forgiveness

Ho’oponopono — A prayer of radical forgiveness.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you.

My friend Diana talked about this prayer of forgiveness at her recent solstice gathering. About its ability to “clean the slate”.
I’ve used this at the end of the year for as long as I can remember. For the exact same reason.
An energetic re-set. A reboot. The only New Year’s cleanse I can tolerate.

And let me just reiterate. It’s freakin’ radical. And here’s why: You’re the one asking for forgiveness. You’re the one saying you’re sorry.

Okay, so, if you think this might be something you’d like to try…close your eyes. Let a person, situation, or circumstance parade before you. Say the prayer. The order will change and that doesn’t matter. Your ego will even change it to “I forgive you”. Trust me on that. Even after all these years it still happens to me! Just take a breath, try not to laugh, tell your ego to take a seat, and change it back to “please, forgive ME“.

Some people or situations will linger. They’ll get back in line for a second helping of forgiving. Just keep saying it.

Most importantly, don’t forget to include yourself. When you tell yourself you’re sorry something magical happens. You feel seen; understood. You begin to feel…lighter.

I know this isn’t for everyone, but if you can get past the initial discomfort——this can work miracles!

Situations unknot themselves. You’ll get an email informing you that that sticky issue that’s been languishing in limbo for years has been resolved. People will text “I love you” for no apparent reason.

And who doesn’t want an energetic clean slate for 2023?

Lemme know how it goes!

Happy New Year, carry on,
xox JB

Hi All,
This is for several people I love. Their bones are broken. Their ribs are cracked. And even though it’s over for a few of them— it still gets hard to breathe sometimes. I love you.
Carry on,
xox

ARE YOU READY TO FORGIVE? The complicated, gritty path to grace.

It’s complex. It’s confusing. It’s deeply particular. It’s the through-line of most mystical teachings:

Forgiveness.

I’m a “Forgiveness Aspirant.” I’m just as good at holding a grudge as I am at letting it go, but for the most part, I want to be as gracious as possible, and I really do believe that forgiveness is the primary Light source of an illumined existence.

That said, choosing—at a critical moment—not to forgive was one of the most spiritual, Soul-affirming acts of my life.

For me, divorce was like having my bones broken very, very slowly, one limb after the next, and then each rib—which made it difficult to breathe for a long time. It was brutal. It didn’t matter that I was the one walking away. I had to crawl my way back into the Light. The dismantling of the marriage agreement itself was very civilized and straightforward. But I had no idea that the real work had just begun. You can’t move on to a new life until you unpack the old one—or burn it down to the ground.

So, I unpacked. I also torched, and past-life-regressed, and journaled, and therapized, and danced, and raged, and grieved, and owned my way through every inch of the journey. I had to go back and do some of it over again, just to make sure it was out of my system. I was not going to take the past into my future. I held up each memory and emotion to surmise: is this a Truth or is this a lie? I was extremely thorough. And when my work was done, which took way longer than I would have preferred, I had become one of those rebirthed, empowered woman clichés. All I could say when asked was, “I’m better than ever. Like, better than ever.”

Toward the end of that long trip, I was working with an exquisite healer—she’s a total energy ninja. We were working on getting my adrenals back in shape. Cutting some energy cords, putting some astral protection into place…you know, the usual. I’d had a series of disturbing dreams that week, indicators of “intrusions,” you could say. I was ready to analyze them, up my frankincense oil intake, chant some Durga mantras, and keep on keeping on.

At the end of a text exchange we were having about the effects of Light meditation on the nervous system, this Lady Ninja of the Light wrote, “D, you have to forgive him.” My face flushed with heat and my stomach sank. It wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. I’d come so far. My life was beginning to shimmer. My money was mine, I was back in my body, my heart was lush with Love and gratitude. So much of my reinvention had been about reckoning and validating my sanity for all the times that I’d thought I was crazy. I was finally seeing clearly. I had boundaries in place. I was over it.

I read that sentence over three times. “D, you have to forgive him.” Then I burst into hot, panicked tears. I’d been calm just moments before. Now I was frantic. Because here’s what I heard echoing inside of the words “forgive him”:

“Dismantle your boundaries, make yourself wrong, admit to things you never did so everyone thinks you’re nicer and saner than you may appear, let him back into your heart, and effectively dissolve your last few years of intense self-scrutiny and resurrection. And while you’re at it, let him into your house, be friendly, be a progressive family unit, and for God’s sake, smile more—because that is what it means to be a truly spiritual person, Danielle.”

