Cast Iron Skillet

I awoke this morning with a feeling of great need, and was tempted to do what I always do, which is to pick up the cast iron skillet of my own will power and smack myself square in the head with it until that pesky feeling was knocked back into its usual hiding place.

But for some reason, this morning was different. I felt myself reach for the usual weapon of submission and didn't like its heaviness and the violence it would soon inflict. So I let it be.

And I just stayed curious about what I was feeling and why I had been so quick to reject it again and again and again. And why I was so certain those feelings were of real danger - of real consequence - so much so that they must be obliterated. And I've been watching them all day, finding that I must admit to myself many things I didn't believe or want to be true.

I feel so much better not starting my day doing voilence against myself. I feel so much better giving room to my thoughts and feelings, not trying to edit and censor them efore I even know what they are. I feel so much more human and being human feels so much better when I don't consider it some defective state of being.

I was asked the other day if I was ready to offer forgiveness to someone. My answer, in total and complete honesty, was that I didn't feel like forgiveness was necessary. I just simply understood how people can do the things they do, how mixed up and complicated being human can get, and that I am no different myself. So instead of me needing to forgive, I just simply understood. And there was forgiveness somehow for both of us in that.