“I went around saying for a long time that I am not one of those Christians who are heavily into forgiveness – that I’m one of the other kind. “ – Anne Lamott

Does this surprise you about me? It shouldn’t. In fact, I think most of us have a hard time with forgiveness, especially when it comes to forgiving ourselves.

I can generally get to the place of forgiveness, given time and a few rounds of positive self-talk; but what I have a harder time with is letting go of the pain. Whether it’s self-inflicted or caused by the actions of another person, I tend to go to that pain, take it down into a dark cave, pitch a tent, set up camp, and live there. I revisit it, over and over, each time reopening the wound afresh. I treat it almost as an old friend, invited to stay as long as it would like. In a weird way, it feels comforting. It’s habit. It no longer serves me, and yet, I visit it often.

Why?

I think so much of my brain has changed to accommodate the pain, make it my lover. I forget what it feels like to be happy, normal. Anne Lamott writes that our psychic muscles “cramp around our wounds – the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered in both – to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So those wounds never have a chance to heal.”

This is the answer. Hanging out with pain is self-protection. So in order to let go of it, we must face it. Stretch into it like a sore muscle. Look at it right in the eyes and acknowledge it.

Heart pain is like a dark cave I am hidden in. When the first rays of light begin to find their way through the fissures, they are terribly painful and hurt my eyes.

But the light. Oh, the Light. It is my kryptonite. It reminds me of who it has asked me to be – a lighthouse – a carrier of safety and healing. And so I begin to drag myself –my heart – kicking and screaming to the surface. I take a huge breath of air. Sometimes I falter and go back down, but each time I breathe and face the pain, allowing the oxygen and light to touch me, I gain a little more strength, a little more compassion.

Slowly, the narrative I’ve written about the pain in my heart begins to feel more like a fairy tale, that old friend no longer serves a purpose. It protected me for a while, but now I realize it is a wisp. A corpse. A skeleton. It is a shadow of something that doesn’t exist anymore.

And my old way of being, of understanding, of relationships, is all of those things, too.

I must decide if I will live my life married to a wraith,

or if I will burn it all.

Give it up.

Let it go.

Begin again.

Love simply.