By Joy Valentine

Joy for the Journey

Spring is a time of renewal, of new life, of new beginnings. As long as we are alive, each one of us can choose to begin again - in this moment. What do you want to experience in your life? Are you being that which you want to experience? Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see.” Project that into the world and it comes back to you.

One very powerful trait difficult to actualize but vital to our happiness, our health and even our survival is the ability to forgive. In spite of the tragedies of all our lives, the terrorism imported from the Middle East or crimes home-grown in the United States, we must learn to stop the cycle of anger for anger, violence for violence. We cannot continue to live the way we have. It is not working, and we will eventually destroy our planet and ourselves if we do not stop.

We continually try to solve the problem by doing something. We try to talk our way, or buy our way, or bomb our way into getting our way. We can begin anew by, instead of doing something, believing something. We can try believing that we are all one, that ours is not a better way, but merely another way. We can try believing that all behavior is understandable if we have the context of the person performing the act, however heinous it might be.

To understand is not to condone, and it does not mean there are no consequences or accountability. It does require, however, some willingness to consider a different interpretation of the event, whether it is a minor insult or mass murder, and it does require some degree of empathy and compassion. There are some who believe attack is a call for help. This does not justify the attack, but it does explain it.

There are things we are doing to each other that are creating enough anger and desperation that we are willing to die in order to put a stop to it. And there are many other things we are doing to each other out of ignorance, greed, fear and addictions of all kinds. There is so much we need to forgive.

We must learn to forgive ourselves and to forgive each other if we are ever to heal our pain. Resentment and anger keep us imprisoned in the hell of our own creation. These feelings become reinforced and magnified by the accumulation of new sources of pain and ultimately sicken and kill us.

We can choose to release the anger and all that goes with it. It requires courage, effort, understanding and compassion. It requires that we give up the “victim consciousness” and begin to feel the other’s pain as well as our own.

As I begin to experience that healing, I realize it is your wound that creates the healing in me, and it is my wound that creates the healing in you. We are all wounded healers, and in opening ourselves to ourselves and to each other, we have the power to truly heal the planet.

Do you want to have your own pain healed? Begin by being open to healing the pain of another.