absolution.

something pragmatic to start the week:
=>Asking Yourself For Forgiveness<=

Imagine vividly a situation where
you have acted badly, one about
which you feel guilty, and about
which you wince even to think of it.
Then, as you breathe in, accept total
responsibility for your actions in
that particular situation, without in
any way trying to justify your
behavior. Acknowledge exactly
what you have done wrong, and
wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness.
Now, as you breathe out, send out
reconciliation, forgiveness, healing,
and understanding.
So you breathe in blame, and
breathe out the undoing of harm;
you breathe in responsibility,
breathe out healing, forgiveness,
and reconciliation.
This exercise is particularly
powerful and may give you the
courage to go to see the person
whom you have wronged, and the
strength and willingness to talk to
him or her directly and actually ask
for forgiveness from the depths of
your heart.

~Sogyal Rinpoche~

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anyway i have an unsettled issue of life to deal with. this year seems to be a year of unsettling and loss but it has become something i've resigned not to resist. losing my tooth wallet and r/s were perhaps part of the narrative to make a change about myself. a positive one. from the loss came mindfulness and an honesty about who i am and what i can do. it revealed my limitations which were denied from a certain pride. these things therefore had to go or happen, and what i have now may not always be a negative conclusion. it is what we make of it. changes are up ahead. in two weeks, my life could dramatically shift in a direction which will change my entire destiny. who knows? i'm just going to ride it whichever way the wind blows.

and if i make it to see another year, 2014 will bring more changes. the boss has proposed i give up my favourite lit class and it saddens me but i know that is the nature of deployment and work. it's often beyond my will. he has proposed i go on a trip with the students to some developing country to render aid. i think that's a fabulous idea. also to do the most thankless of tasks in editing testimonials which i would rather drink cyanide but who knows. that could be another direction of change which i will have to accept in time. just like everything else.

yesterday i looked at my old room in my dad's home and recalled the rough changes that went on in there. the upheavals, the anger, the frustration with two people who could never listen or understand, the self-imposed isolation, the breakdown in communication. i couldn't think of any positive associations and i suppose that's because i spent a good 20 years there not grasping how. i will never revisit that part of my life and when it threatens in cycles i will have to forgive myself in an irrevocable manner. it will take years of healing, and in the meantime i have to see this through alone, not drag another into my demons.

this film has taught me deeply about the positive consequences of change. judi dench's character spoke to me the most. i must learn to re-new and re-learn. and channel that inner light to some worthy forward-moving cause.