EmmaEmerald enjoy your trip to the graveyard. I hope you find resolution surrounding forgiveness.
Forgiveness, like gratitude are popular topics in some circles.
I can't say I subscribe to most of the modern ideas surrounding these concepts, and I feel there may be christian doctrine fuelling them.
I have read that we cant be fully healed until we forgive, I really don't agree with that notion.
I can easily get over small things my loved ones have done and continue in a loving relationship. But some people have done serious harm to me, and while the harm or the perpetrator occupy very little of my thoughts, I don't feel inclined to forgive such harm. I can heal without that. I can cut that person out of my life and move on, without anger or feelings of retribution.
Gratitude is a popular one, but one I find confusing. Not sure to whom I should be grateful. Many good things in life come by luck, a combination of effort and opportunity, not by a godly hand.
I think we can increase our odds of a good outcome by our actions, by opening our hearts and setting intention, but we are not selected to have gifts bestowed on us because we are particularly special.
Many people in the world suffer so much, living under the Taliban or in a war zone is not a choice nor a situation bestowed by a capricious god or even the universe.
It does help to realise what a fortunate place I happen to be, and in that be aware of the plight of others- that puts things in context and minimises my small problems.
Having a peaceful place to live, shelter. clean water and food is not a given, not a right and if I find myself getting irked over something small then I remind myself to look at the bigger picture.
I am making preparations for my niece to visit with her husband and young son. She was born and raised abroad- but comes back to the UK to visit relatives and touch her roots. She is a brave survivor of childhood religious abuse, and still struggles with the hard wiring that was set in place. She in now an enlightened atheist, we talk a lot, and it will be amazing to see her. Her close family abroad have distanced themselves when she left the church, her whole word was tied up in the church community, so it has been a struggle to find new ways, new people, while feeling like an outsider, a sinner. She is finding her tribe however. she has courage and fortitude.
A wet rainy day here, OH has to work, but I have Body Balance in a nearby small town, close to a beach and harbour. So if the rain holds off I may take a walk along the shoreline after the class.
Off for my morning spa shower, light my candle and get busy with my morning rituals.
Have an enchanted weekend sisters.