I want to revise a chapter in my less-than-6-month-old book

But instead I will do it here in community

The chapter in Joy Is My Justice: Reclaim Yours Now (Hachette, 5/2/23) is titled,

‘It’s Not Forgiveness, It’s Grace.’

And it starts out this way:

I am so tired of forgiveness. My body bristles every time I think about it…I know it heals. But it also needs to fit my revolution.

I often can’t forgive the unfairness in my life and I sure as hell can’t forgive evil, but I can give myself the grace to live in this world and prosper despite all of that.

To be clear, I would not revise my concept of grace. That is still one of my most powerful tools to stand boldly and lovingly in this world, despite its constant doling out of pain. But I wish I could add a life-altering nuance to this chapter that I am going to share with you now in today’s issue.

As a side note, I feel privileged to both use my writing in my own healing process and then to have a community to share it with. I give you gratitude for receiving this very tender and still raw piece.

I recently had a profound experience with a family member who caused me a great deal of pain in childhood. They are in a fragile medical state now and I spent some time, willingly, caring for them.

I have had decades of my life to heal from this pain and I had given them grace in the same spirit of how I describe in this chapter from my book.

If I give someone grace for a wrong imposed on me, I am accepting that they, too, are human— not the kind I need around me, but a human nonetheless. And in that space I have created, I can see that we both have flaws without excusing the ways theirs have hurt me. And they can go do their own work while I do mine.

This recent experience was a surreal time for me. Me literally caring for someone, offering my love, and only for myself. And they are not in an alert enough state to realize it is me.

They aren’t in a state to see that I am doing this, despite it all.

I say that because although I gave them grace in my heart long ago, I did so in the way that grace allows me space to do this without also letting them into my heart, i.e. there is a nuance to forgiveness sometimes that implies there could be an extra layer of healing if you accept them back in your life and ‘take the high road,’ so to speak.

At times, when people offer forgiveness to another, there’s a sense that you are giving someone a gift. And I won’t discount that.

If you’ve ever been forgiven by someone, whether for a transgression small or large, the relief is immense, right? They have excused your misstep. And you both learn something in the process.

But what if the person is not aware you have taken this so-called high road?

Here’s where I want to break down the huge piece of healing I received. And give me grace if it’s not all coherent. I am still processing this (and this writing is part of that processing)

When I saw this family member, my first (and very human) thoughts included a very surreal and slightly indignant feeling that they don’t even know I am doing this act of service. That they can’t see I have had enough grace to put it all aside.

But I breathed through that and settled into the deep knowing that this was the right thing to do for them.

Now it’s true, the body of science on forgiveness would also suggest that it’s the right thing to do for me. That I will free myself from the weight of their wrongs. I won’t argue that but what I am going to tell you is that the science has nowhere written about a nuance that may be my greatest gift of this experience.

I learned it was not even about them. Those acts had been so far in the past and I had given them so much grace and space that it was easy to settle into this act of caring and felt like the absolute thing I wanted to do. It felt like that healing had been done.

What I didn’t realize is that it was absolutely about me.

Somewhere along the way, when I received their wrongs, their acts of harm, a part of my heart shut down to myself.

Somewhere, somehow, those wounds had shut down a part of my capacity for my heart to, for lack of better words, love myself.

With every morsel of food I fed them, with every stroke of their forehead, I felt my heart opening up to myself.

I felt my heart opening to my capacity to love, no matter what.

I felt my heart trusting myself again.

It was as if I had closed down part of myself in that time of my life and it was opening again, with full color and texture. I could literally sense that a part of my heart felt seen again.

Of course, being with this person incited this process. But it had nothing to do with giving them forgiveness, or grace for that matter.

❣️ It had to do with giving myself grace, for being hurt and shut down in that corner of my heart.

❣️ It had to do with loving, for love’s sake.

❣️ It had to do with opening my heart, just because in this human experience, we all deserve that, especially the person who has been hurt.

I literally came home feeling like my heart was more expansive and could hold more. It was like I unlocked a gate.

By giving love in a space with someone who had not given me the best, I showed my heart that I can be more whole.

I loved not because they deserved it, but because I deserved it.

So much freedom that it’s hard to even explain.

And I think it was even more possible because this person was unable to react or recognize it; only I knew what I was doing in that moment.

So then I started wondering. How can I free other locked corners of my heart?

How can I offer love in space with those who have hurt me, maybe without them knowing? That’s what I am chewing on now.

That’s what I want to explore, the farthest corners of grace that live in a space only I can visit.

I want to know the capacity and potential of my heart in spaces where it can open and expand and know its power.

I want to know my heart can love as a tool to freedom.

This is the space I’m roaming in these days and hope you’ll join me there too. I would love to hear your thoughts. And for this week only, I’m opening the comments section to the entire community, not just those who have supported this substack with a paid subscription. Because I really want to hear your stories of forgiveness and grace and learn and grow with you.

Gratitude for receiving my words and I look forward to receiving yours…🙏🏽❤️