Have you ever had that moment where you are thinking about a person or a situation intensely, and then your perspective shifts and the whole floor of your internal conversation just drops away? Your argument is stolen on a puff of wind that exits the mid section, following what feels like a very real blow.

Happened to me this morning. I had been in a dudgeon thinking about a certain person and their behaviour. As happens with those sorts of things, thoughts were spiralling, as I thought of other situations where this person had ticked me off with their selfishness and immaturity.

This was all quite unconscious, just the brain doing its thing, thought train rushing along, but then I overheard myself and began to pay attention. I recalled that if a strong emotion is being called to the fore, over another persons behaviour, than perhaps that was because I needed to look at the way I had handled a circumstance in my own life, just to see what was triggering such high indignation.

Sure enough I found it. It happened years ago and I was so humbled and ashamed at how I too, given a stressful and similar circumstance had behaved badly, that it stopped me in my tracks.

I believe that we come across this sort of situation repeatedly as a way of healing our own history. Seeking forgiveness perhaps where we didn’t know we needed it. But now, with hindsight, space and a little more learning we see we do.

Forgiveness is not a token prize. It is a deep healing from the bones out. There are times when we behave badly and we are naturally contrite as we realise what we have done. However there are also times, that we don’t realise we have done something that we should seek forgiveness for.

I know this sounds hard to believe but it’s true. Particularly if it occurred within an older version of ourselves that wasn’t able to handle it very well at the time. Perhaps it was in the heat of the moment, stressful, we handled something badly, said the wrong thing but then we told ourselves “I’m human, I forgive myself” but actually we didn’t, couldn’t, because that flippant forgiveness wasn’t soul felt. It was just delivered at the level of intellect.

Yet our soul knows it was wrong. This foible may have been so minor and human in the scheme of things that we just skip over it. Yet somewhere there is a score sheet and our soul is tallying things up. It keeps bringing us back to this thing, yet we don’t even see it, because it is easier to remain blind and simply judge another person instead.

Until the ground drops away one day when you are walking. And in that blank spot you see where you too have complained, you too have been mean or judgemental or critical or boastful or unkind or spoiled – whatever the issue is.

And that is a moment of blessing because you get to ask forgiveness. You become humble, you fall down from that uncomfortably bloated and lofty high horse you’ve been riding. And your soul is happy and it levels the score because you’ve had the realisation, worked it out, said “sorry” from a deeply sincere juncture of your being .

Now, perhaps it will stop bringing you situations just like this, and people just like that, or if you come across them it won’t stir you to such heights of outrage. Because you have healed the wound that their behaviour used to poke and prod and you won’t take it personally anymore.

We ask other people for forgiveness and yet they can’t forgive us, if we haven’t forgiven ourselves. The people who I would ask in this particular instance are dead. They have left this world, and besides they would instantly forgive me for the moment I had slipped. This was my moment of reckoning. My moment of being held to the blackboard of account.

There is a score sheet, we hold it inside us and whether we are cognisant off every point on the list or not it doesn’t matter – there is an entity that is. The eternal naughty or nice list and it’s not just Santa who is watching.

Life isn’t easy, we all get it wrong sometimes and I do find it ironic that this post follows so closely after How to Get Your Glow On which was about being proud of yourself. I don’t know about the God that you are answerable to, but mine has a wicked sense of humour and a definite sense of irony.

By the way there is a time to be proud, but there is also a time to be humble and the two don’t cancel each other out but instead provide balance. As humans we should always eat our pride with a good dose of humble beside it.

Does this mean I am off Santa’s nice list? I’m not sure, he has been very busy lately and may not have had time to adjust my credit rating, but I think it’s best to get as much self forgiveness out of the way as possible, before Christmas just in case.

Another post on this topic from 2016 (wow this blog has been around longer than I realise!) I searched under “pride” and quite a few came up, so as a Leo, I guess I’ve stumbled at this alter a few times 😁