***The Forgiveness List

There are days I feel like I am treading as fast as I can and barely can keep my head above water. Glub, glub, glub. Technology is wonderful, and, equally, it can be exhausting for me. My email in-boxes are full of great things I want to read and way too many good intentions on my part to respond with substance and depth to many meaningful emails. As the saying goes,” I am dancing as fast as I can” and yet, I am still not getting the job done. This makes me feel yucky. I hate this about myself.

So, let me say to everyone I know, have met, have corresponded with, and with whom I have dropped the email ball, please accept my deepest apologies for being slow and a slacker. I am human and overwhelmed with triple digits in my in-box. And, needless to say, beyond emails, there are other places where I have been less than stellar.

I hate that I am not perfect, cannot juggle it all with ease, and have emails from 2011 that I never answered. I sit in uncomprehending belief that I have not attended to this or that. And, the result is not good. I am very unhappy with myself.

This got me thinking. Enough of the ball and chain of what I was supposed to do and how terrible I am for not responding sooner, better, or, if at all; I need to move past this ever-growing mountain of shame and get on with it.

To that end, I decided I need to write A FORGIVENESS LIST. It is time to pull out the big guns. It is time for acceptance and compassion.

I want to clear out my inner garden and prepare for new sparkly green growth. It is time for the old muck to go.

I have my yellow legal pad at the ready. I plan to keep it nearby for as long as needed. I say to myself -- and God, too, because, that makes this endeavor feel more meaningful -- please forgive me for being an unconscious and insensitive person, a smart ass, a horse’s patoot, as well as a small-minded and tiny-hearted human. My list is numbered and I keep adding to it because I am asking for forgiveness of e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g in my life that I can pull up, dredge up, get red in the face about, and, even, remember from last week. Once I get started, there is some real momentum.

I think forgiveness is a nifty idea; it’s a kind of spiritual spring housecleaning. I may make this an annual event.

I am writing to God as a kind of accountability. In essence, though, I am asking myself to forgive myself and, therein, lies the rub. How easily can I let myself off the hook? Am I totally willing to forgive myself for my actions and thoughts – and that damnable mountain of emails? Can I let go of the should-coulda-woulda’s?

There are times when I can mentally punish myself many times over for some real or perceived jerkiness. Can I do the harder thing and forgive myself?

In doing that, I take responsibility for my part of the action – be it an actual deed or thought or some mental construct. I accept the reality of my humanness. I insert compassion and forgive myself for not living up to some manufactured ideal way of being. I shine some light on my personal darkness and forgive myself for my human ways.
In Aramaic, the word “sin” means to “miss the mark.”

Clearly, I have missed and will continue to miss the mark a few thousand times. Over the coming weeks, I am going to work on letting go of the old baggage and attendant energies and forgive myself. I am going to start spring with a clean slate and an abundance of compassion for myself and the world. I am feel tingly-good already.

Care to join me? Does your inner garden need tending?