Sparks in Wisdom's Fire: forgiveness

Showing posts with label forgiveness. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Tricky Coyote Words: I Am Sorry

Tricky coyote words casting us into a healer’s world of realization, responsibility, recognition

I am sorry — three poignant words. Within them is the power to defuse suffering, quiet anger, create peace. Three words. When I use them, I find less is more of an apology.

How many times have you received or given an apology that begins with “I am sorry…” and ends with an excuse or a lack of responsibility? Some of my least favorite tag-ons: I am sorry IF/I am sorry BUT. I find myself wondering where the heck is that all about? I remind myself, “less is more.” In the less I show up humble and vulnerable.

I am sorry are tricky coyote words that cast us into a different realm. When we say these words humbly and vulnerably, we truly believe that we have hurt another and believe we need to give voice to our sorrow. In those words, we gain the opportunity to make amends. We form those words within the realm of realization, responsibility, and reconciliation.

Realization

Each of us is imperfect. Inner imperfection shaken, we lash out, we hurt another, inevitably we cause suffering. I do not believe that we want to be hurtful; our actions come from those deeply wounded parts of our self.

Being sorry begins with the realization that those wounded parts of our self were triggered. We lashed out and hurt another. Once we recognize our hurtful actions, we are able to name the hurt that we caused. We recognize that this hurt is less about how we were triggered us and all about our reactions. This realization is the beginning of responsibility.

Responsibility

Taking responsibility pushes us deeper into the cracks of our imperfections. Without courage, we continue to be stuck in our stuff. It takes both courage and fortitude to enter that place of imperfection and accept that our shadows are as much us as our light.

We accepting our triggers is a way of standing in our power. They are challenges to meet and lessons to learn. Being responsible means shifting from reaction to response. We realize that we can remain in a state of status quo of being hurtful or we can use these three powerful words, I am sorry, to bring us and others to a place of healing.

Reconciliation

An act of reconciliation is a holistic practice of healing. We show up as who we really are. It is disconcerting to show up authentic, humble, and vulnerable. As we reconcile our hurts, we cast our light into the dark of our actions. In doing so we make amends.

Saying I am sorry is saying, I screwed up. This is not who I want to being. I want to be better. Please forgive me.

We act knowing that the other person might not be able to accept our apology. But we know that we are willing to gift another with our apology. In this gift-giving, we transform into the person that is no less wounded but more healed.

Van Hurst, ms, is an intuitive-coach-catalyst. As a contemplative coach, she uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for navigating the mundane and extraordinary. The result of time with Van? Being the change you want to see in the world by creating a blueprint for your life through a deeper connection to your intuition and contemplative nature.

Van is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Her most recent book, As Natural As Breathing: Being Intuitive, is available on Amazon. Contact Vanessa for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

All You Need Is Love

…a not so trite blog

What is love? Is it really all you need? I answered those questions — or at least asked the questions and discovered a few answers — as I developed my March Bellarmine University class: All You Need Is Love.

Love is…

Instead of love being affection or desire, let’s see love as allowing someone to be themself. Caring for someone unconditionally. Giving them the room, the opportunity to grow into themself. This is a paradigm shift in which love as unconditional takes on a whole new meaning.

At our core is a spark of love. The origin of our spark of love, is the creator, the sacred. That spark at our core flares a connection of love across the abyss to the Sacred, the All Spark as it were. When we ignite the spark at our core, a highway of connections is made visible — between our self, the sacred, others, and all of creation. Moving along this highway, we give and receive an infinite supply of love.

We need this love

The world is a wild, fierce, beautifully uncertain place where we get bombarded with so much stuff. We get fatigued. Sometimes the last thing we want to do is love — our self, another, creation. When we are at our lowest, we remember that love is an energizer. When we consciously and intentionally share love, hope blossoms. Barriers break down. Silos dismantle. We connect to others.

Love is the great transformer. Its energy ignites our forgiveness. It turns our attention to suffering. Wakens our compassionate heart. Shines the light into the shadows of possibility. Makes the world is a better place.

Love is a game changer

Love is not for the timid. It asks us to move out of our shell, beyond our comfort zone. To courageously live in a world that is not perfect. Not nirvana. Not heaven on earth. By igniting the spark of love, we fully engage life understanding that we are in a great classroom not of chosen lessons but of challenges and surprises that call us to be our best self. We show up as our best self by choosing love.

Each time we choose to be an igniter of love, a receptacle of love, a sharer of love, our perception shifts. We see past our judgments, into the heart of another, the heart of a situation, the heart of our self. We feel the woundedness of the world and know that the greatest healing power is love. When we see life in this way, when we act from this knowing, life is never the same.

Love propels our leap across the chasm

That chasm is just an illusion that separates us from our life work. That work? To share love with one another. Unconditionally, compassionately, truthfully. This is not the love of enabling but the love that holds each of us to our highest self. And, that is what we are called to do over and over again.

As I love dearly and completely, I realize that love is all there is. Wanna live a life where love is all there is? Wanna join the love squad? I dare you. I double dare you to join me in a world where love is all there is.