At least that’s how I interpreted it.

My phone rang. (Lady Ninja of the Light is so tuned in that she could feel my panic across the country.) I didn’t bother to compose myself before I answered. I just received the call and wept into the phone.

Let me pause here and say that this ninja healer is one of the most cherished beings in my life. When I figure out one of the esoteric riddles she gives me, I feel accomplished. I want to continue learning from her as long as I can. Her respect matters to me—a lot.

She listened gently on the other end of the line as I cried and cried.

After a minute or so, she said, “D?”

I felt like I was in a movie version of an ancient Greek myth. I was the sweaty protagonist, sword in hand, tired as hell, trying to stay alive in a succession of tests. Do I go left down the maze, or right? Do I scale the wall, or do I accept defeat?

I took a stuttered but full inhale because, in that moment, I knew which way I was going to go. I also knew that my beloved mentor would see me as an unfit spiritual student, and our time together would come to an end.

“I’m sorry,” I broke the silence. “But I just can’t do it.” Long pause. “I can’t forgive if it means letting him back into my heart. I’ve come too far.” Silence. What I was thinking was, I know you think I’m a loser, but I really have no choice. Thank you for working with me; you can break up with me now.

I wanted to be spiritually respectable, but I just couldn’t care about “evolving” anymore. For once, I was only exactly where I was. No aspiration, all acceptance. My knowing was coursing through my body; it felt impossibly wrong to abandon it. So there I stood, with my inconvenient Truth. I don’t think I’ve ever been as human as I was in that moment.

And then Lady Light burst out laughing her oh, honey-child kind of laugh. “Oh, God no! You do not have to give him the time of day. Ever again. Noooo. Just forgive his SOUL!” She laughed some more. “It’s actually the hardest work to do—because that’s what’s real.”

“So don’t let down my guard?” I said, all snuffly and hopeful.

“Nope. Please don’t.”

“Forgive his Soul?” I confirmed.

“Yep. The biggest thing there is.”

“Oh! Well I can do THAT! I’m halfway there!”

“You’re way more than halfway there. This is the finish line,” she affirmed.

“Well, that’s all you needed to say!” Then we laughed that awesome post-sobbing, post-skill-testing-question, full-bodied woman laugh. Sweet relief! I was going to stay the course:

Keep it real, aim high, do the divine work.

Of course, it wasn’t quite that easy—the actual forgiveness practice of my Soul addressing his was profoundly painful at times. But it didn’t last long. At that stage, it was like removing slivers instead of cracking bones.

I sat in meditation, and over the course of many months, I streamed Light and Love to his Higher Self. I pictured him standing directly in front of me and I gazed at him with total kindness. If that felt too close for comfort on that day, then I’d just imagine him as a Light form of pure energy. I allowed his Soul to come near to mine again. I let myself adore who he truly is. And I thanked him, over and over again, for participating in our agreement to play out what we did in this lifetime. I took it a step further and extended the same gratitude to all of the people in his life. I prayed for their well-being. I cherished his very Soul. Completely.

By honoring my humanity, I got fuller access to my divine power. On Earth, in the day-to-day, my boundaries stayed very much intact. And I moved forward much more freely, navigating with a lighter heart.

PS: Most of us have a forgiveness story we’re in the midst of unraveling. Send this to someone who needs to give themselves a break, or give up their grudge. xo.

DANIELLELAPORTE.COM

I don’t normally make it a habit of being one of the last guests to leave a party. I also don’t arrive first and I don’t leave straight after dessert—I’m not an asshole.

But this was an exceptionally fun party with a LIVE Karaoke band who stayed later than planned because when my friend Orna’s posse (who are SO game with the LIVE karaoke), aren’t finished singing—THEY DON’T LEAVE.

It was after midnight when they pried the microphone out of my hot little hand and I wedged my swollen feet back into my heels. After a few goodnight hugs, I made my way to the parking lot which was nearly deserted.

