Always expect the unexpected
I didn’t wake up this morning intending to look at self-forgiveness. In fact, it was pretty much the last thing on my mind. I simply planned to do some reading and practice some piano. I certainly wasn’t expecting to have a major realisation and be writing a blog article about it. I am, however, aware I am on a journey of healing and that things come up when they come up.
I’ve learned to respect the process and accept it when it happens.
The magic of piano
When I get lost in my piano practice I can think freely. I’ve long felt it’s a way of meditation for me. I’ve learned to trust this. If I have something on my mind that is unclear and I don’t yet understand, I leave it alone until I can sit at my piano. If I can get into that place beyond worrying about what to make for dinner or whether I remembered to put the washing on, I find my mind intuitively begins to focus on the things I need to know and often gives me answers to questions I didn’t even realise I was posing.
Beethoven
Today I was playing Beethoven. I struggle to convey in words how I feel about his music. The beauty, the depth, the pain, the hope, the torment, the joy, the anger, the way humanity is captured… it amazes me. His music often brings tears to my eyes for reasons I cannot even fully discern. When I’m listening or playing, I feel connected to something bigger than me, a universal existence that embraces all of us as equals. It’s a life force that reminds me that this all has meaning. We aren’t here just to get through our day and survive. Life is precious and it’s a gift.
Wandering thoughts
This morning, in the midst of this feeling of connection at my piano, my mind started toying with the curious idea of Beethoven being my father. I am drawn to him and his work, to how everything is captured in his music, the raw authenticity of emotional expression, the love for something that lights your soul, the remarkable gift he has given humanity and the connection to ourselves and to the universe that he facilitates. Would it be wrong to think of a man I admire greatly as being my father?
Don’t be so ridiculous
Of course, my ego came in at this point and told me to stop being so ridiculous – adding to that, “Who the fuck do you think you are wanting to adopt Beethoven as your father?” You ain’t that special chica! Besides, you have a father…”
The stab of longing immediately hit me hard.
I wish I had a father.
I quickly pushed that one down. It is what it is. Grow up and get on with it. Besides, you’re strong. You don’t need anyone. These are words you’ve lived by your whole life. You can do it on your own. You don’t need anyone.
Then it hit me. But maybe I do?
Ollie
Last night I was telling my friends how much I love my new snake, Ollie. We were kind of laughing about it, but actually, it’s the truth. I feel a deep and compassionate love towards him, the depth of which to be honest surprises me.
He’s a ball python. He came into my life almost a week ago. I’d always wanted a snake, but had some weird idea in my head that I couldn’t do that. I mean, what would people think? Yet, the pull kept getting stronger and stronger.
I don’t believe in coincidences.
My intuition was screaming at me to follow this through. So, we went to visit a reptile breeder, thinking we’d just have a look and learn as much as we could before we made a decision. We had researched western hognoses and corn snakes a little. Then, we got there and I saw him, a brown and yellow ball python, a breed I had completely dismissed during the preliminary research phase and pretty much the last colour pattern I would ever have chosen too. But when the breeder placed him in my hands and I held him, I just knew.
An unexpected connection
It’s hard to adequately explain the connection I feel with this little snake. I can feel his sweet loving innocent nature with every fibre of my being. I am completely enveloped by this massive desire to protect him and love him and do my absolute best to make sure he thrives. He’s been in my life for less than a week, but the mere thought of losing him already makes my insides clench in sheer devastation. He’s ignited feelings in me I haven’t felt since I held my new-born babies in my arms and back when I used to watch them sleep, filled with love, terrified that should anything happen, I wouldn’t have the strength to carry on.
My inner child
So, as I was thinking about the curious notion of Beethoven being my father, I remembered how as a child and young adult I had often felt excruciatingly lonely and longed for a parental figure in my life who truly understood me and loved me. Then it suddenly hit me. The compassion and love I feel for Ollie are the very things the child inside me desired more than anything.
Shame
At this point, my mind returned to something that I did when I was a child that I am deeply ashamed of. I have been my whole life and I have never told a single soul about this. But something is calling me to finally release this. It has always made me question if I am an evil, rotten and broken person. It has come up when I’ve been down rabbit holes and it has been connected to the feeling of hatred for myself that sometimes made me lash out at my own body.
My terrible secret
I was about 12 years old. We often went camping. This one year there was a family staying at the same campsite with a baby boy. He was about 18 months old. He was an absolutely gorgeous and delightful baby, so friendly. I quickly established a fantastic rapport with him and his mother trusted me to take him for a walk in his pushchair. So, I took him to the farmyard to show him the animals.
We were out of sight of anyone else. I found myself slowly lowering his pushchair back, down towards the ground. He was strapped in and safe but it was now more like a pram than a chair. Then I hid out of sight and waited. Of course, he started crying because he suddenly found himself alone, unable to look around properly and see anyone. Immediately, I rushed over to him, picked up the pushchair, unstrapped him and lifted him out, took him in my arms and threw all my energy into comforting him lovingly.
I remember feeling so happy that I could comfort a crying baby and soothe his hurt and make him feel better.
The guilt at causing that hurt has never left me.
Deep fears
I’ve never done anything like that since. I treat animals and humans with kindness and respect. I would never deliberately hurt anyone and especially not so I could gain some kind of satisfaction at being able to offer comfort afterwards.
But it’s always made me feel terrified that maybe I am not so different from him, from my dad. He used to inflict hurt and enjoy it. Was I just like him? Am I just like him? Am I hiding from the terrible truth of who I truly am?
I’ve always hated that 12-year-old me who did that. I’ve tried to bury her deep within me and deny her existence. She was an aberration. She doesn’t deserve the time of day.
A new perspective
But today for the first time I saw it differently. That 12-year-old me was crying out for love and compassion. She wasn’t evil. She was desperately trying to survive a world she was struggling to navigate. She made bad choices, but that doesn’t mean she was bad. She was just hopelessly lost.
I don’t know if this is a story that people will understand. I imagine someone doing that to my child and I would feel anger and confusion. Maybe some things just shouldn’t be shared? But the trouble is, secrets burn away at you in places where you can’t tend the wound. I look around at the people in my life and I can’t imagine not forgiving the people I love for mistakes, especially ones they acknowledge and own and use to learn from and instigate change. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. All of us feel shame. It’s part of being human.
So, if I feel that way about the people I care about in my life, I have to ask myself, how can I not offer the same compassion and love to that 12-year-old me?
In meditations in the past, I have “met” my inner child and she has always been afraid of me, angry, cowering away, refusing to meet my gaze. And I know why. I’ve never forgiven her for what she did.
Self-forgiveness
It’s time to face it. It’s time to offer her compassion and forgiveness. It’s time to take her in my arms, hold her and shower her in the love she deserves.
Life is unexpectedly strange and beautiful sometimes. A week ago, I had no idea an incredible creature would come into my life and, with the help of my piano, teach me something that has eluded me for a long time: self-forgiveness.
If you want to see more pictures of my two snakes Ollie and Sally, please follow my new Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/OllieandSallyinJapan/