Mindfulness Monday: Forgiveness

In “The Book of Forgiving”, South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes the choice humans are faced with when we encounter the pain of being hurt by one another. He describes pain as a pivotal moment during which we can choose to enter into a cycle of revenge or begin a path to forgiveness. Forgiveness involves embracing our shared, flawed humanity, and realizing that we, too, have likely hurt many throughout our lives. While these weekly mindfulness exercises have been targeting aspects of our lives directly impacted by the pandemic, we must acknowledge that the current political climate has been every bit as distressing at times and by its very nature caused significant pain and suffering, and so it seems appropriate to focus some of energy on healing the pain that this has brought, and so we start with forgiveness. The hope is that practicing forgiveness, while difficult and at times feeling unfair, will help you let go of these painful experiences and offer you some degree of freedom, so let’s begin.