Monday Nov 14, I had a transcendent healing experience after Nov 11 & 12 performing my play The Father Daughter Dance.
I'm going to write several pieces about that healing experience and tie it to the play where relevant.
Entry 1: How I forgave myself
I have been sober 11 ½ years. When I was deep in my addiction I did things, particularly with Zoe that felt unforgiveable.
For most of my life I held a deep seated resentment towards my parents and my brother Jeff. I realized that part of that ongoing anger was directed at myself. How could I? WHY is it still there?
Well meaning, loving and trusted friends in my life were at times confounded why I wouldn’t let myself off the hook.
I had a therapist tell me “Just let it go” with nothing else which was not helpful.
There’s a popular idea: “Act as if”. So I was meant to act as if I forgave myself even though I hadn’t.
It felt inauthentic even why I tried it, it didn’t land. It felt like when a friend says the words I’m sorry and I don’t feel it in my body.
It’s not that I’m blocking it, it’s that my body doesn’t feel it.
My body is the ultimate truth teller.
When I performed my play this weekend I publicly told the intimate details of my redemptive arc. I took the attendees to the depths of my addiction and sickness.
I ended the play by sharing how Zoe sees and feels me now in her honest and courageous way.
When I emerged to the bar where and saw everyone else, I could FEEL their bodies in my body. It was unmistakable that the what is now is not just a sign of my arc emotionally and relationally now compared to how that and I was then.
Many, many times I’ve said “I know I’m a different dad today” “I know I was sick then” and so much more but it couldn’t get to my essence of blocking self forgiveness.
The play was a first step getting to self forgiveness. I could feel it as I talked to people afterwards.
And self-forgiveness isn't full to me by warming the ice of an instance or even a single relationship.
And yet finding self forgiveness with Zoe was a HUGE step.
I participated in a personal, deep healing ceremony unlike anything I have ever done before. The ceremony hacked the part of me that was blocking my self forgiveness.
I thought it was my mind.
Turns out it was my heart.
In the ceremony, I found large black tightly held boxes of grief I’ve never expressed or even been aware of. The unaddressed wells of grief were what protected me from feeling my inner child who was so wounded and scared.
He was wounded so badly that any other part of me was in service to fiercely and constantly defending that little boy.
In the experience I cried deeper, harder, longer and more freely than I ever have. The black boxes were poked open and the raging river of emotions broke free and flowed.
FOR YEARS I’ve said to myself I don’t know why I can’t forgive myself. I can’t see it I don’t know why.
This healing experience all but hacked those comfortable but unhealthy defenses and got to the source, to my inner child.
And when the river subsided I was metaphorically, emotionally and safely at a river bed of calm. I viscerally experienced warmth, safety and clarity.
More than anything else when that little boy looked up from the river the first thing he and I both noticed was the sunrise.
The colors of warm orange, pink and yellow shone down upon us.
That sunrise was when I said to myself “I forgive you.”
My healthy, loving caring adult took my inner child, my angry teenager and my confused adult to the edge of the river bed and we all watched the sunrise. We all understood that the night was over.
I don’t question whether I’ve forgiven myself. I don’t worry that II might slip back.
The experience burst through the loneliness of confusion into the connection of forgiveness.
My body, the ultimate truth teller is telling me the truth, the forgiveness is permanent.
I’ll write 2-4 more pieces on this experience over the next week.
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