Healing through forgiveness

God knows I've done enough spiritual work in the last couple of decades to make up for many lifetimes: channeling, shamanic, goddess, satsang, and now the Course in Miracles. The progression makes total sense to me. The shamanic work connected me to nature after living most of my life in the concrete jungle of New York. The goddess work connected me to the Feminine, after spending my adulthood in the business world trying to be a man. Satsang taught me about freedom after being a slave to the corporate world and to this culture, following all the rules that were imposed on me externally. And now the Course in Miracles is teaching me about forgiveness, something that is alien to my nature and yet necessary if I want to create a Heaven on Earth.

I don't really need to know how to forgive. All I have to do is have the intention that I want to forgive and pray for help. Help is showing up in many ways. I have found a wonderful counselor, Auriela McCarthy (http://www.aurielamccarthy.com/), who is helping me heal my anger and learn to forgive. I knew she was the right person to help me when I met her. She seemed to be living what I needed to learn. Her energy is soft not dogmatic. She is kind and compassionate. She consistently reminds me that I need to be kind and compassionate to myself, before I can do that for anyone else.

On Monday she guided me through a meditation where I met my father and healed issues around shame and feeling abandoned by him. I saw him and felt his energy. I'd forgotten that he wore straw hats and that he had a red and silver pen attached to his shirt pocket, with which he solved crossword puzzles. That was the main memory of him: solving crossword puzzles on the couch and not having time for me. He was old. The adult I am understands. But the inner child has continued to feel abandoned by him, recreating this painful abandonment in all my relationships with men.

In this meditation I felt my father's love and I remembered my love for him. I forgave him for not being the father that I wanted him to be. The anger dissipated. I called my mother and, as I thought, she still had his red and silver pen. She mailed it to me along with a picture that she found when she was looking for the pen. She felt that my father wanted me to have his picture. It is on my desk as I write this. I look at it and feel love for this man who did his best to raise me and take care of me. I no longer feel angry. I have forgiven him.

Tonight Auriela is giving a workshop on forgiveness which I will attend. Forgiving my father is huge, but just the tip of an iceburg. The Course in Miracles is clear that the only way out of a hellish life is to forgive. And I am clear that I am going to turn my life into Heaven on Earth. Eons of suffering is enough. It's time to heal.