Anatomy of Forgiveness

Anatomy of Forgiveness – by Tessa Lena – tessa.substack.com

This story is one of those really important stories that I meant to write forever but could not find the right words. To be completely honest, I am still looking for the words but I am going to start typing and see what comes out … Will probably be imperfect but so be it.
“Forgive” is a funny word because it has as many meanings as there are people using it. So I will write what I know, and leave it raw.
I think forgiveness, in the truest sense of it, is one of the most beautiful things that happens to us in the course of our lives. As human beings, we get some of our best education from making messes—but as we make them, we can potentially create ugly things and pain, and then it’s on us to put in the work of the heart and heal, heal the bleeding wounds, and hash out the conflict, and forgive each other, and move forward in a positive way. I think this is the way people are meant to be, and I doubt there is any other way to deal with being alive.   
Why is it relevant now?  Well…… The past three years have been abusive as hell. I’m not saying that prior to 2020 the society was functioning on kumbaya, love and respect—but the past three years have been abusive as hell, on a massive scale. The predators have quadrupled down on making us afraid, divided, sick, and stuck in a perpetual scream.
The predators: initiating the cycle of pain
There are only a few born predators among us but they have been very hard at work, both impulsively and in a calculated manner. 
The most successful strategy true predators have is to try and weaponize people against themselves and the ones they are born to protect. The strategy is to scare and hurt people so much, so deeply—that people go crazy, and then inertia kicks in, and the people just keep on passing the pain as far as they can.  
And of course, when pain or unfair treatment come from someone we trust or love, it hurts the most. Whether it’s parents throwing their own kids under the wheels of the Machine while thinking they are doing the right thing, or whether it’s friends “breaking up” with friends over, let’s say, the stupid COVID shot—or family members, or colleagues, or doctors who are supposed to “first do no harm” but in practice end up being so narrow-minded and brainwashed that they harm and insist they are correct … it all leaves scars.
And then what do we do?
What kind of relationship do we have with the source of pain?
Our relationship with predators (i.e. the people who choose to think about us as “prey”) is its own beast. If we are strong, we can deliberate about what’s driving them but really, it’s not the point. The point is to protect ourselves, with faith in the fairness of the universe.
For a bit of practical philosophy, let’s ponder a very simple question. :slight_smile: What do the words “good” and “evil” mean? There are lots of institutional  baggage in this regard but I am only half-joking when I say it’s a simple thing. “Good” is all forces that support our wholesomeness and well-being, whether it’s in the physical realm or in the spiritual realm. “Evil” is all forces whose interests are in direct contradiction with ours. It doesn’t matter if the harm is the goal or the byproduct of their ways. The key feature is the contradiction in needs, for the lack of a better word.
For example, from the point of view of a mosquito, people are food, and a person trying to kill it are an evil force. We, however, feel very little remorse when killing a buzzing bug. We may actively hate the mosquito we are squashing, or feel sorry for the thing—but from our standpoint, the mosquito has no right to eat us, and so we squash it with no remorse. Similarly, when a tiger eats a person, the tigers is just feeding on its prey, no hatred involved. Similarly, when a hostile pathogen kills a mammal, it is simply going about its business in its habitual way.
Similarly, a human predator is a person whose existential purpose is to awaken us through putting us in great danger and thus making alertness and aliveness of the soul urgent vital tasks. 
(On a side note, there is a really enlightening concept that I learned about from my conversations with Steven Newcomb, which is “prey naiveté.” Prey naiveté is a term that refers to the unfamiliarity of prey animals with a new predator that has been “imported” to their habitat from another place. How perfectly does this term apply to a human being trusting the authorities simply because he has not yet seen the “face of the machine”? Rather perfectly, I’d say!) 
Therefore, when it comes to true born predators who view us as prey,  I don’t see a potential for “soulful closure” in this lifetime since their goals remain the opposite of ours—and reconciliation is perhaps reserved for another world. I believe that a reconciliation eventually comes but this is very much outside of our current scope, so for practical purposes, the best strategy, to my senses, is to not freak out, not be afraid, not allow one’s pain to take hold—but figure out the ways to protect ourselves—with a prayer for protection the way it makes sense for us to pray, and carry them out.
Corruption of senses and putting the argument about “mass formation” (or not) to rest
I believe  that most abuses that happen are not due to the predators alone but due to the confusion and self-betrayal that they cause—and many people accept because they don’t know how to react and perhaps because don’t know the price of accepting the abuse.
Predators are cruel and full of tricks but they are few. What they do, however, is poison people’s hearts, and then then people do the rest.
(This is a concept that, by the way,  resolves the famous argument about the mass formation and what not. Corruption of senses and behavior is a multi-directional beast!!  And by the way, when people insist on spiritual balance and work hard to keep it, through pain and tears if that’s what it takes, it is much harder for predators to mess with people’s thinking and turn them into “vectors” of destruction and pain.)  
Flowers in the wind
So then,  we have people who, for whatever reason, in this moment, are not balanced at all—and are susceptible to crap. Maybe their parents have failed to show to them that they loved them wholesale, and so the children never learned the perfect feeling of being protected in and out … maybe someone broke them… or maybe they have never been forced to wake up because they’ve never experienced the kind of pressure that forces you to find your soul. It is really impossible to know what led to what— but in the moment, they are wobblyfolk. And so they act like flowers in the wind and go with whatever program at hand because it doesn’t even occur to them check their inner GPS .
