Forgiveness is a Part of Sanity

For many years a brown cloud hung over my head after my mother passed way. I was in treatment then, with medications and I found that it hard to accept that I had unfinished work to do. I never got the chance to explain anything about how I gave up drinking and make amends to mother for my drug use or how I began to take classes to secure work. I never made amends for interfering in her life as she had aged, begging constantly for many years just acting a plain idiot about my life. Being irresponsible is a dog’s life she would always say and inside I didn’t want to understand that I was irresponsible or doggerel towards others. I for many weeks on end had conceived the thought that her passing was my fault and that this passing was my lesson. I couldn’t forgive myself and had thought so many responsibilities were now mine and life was going be become tougher. I wasn’t ready. Again I slipped into a morose attitude, as I hardly listened to her then, I began at this time looking inside my mind for the things she said, for the ways she cared, for the understanding she bore. I needed to make my life work and many other things as well. I needed to forgive myself, and I needed the forgiveness of many other people —how?
In so many ways, people apologize, to be forgiven. They give material objects, talk out their reasons, sing, go to church, seek the reverence of God, yet I found that a quiet place and the understanding of those I seek forgiveness of comes from understanding of what is most spiritual between myself and the memory of those I seek amends of . In a sense I am using certain key steps in Recovery, A.A, N.A and those thoughts learned in Psychotherapy to reach inside and know how change with understanding and forgiveness is greater than the brown cloud of nothingness. To be forgiven is to be understood, it’s a two way street with the horizon awaiting to give you comfort. It’s not something you can force yet you give thought and you give faith because you understand that you or I are not self centered and that reaching that medium is having faith in the spirit between you and those that have been hurt. The idea of spirit is not just some misty cloud or entity unseen, but the energy you carry with you as every else to move thought and awareness with the senses you possess to convey ideas and to make those ideas work. Belief is as spiritual as faith and hope is the material aspect of movement. Forgiveness is parting away from the sorrow and pain and seeing that all those aspects are a part of Recovery and of the self.

Written By Donald Sammons