Forgiving Oneself

"We all appreciate in others the inner qualities of kindness, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and generosity, and in the same way we are all averse to displays of greed, malice, hatred and bigotry."

--THE DALAI LAMA, Beyond Religion

His Holiness is undoubtedly correct--we all like people who are kind, patient, tolerant, forgiving, and generous.

But how rarely do we extend the same touch of kindness to ourselves!

Depression's most insidious weapon is guilt (not the healthy kind that chides us upon wrongdoing--something far, far worse). It plants a seed that may take anywhere from months to years to sprout.

Once it does, it grows exponentially, devouring the surrounding space, like a tumor chomping away at the flesh. The sea of awareness around it becomes its sustenance.

And, as awareness is infinite...so, too, is the space in which guilt can thrive.

Fortunately, the sea of awareness IS infinite--meaning that, no matter how far and wide guilt has sprouted its branches, there is always an outside perspective.

Amidst infinity, there is always a space where guilt is not.

FIND IT. For the love of yourself, find that space.

Stay there for as long as you can. Just...watch. Observe.

What does your guilt look like?

Does it have a texture?

Does it have a smell? A taste? A mass?

Touch it, ever so gingerly. Does it recoil from your fingertips? Does it clamp down on them hungrily?

From that outside space, get to know your guilt. Map it out with all the diligence of a cartographer. Every peak, every valley, every eruption of molten wrath.

Then...a magical thing starts to happen.

Once the guilt is known...once it KNOWS it is known...it withers. Disappears.

Within the sea of awareness, guilt is but a grain of sand.