The Healing Power in Finding Your Innocence

Chapter 1: Why Find Your Innocence? The way you treat others is a reflection of how you treat yourself. (You might want to read that again and take it in for a moment.) Without forgiveness there is no love; no self-love is possible. During group and one-on-one sessions with inmates it became quickly apparent that the mindset with a lot, if not most of them, is that they are beyond redemption. They will have to give back to the community for the rest of their lives, stigmatized, because what they did is unforgivable. This is heavy. It means for those who are found suitable and get released, they still have to make up. No clean slate. Unredeemable. Not worthy of love. They are stepping into ‘freedom’ weighted down with fear of rejection, of not being able to make it out there, of judgment, of not getting a job, of not being able to make a living, of not belonging. It’s just another kind of prison. What saddens me is that, in my experience, the way they had to adapt to the system ‘inside’ and the way they were ‘trained’ to think, even within some of the group programs inside, the mindset is that they are going to ‘give back’ to the community and to society for the rest of their lives. That doesn’t sound and feel very free to me. Energetically it might influence their relationships, in that they feel they have to be grateful to those who accept them (back) into their lives and cannot really ask for what they want or speak their truths, because subconsciously they feel they don’t have the right to do so. They ‘owe’ their family members/loved ones/partners/spouses for having supported them all the time. More prison. As if they weren’t worth loving support just for who they are… In my experience, when you love yourself, it is completely natural to show gratitude to someone who offered kindness or support in any given situation. This gratitude is in itself an act of self-love as it is giving to yourself whilst expressing it. It is an expression of your true self and honoring your truth at the same time. It also holds a sense of worthiness. ‘Thank you for doing that for me — I know I’m worth it and I love that you feel so, too.’ Notice the difference in how that feels versus: ‘Thank you for doing that for me — I’m in your debt. How can I ever make it up to you?’ Even if the other party truly gives unconditionally and whole-heartedly, if in your mind you still have to make up you’re going to put yourself in a place beneath them. It’s not equal. It has a feel of questioning your worthiness, impacting your self-esteem. Which translates into how you show up in Life with others, with an underlying sense of ‘excuse me for being alive’. This is something that is running subconsciously mostly, not something you are immediately and naturally aware of. Obviously, anything that comes from here, being written through me, will to an extent be a projection of my own experience and my own core wounds in life. That’s why I resonate with my experience there and that’s why it’s my heart’s desire to put it out to the world. Don’t believe me? Try it on for yourself and see what happens. You see, the aspect of ‘forgiveness’ implies that something ‘bad’ happened or was done that needs forgiving. As long as we are after ‘being forgiven’ or trying to forgive someone, including ourselves, we are under the impression that we or they did something wrong or bad that we/they shouldn’t have done. Which implies that guilt is still actively running the show underneath. We did something bad/wrong, now we’re in their/our bad graces, we’ll have to make up (or pretend we don’t care by disconnecting), and even if they tell us that they’ve forgiven us: ‘I can forgive, but I can’t forget’ because you were taught that you’re supposed to forgive your neighbor. We might still be somewhere on their shit list. Everyone makes mistakes. Some more or less grave, some with only personal consequences (injuries), some even costing lives. No matter what kind of mistakes we make, they are there for us to learn from, to expand our awareness and create a foundation for new and better choices in the future. Once we realize we’ve made a mistake (and notice that this realization or insight comes always AFTER the fact, when what we did is already in the past and we can’t change it!), we usually know that we don’t want to repeat it and with that awareness are already transformed! So to guilt-trip ourselves and keep beating ourselves up with should/shouldn’t haves is really pointless, as there is no way to make it ‘unhappen’. If we stay stuck in guilt and blame we cannot move forward with the new perspective, understanding and capability to change our course that we gained from making the mistake in the first place. Making mistakes is part of the way we evolve as a human species; it’s the way we learn, adjust and grow. Mistakes always hold the potential for transformation inherent. Someone might think, ‘Wow! That’s brushing off a human life quite easily!’ Absolutely not. And that is not my intention. It is rather to offer a different perspective on why things happen the way they do and how in the context of a bigger picture whatever happens is perfect. It might not be what we’d like it to look like, but I’ve come to trust and know that Life ultimately knows best and that its plan is always perfect. Even when the experience is misery, or pain, or hurt, or numbness.