I forgave her

"Duality embedded in wholeness produces truly healing results". Robert Waterman said that in his book Eyes Made of Soul, The Theory and Practice Of Noetic Balancing. This was somewhat of a life changing quote for me. Because beyond this, the theory of Noetic Balancing is to resolve duality through living love. Living love for myself. These last two years have been a personal laboratory for me doing just this. A month ago in my therapists office, I met for the first time with the woman my husband cheated on me with. He had immediately moved out when we split and moved in with her. They are still together. I created the experience of betrayal in my life to come into wholeness. It took many months, much processing and a lot of self-forgiveness to type that last sentence. I have cried buckets, been angry, wanted revenge, wanted them to suffer, rolled around on the bathroom floor from the pain of grief. I spent months terrified I would not come back from the dark side; the pit of life that had gobbled me up. I believed my husbands infidelity had taken away my safety, security, life as I knew it. And deep down, I persecuted myself because I thought I had driven him away to a younger, easier to live with woman who had all the attributes I did not. I think now that allowing myself to be in that place, and trusting I would come out, and looking deeper and beyond the idea of good and bad allowed me to surface from the storm and claim my life and the blessing of this. Because when I met with this woman, I wept with tears of gratitude for her. If she had not come forward, so my own drama could unfold, I might not have the compassion for myself, my world, others, and the collective journey we take. She helped me trust my life. Heartbreak, betrayal, loss, sorrow, grief, all helped me to trust my life. How could what I once labeled as "bad" be so life giving? Now I am waking up to all of life being life giving. When I let go of attachments of how things should be, and let myself just be, I am no longer a victim to life's circumstances. My mind may tell me otherwise, but my heart will lead the way.  She was an integral character in my own hero's journey.

Beyond the right and wrong of my personal experience was an opportunity to love myself. Loving myself was at first loving myself in my severe grief state. Because grief was crippling me so, I was willing to try anything. My mentor suggested I love the grief. So I did this first by laying on the couch all day. Treating myself to a movie. Making my daughter a quesadilla 5 nights in a row because I could not muster anything more. Spending every morning in the shower crying. I loved her first. I told her what a great job she was doing. I cut her a massive amount of slack. I had decided I was worth my own love. And why would that be? My past might say I am not worthy of that love. My mother had chosen not to mother me. My husband, the same. And now I see how my life had been conspiring these circumstances to do just this. It was never about getting the love from the outside. It was an inside job all along. I had been to the classes, read the books. Heard all the right ways to "do" life. But, this was not to be an experience of my mind, it would be a journey of my heart.  I had never experienced any real self compassion before two years ago. I had never awoken to any kind of living love for myself. In an effort to control the amount of pain in my life, I made sure to be the harshest critic, the most oppressive supporter of myself. Then there would be no surprises when it happened outwardly. My skin would already be so thick that any kind of disappointment would pale in comparison to the self-constructed wall against love and life I had created in an effort to protect myself from hurts manufactured out of the harsh landscape of life. But it did. The pain did knock me over. In the end I found my well thought out constructs blew over in an instant. Love was the glue of the universe that I had not experienced first hand. It had been there all along, but I had not let myself awaken to it. And when I judge my circumstances ("See Jessica, you are just a scorned woman, horrible mother, left by your husband. You drove them all away. You deserve a crappy life ") I produce againstness. I needed betrayal, or rather I crafted an experience of betrayal to move me beyond the idea that life was what it seemed. It seemed I was undeserving of the riches of love. Now I am able to include myself and everyone else in my definition of what is divine. Tender, loving, patient, forgiving; those are the new ways for myself.  In this, I have accepted full responsibility for the troubles in my life. Accepting responsibility in my life was key. Never can I blame anyone or anything for my life circumstances. I wavered for months and months with this foreign concept. It was so radical to me and somewhat overwhelming to know that I might accept my life as my own and not blame others for my pain and suffering.  But, I wanted peace, and that meant letting go of againstness. Againstness towards myself, my life, others. And that meant letting go of what was right and wrong (this woman was "wrong" because she hurt me so much) and I really started believing the universe was conspiring towards my wholeness when I saw I could muster even bits of compassion for myself. I was able to forgive the belief that I had that she has done something wrong. So never could I see myself in a one down position. And in that flash, I could not be against myself and believe the universe was against me, so I and, every person I meet whether close friend or causal acquaintance, or in my case "the other woman"  are a integral part of the movie of my life I am watching propel me towards wholeness and for that I am grateful for. So grateful for this world and all the things in it, I weep tears of joy. Now the boss that fires me, the bank lender that denies me, the person that betrays me, the friend that loves me, the family that embraces me, they all get equal billing of gratitude. They all are reflecting life back to me and now that I know that I am attempting to love all my experiences because of their ability to produce wholeness, I can stop running.


And so when I met her, I told her how much I have hurt. I was honest with my story. I apologized for ever wanting to hurt her or wanting others to hate her. I thanked her. I loved her. I do this because I do this for myself.  I too, am a human who makes mistakes, and does humanly things to get my needs met. She is no less than me. It was only because I was hurting and suffering so much that I wanted the world to hate her and what she had done. Before, I thought my suffering might ease if she suffered. But really what has happened is that I freed myself by forgiving her. I waited until I was truly ready. I was scared shitless though. It was not easy to face this woman, meet her, be honest and cry for an hour straight. But I want to live life to the fullest of my potential and I want life to meet me where I meet it. And so life will keep handing me my lessons towards grace. It all is for grace. It is that because I choose it.