Love and Forgiveness: An Antidote to Grief and Fear Part II

Part II – F O R G I V E N E S Srn rnAs I traveled through the arduous, immense, lonely and all-encompassing journey of grief, I found myself face to face with the agonizing feelings of guilt. I found myself completely lost in this deep and vast ocean of emotions and the strong belief of having done something wrong, the belief that I had failed as a mother! rnBefore I was aware that the intensity of the feelings was due to repressed guilt, every painful experience I had gone through being a mother erupted as a volcano right from the depths of my unconscious reservoir. I remember a moment when, the pain and the thoughts of ‘that if I had done more, come home a little sooner I may have been able to save my son’, was so extreme that it turned into a full blown panic attack. rnI was judging myself! rnMy heart was not a safe haven for me any longer; I had no heart left, only pain. A piece of my consciousness split and was observing me with a fierce critical eye. There was chaos and mutiny; a full-blown revolution was happening inside my self. I had never experienced such deep guilt and self-condemnation before. I felt I was being punished for there must have been something I did wrong, that I had been ‘bad’ and deserved this pain otherwise why would I be feeling this? rnSomewhere inside of me there was an assumption that I was “bad” and that God was punishing me. I realized sometime later that it wasn’t God punishing me, but I was punishing myself because I was assuming I had done things wrong. This erroneous assumption had awoken a “dormant beast” called guilt. When this beast awoke to feed it was ferocious and there was plenty for it to eat. rnI stopped and allowed myself to look at the ‘beast-guilt’. Initially, I wanted to run away from it as fast and as far as I could. The more I tried to run away from it, the more it seemed to catch up to me: I could not run, nor hide, the only way out was through it! I found the courage to stop and face it, it was not easy, as a matter of fact, it was the hardest thing I had to do in my life, besides the pain of the loss of my son. rnI learned to placate this ferocious beast with the only antidote capable to do so: forgiveness and acceptance! Forgiveness and acceptance became the only food that could placate and satisfy the guilt-beast! rnI had to sit there and look at everything that I had done imperfectly as a mother and then realizing that the only way through the guilt was to accept and love myself. Accepting the imperfect mother in me was possible when I stretched my ability to see “her” beyond my judgment of her. To see the truth! To see that “she” had done the best she could and that whatever she did or did not do was coming from love. rnI loved my son so much, more than my mind could conceive: my love was enduring, unwavering and perfect, although my actions and decisions at times were not! I was able to discern between my love and my actions: perfect love expressed through a yet un-evolved, imperfect human vehicle. This understanding created an opening for deep love and compassion to flow toward myself. I had to muster enough love for myself that it would be stronger than the guilt. rnThis excruciating experience of guilt was the catalyst for: rn1. A much deeper and wiser understanding of myselfrn rn2. Seeing clearly how I had been living under an assumption of who I thought I wasrn rn3. Correcting this assumption with the truthrn rn4. Allowing myself to awaken and retrieve love and acceptance for myself. rnThus began my experience of forgiveness and the honoring of the sweetness and fierceness of my love as a mother!