Sadly, due to the influence of the man-eating Machine, a lot of people are like that. Maybe the majority of people in the world. Born for good things and beauty, they forgot their destination and turned the GPS off. They still do good things in life because human soul is a powerful force—but alongside the beauty they create in their own way, they also go along with whatever program at hand. And if the program is run by psychos—which is very much the case—we end up with a “2020.”
Choosing our battles
Among the people who have turned their GPS off for now, some are “strangers,” and some are family members, children, parents, and dear friends or loved ones.
When it comes to strangers or general acquaintances who, from my perspective, are acting bats**t, I don’t bother to feel a whole lot. I don’t feel angry with them because I cannot change it. I commiserate and wish them healing, and I am actually sincere in my benevolence but every single one of us has a specific job to do in life and a limited time to do it. Wobblyfolk are many,  If we waste our energy on being overly frustrated over strangers, we’ll be in a perpetual battle with thousands of people, and that’s not a happy existence. So I simply choose to apply my efforts where it makes sense to apply them and don’t bother getting too frustrated with things I have no power to change in the moment.  
I have found that the most painful situation is when a flower in the wind is someone with whom you have an important connection. It is the hardest thing because you see the beauty of their spirit so clearly, so intensely, and yet they may not be even aware of their own power to heal themselves and me and the world—or they may be choosing to be wobbly and temporarily forego their spiritual duty.
It took me a while to get to a point where I carry on and keep caring but with patience and without self-damage.
Typically, in that situation, you try, and try, and try again, and then try some more—but the problem is that snapping out of the state of being a flower in the wind requires finding one’s soul, and finding one’s soul is hard work—while going along with the program is a ticking time bomb but it none the less comes with temporary  pleasant “account credit.” And a lot of people choose it until they no longer have that option.
We, human beings, get complacent easy.  We all do, until we go through a dramatic personal experience that forces us to find our soul.
It is also true that it took me many years to see things the way I see them now. There was a time when I chose to be… maybe not particularly wobbly but none the less in denial. So I don’t feel like I am “better” than even the slowest travelers on this journey. I am just maybe a little be farther ahead in some aspects of the journey, but I am also still walking and figuring things out, as we all do. We all have our intimately sacred journeys, and it’s better to leave the judging to higher powers and just do our job with kindness and faith in good things.
So I keep trying, with kindness and real love, but I accept the fact my most important duty is to the mystery of life and my soul, and nothing in this world is more important to me than focusing my my job.
When we forgive, what does it mean?
Unlike the issue of “good” and “evil,” this is not a simple question at all  as there are many gradients of “forgiveness.” (Okay I am being half tongue-in-cheek about good and evil but it’s good to be lighthearted. )
In a perfect world, when someone hurts you or lets you down, once they realize it, they say “sorry” and then invest in meaningful healing. There is an entire process for that but on the intuitive level, we all know it. It comes with a pure-hearted outpour of raw emotion, hearing out sides, recognition of harm, and agreeing to fix it in a sincere manner, and then actually fixing it and loving each other over in a type-of-relationship-appropriate manner.
When that happens, some parts of us heal forever, and it’s an act of rebirth, divinity, and creation.
But in a world filled with flowers in the wind, this happens ummmm…. not too often. It only happens when an individual flower in the wind finds his or her soul. And … so … then what?
That dynamic of  going from  hope to frustration to hope to frustration to hope again, with prayer, is something that I have learned to live with, in a non-hypocritical manner. It is not an ideal dynamic but same can be said about the world we live in—and so, while we can choose to march around and suffer over things being unfair, we can also choose to unclench our teeth and minimize the damage to ourselves while undoubtedly praying for a total closure when the time for that comes in earnest.
In my own life, though a process that hasn’t been remotely easy, I discovered that it is possible to suspend the trauma and travel lightly, without much frustration—and that doing so requires growing your soul quite a bit so that you can, without useless theorizing, look at people who are doing weirdest things and see your fellow travelers through a confusing landscape at different stages of the journey.
And then you see, with some love, some sadness, and a lot of hope for future healing someday, somehow,  that everyone has been hurt and betrayed by the Machine many times over. And many of our fellow travelers through the confusing landscape never had truly soulful relationship with their parents or truly intimate relationships with other people in general….so how would they know what the dance of the soul feels like if they have also never been forced by life to find it, due to lukewarm comforts?  And besides, the only “fair” way to judge a person would be to be born with their exact combination of gifts and weaknesses and go through the same exact circumstance… and that doesn’t really happen.
So, we can pray for the kindest outcome and in the meanwhile, initiate the forgiveness in our souls and love ourselves over regardless of the timing of others. When they wake up, the joy we be total but even now, we can travel lightly and pray for kindness and healing.
Here is my prayer:
May love fuel our travels through the confusing landscape, and may the true closure, full healing, and satisfying intimacy with our loved ones come the soonest! May they be kind to us and support us! May we be blessed with the sweetest kindness from all directions, and may we have  the best wisdom, strength and patience to get through the obstacles and remember that our challenges help us grow our souls, and there is actual light in the end of the tunnel!! May we all heal completely and make this world light up with love and fulfillment of our purpose. May it be so, the soonest, and for real.