Van Hurst, ms, is an intuitive-coach-catalyst. As a contemplative coach, she uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for navigating the mundane and extraordinary. The result of time with Van? Creating a blueprint for your life through a deeper connection to your intuition and contemplative nature.

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

A Brief Moment in Time: Experiencing the Pause

Rhythm is found not in musical notes but in the spaces between them. Meaning is found not in the words but in the silence between syllables. Understanding of Tai Chi body/mind/spirit connection is not found in the inhale/exhale but in the space between them.

The pause is found in every thing we do. It is vitally important to how we respond or react. How often have you missed the meaning within a pause? How often was a trigger being flipped before a pause was identified? I know that I have flipped triggers more often than I comfortably admit.

Through the pause our intuitive awareness activates. We notice nuances, even patterns, and find meaning within them. Those pauses are the weave that connects the essence of who we are to our intent and action.

Perhaps one of our greatest challenges is learning to live in the pause. We can only be in that space when we are in the moment. The past no longer pulls us at with its regrets and remorse. The future’s lure of hopes and dreams loses its allure.

Now, I am not saying that the grief of the past should stay unresolved or that we should never have hopes and dreams. What I am saying is that we cannot afford to be any where other than the present moment. For when we are here now, we find the energy to carefully nurture the seeds of possibility that are found only in the pause.

What I am proposing is that we acknowledge what pulls us from the moment and muddies our connect to the present moment. Part of the acknowledgment is to take opportunities to feel the poignancy of what intrudes and then heal those parts of us wounded by the past.

As for the hopes and dreams, let’s ask our self what we can do, in the moment to nurture the seeds of hopes and dreams. It is not enough to admire our hopes and dreams; we must find way to bring them alive in this moment.

How we resolve our past and bring fruition to the future are birthed in the pause. For within it, we are able to understand without logically knowing which is the best path on this journey. Using this understanding we discern how to move from each moment while creating the life we are meant to have.

So, how do you get to a place where you comfortably and actively engage the pause? Here are just some suggestions. Each practice session need only be 90-seconds or so.

Listen to how the rhythm of music is impacted by the moments of pause.
Listen to how the pause impacts a conversations.
Walk and find the pause in your gait.

This practice helps you develop an awareness of how the pause presents itself to you. Through practice your awareness of what opportunity presents itself in the pause increases. Notice:

In music: how does the pause shift your energy?
In conversation: what meanings do you grasp within the pause?
In walking: what does the pause tell you about your physical balance?

Recognizing the pause is a way of welcoming richness into your life. The pause is the home of transformation. Using the information gained in the pause shifts your reactions to an increasingly uncertain world to responses.

Vanessa F. Hurst, ms, is an Intuitive, Coach, Catalyst, who uses mindfulness practices and intuition tools to create strategies for personal and relationship transformation. She is a professional speaker & author who weaves inner wisdom into all she touches. Her books are available @ www.wildefyrpress.com. Contact Vanessa (vanessa@intentandaction.com) for life coaching, intuitive consultations, keynotes, and programs.

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Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Forgiveness: An Inside Job

Have you ever felt a deep shame or overwhelming grief over something that you had done? Unacknowledged, the memory returns again and again until it turns into an impenetrable knot. It weighs you down, wears you down, until your only action is reaction to that memory.

The memory does not have to control your life. Forgiveness quiets the voice of that memory while triggering breaks in the threads of shame and grief. This is not the forgiveness of an outward action during which you ask for forgiveness of another; no, this is an internal response of self-forgiveness.

Through self-forgiveness, I’ve realized that sometimes we make life much more difficult than what it is. Through courageous action, life is not difficult. It is only when we cling to the despair of coulda, shoulda, woulda, we get trapped in an endless cycle of what if. The twining of that knot into our core seem so entrenched that we cannot unravel from it.

An amazing thing happens when we forgive our self. We don’t have to untwine that knot. Through self-forgiveness that knot disintegrates. We feel lighter, more energized. From the dust, we the power to own the beauty of who we are.

Forgiveness is an inside job that impacts our relationship with the external world. It is a difficult action — make no mistake about it. Self forgiveness involves more than forgiving yourself for hurting another person. Self forgiveness is an acknowledgement of the grief and shame you carry. It means forgiving yourself for engaging in situations that culminated in your being hurt. Self-forgiveness is an affirmation of your worth.

How do we forgive our self?

Acknowledge to yourself how the action that was hurtful — to yourself or to another person.
Feel how and where the hurt has lodged in you. Describe it with all of your senses.
Ask yourself what is behind those feelings of hurt. (Stuck? Some words: betrayal, abandonment, unloveable). What are yours?
Hold those feelings in the palm of your hand. Breathe love into them. Connect to your heart. Allow the well of your compassion to surround them. Own how you feel. Consciously forgive yourself. Continue until you feel peace.
Surrounded by peace, ask “How can I change?” Small steps grow into great transformation.

It may take time for this peace to become a stable, integral part of you. Remember this. Be gentle with your self as you shower love and compassion on yourself knowing that when stuff happens, forgiveness is key and you matter.

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