Today is Day 15 of the Forgiveness Challenge, but I have only completed Day 11. Partly this is due to other things taking priority in my life the past week, but mostly this is due to the difficult nature of the work of forgiveness. Whereas reading each day's challenge and listening to the poem or meditation does not take more than 15 minutes, the exercises take far longer. The first part of the Fourfold Path of Forgiveness outlined by Desmond and Mpho is "Telling Our Story." Well, writing our/my story takes more than 15 minutes. Telling my story, sharing my story. Telling my story to someone else requires another person and time out of that person's schedule. Suddenly forgiveness isn't something to be done in just 15 minutes of intellectual activity. It's something with a cost - of time, inner reflection, willingness to re-experience all the feelings, opening up the box in which the memories are closed up and exposing them to the light.
All of this takes time and energy.
So I'm revising my commitment. I am committed to this 30-day Forgiveness Challenge. And I will complete it. But maybe not in 30 days. Whenever I read a book with exercises and I don't have time to do the exercise I usually skip it and come back to it later. Except later never comes. So I engage at an intellectual level, note that the exercise is there, and then move on without taking the time to dive deep. I want to do this challenge for real, so I will take my time to do each exercise, even if it means that I am very far behind. Even if it means I can't keep my original commitment that I made so blithely back on May 4.
I forgive myself for needing more time, and I accept that it's okay to go at my own pace. I have not given up, I am simply taking the time I need to do this in the right way for me. I want to learn this practice of forgiveness. I want to make it a real part of my life. Forgiving myself is part of the journey.
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