Where do I draw the line on forgiveness?
Wherever I want to stop rewarding myself with peace.
Wherever I want to remain a victim.
Wherever I want to put an anchor on my lightness of being.
Wherever I want to lose my sense of connection with those around me, with myself, with the gift of what is.
Asking the question, “Where do you draw the line?” seems to assume that forgiveness is an endorsement of acts. It’s not. Forgiveness is a recognition of the innocence of the state of mind from which the act originates. It’s seeing clearly that the person engaging in the act is doing the best they can with what they’re thinking and believing - same as me.
There’s no reason I can’t be both in forgiveness AND
running top speed in the opposite direction,
working to heal a disconnection,
offering a peaceful approach to a potentially combustible situation,
or throwing my body between an attacker and their prey.
Am I better at addressing discord and misalignment when I’m crushed under the weight of victimhood and the pain of separation from my fellow human beings and my kind and loving true nature? Am I better at anything when I’m in those states?
Am I more creative?
Am I more understanding?
Am I more even-keeled?
Am I better at solving problems?
…when I abandon peace and connection for the sake of “making things right?”
I find that I’m not.
I find I have absolutely no ability to “right” anything in that state. I only amplify my sense of wrongness, which is both expressed in, and compounded by, my failure to forgive.
If I want peace, if I really want to set things right in my life, my first order of business is to release myself from the prison of victimhood and reclaim my power to move freely in the world. And it is not available to me behind the locked door of my refusal to forgive.
When I reject forgiveness, I surrender all of my power to bring peace to myself and others. As long as I’m out of forgiveness, I am lost, fumbling for solutions and wondering why the situation doesn’t improve.
But the second I forgive, I reclaim all of my power to bring peace and right-thinking to my situation. And when I do, I find that the situation starts to clear up all on its own.
I can’t imagine a line where I’d ever want to stop that.