September 21st. All this shadow work is not without its silver linings…
Namaste
