I enjoy the lengthening shadows of the fall. They invite me into reflections and considerations that the brighter times of the year chase away–reflections and considerations on the full spectrum from joy to grief. Recently, I allowed the shadows to take me back to some times in my life when things didn’t go the way I’d like to remember them. These were not events where life events made me a victim. They were events where I was an active player, and I didn’t play well.
This is what I began to see. Loving, forgiving and daring. In those events where I was at least one of the bad actors, I did not love enough. I did not forgive readily enough (if at all). I did not dare enough. That insight came to me in the dark, and it offered me something. It offered me a place to own my role in those past events. I did not love enough there. I did not forgive enough, there. I did not dare enough, there. In each of those episodes that came to me in the shadows, I saw that I turned in on myself.
I don’t find spinning circles in regret a very useful thing to anyone. My point is not that I or anyone else should beat ourselves up over past events where we did not love, or forgive or dare enough. But, I want to see those moments, own them, and do better. I can love better. I can forgive more deeply. I can dare more greatly than I have in the past. These are seeds of generosity. I want to live in a world where these things thrive: love, forgiveness and daring.
~Bob Patrick
Oh, how I can relate to these words of yours. I now have a new perspective on how to look back in a different way at these experiences of long ago when I did not do the right thing. Thank you for offering me another way of thinking about them.
All of these musings have a familiarity to me. When I can look at my actions of this sort with compassion I begin to unravel these karmic threads. Thanks for the share!