As I am going on 4 1/2 months after finding out about the REAL reason my husband put me through hell for 3 years (yes, it was our tour guide from Vietnam) I am working on forgiveness and realize that I am not there yet. And if I read the above about what forgiveness says…I know without a doubt that I have not crossed over the threshold to the F word.

I want to forgive. Truly,I want to be there. I ache to be there. I try to be there but it is for naught…I cannot get there yet. My therapist says I have to just sit with it more (damn it…how much longer, I wonder, with curse words running through my head) Haven’t I been through enough all ready? I am more than ready to be out of this pain. Why can’t I just let it go?

No, she tells me. When you are ready to forgive your life will become yours again. You will feel that shift as you claim those parts of you that you have lost. The pain will dissipate in such a way that it finally feels like a somewhat soft mist instead of like cold, wet hail bouncing off your brain and body 24 hours a day. You will no longer feel so tired in both body and soul that you will be able to awake without feeling like you never slept. You will reach a place where your soul can settle down and feel contentment again.

This past week I have been putting the Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness to the test. What I like about it is that it doesn’t insist that you have to forgive. You only have to be willing to sometime in the future. The prayer goes like this:

The Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness
If I have harmed any one in any way,
either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions,
I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way,
either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions,
I forgive them.

And if there is a situation
I am not yet ready to forgive,
I forgive myself for that.

For all the ways that I harm myself,
negate, doubt, belittle myself,
judge or be unkind to myself,
through my own confusions,
I forgive myself. Amen

Using this prayer has helped me with a little perspective on the subject. But most of all by forgiving myself for not yet being ready to forgive, I am treating myself with the same love and kindest I would show a friend and I am practicing patience in the nicest way possible…being gentle with myself. Because after three years of judging myself based on my husband’s own warped perceptions, I am ready to do no more harm to myself or other. Forgiveness, while desired, can wait. Right now taking care of myself is my priority.