There was the valet, a lovely man around thirty (that is a man, right?), sitting alone on a black wooden stool, almost hidden by a fog that had come in on its little cat’s feet (a bow to Carl Sandburg), while we wailed away the hours like a bunch of wannabe rock stars. I can only imagine what he was thinking right around hour three when a bunch of us got up to murder “Summer Nights”, which was followed immediately by a drunken but rocking’ version of a Doors song by an accountant livin’ his dream.

Of the three sets of keys still left hanging on the board next to the stool, mine were the easiest to pick out. The brightly striped KCRW mini-membership card made them easy to distinguish from the other Benz keys hanging there, (a little aside, here in LA the joke is to go up to a valet and say “the black Mercedes” and watch his head spin around. It’s like describing your black canvas wheelie bag to the angry dude behind the desk at airport baggage claims).

Anyway…

As he went around and opened my door for me, I asked him how much I owed him.
“Five dollars”, he replied with a smile.

That seemed like bargain considering how late it was and the torture that poor man had endured for hours on end…sitting on a stool…in a damp fog…listening to us—sing.
I was going to give him ten bucks. Just because.

That’s when I reached into the cute little clutch I had strategically jammed full of everything I would need for the evening right before I left the house.
Altoids, lip gloss, drivers license, insurance card, phone, one migraine pill (because nobody wants to get hit with a migraine at a LIVE karaoke party), and a tiny tin of customized “Orna’s Big 5-0” M & M’s that were given out as party favors.

Everything it seems except money.

Even in the dark I’m certain he could see how crimson my face was becoming. I was mortified.
He held my keys out to me as I stammered and sputtered and continued looking in vain through my now useless little bag for something valuable to give the man.

Without making eye contact—I handed him the candy.

“I. Am. So. Sorry”, I said as I finally looked up at him with those huge cat eyes from the cartoons. One giant cat eye stayed glued to his face, which was smiling broadly, while the other was looking around to see if someone else would come walking out so I could bum some money.

“I don’t have any cash”, I could hear the words coming out but I felt so awful and the sudden let-down from my LIVE karaoke buzz was so excruciating that I wanted to slide under the car and die.

“It’s no problem, it’s just money”, he said in a soft, sweet, heavily accented voice.

“I knooooow, but I feel like a…”, was what my mouth was saying. My head, on the other hand, was screaming, ‘Just get in the car! Drive! Get outa here! NOW!’

“It’s okay lady”, he said, interrupting my argument. “You should go. It’s very late. Don’t worry, it’s just money. Please”.
He put my keys in the ignition and gently guided me into the driver’s seat as I babbled on, pleading with him to forgive me.

After he shut the door I sat there for a second like a cash-less idiot. Before I pulled out onto a foggy Pacific Coast Highway, I rolled down my window for one last heartfelt apology as I folded the tin of Altoids into his hand.

“Here take these, I feel awful. But be careful. They’re curiously strong”.

“Please don’t worry”, he said with that huge smile beaming at me like a lighthouse. “I want you to forget, so you can drive safe. It’s just money. Drive safe. Please.”

I got all misty-eyed as I drove away. Sometimes just a random act of kindness can do that to you. It can remind you of what is important in life. Like friends, love, LIVE karaoke and the gentle, wise and forgiving kindness of strangers.

Not money.

And that worrying while driving in dense fog is not advisable.

P.S. I found my wad of folded up cash on the floor in the dining room just where it had fallen during the great purse switch.

Carry on,
xox

In the beginning of her book “Eat Pray Love”, Liz Gilbert finds herself in the middle of something she has no control over which is causing her a great deal of angst, worry, anxiety, and despair. In her case, a contested divorce. It has come to the place where it has the potential to consume yet another year of her life by tying her up in court, not to mention wasting every dime of their money on legal fees.

Are you guys with me? Anxiety? Despair? Loss of control? Can you relate?

She feels hopeless and out of control and while on a drive through Kansas with a friend, she expresses her desire to write a Petition to God, you know, to inject some Divine Intervention into a situation which seems beyond repair.

Once she drafts a copy in the car, she and her amazing and very willing friend, add imaginary (energetic), signatures at the bottom. “My parents both signed it!” her friend exclaims. “So did mine! And so did my grandparents!” Liz replies. “St Francis of Assisi just signed it!” her friend yells excitedly, pounding the steering wheel for emphasis; and the exercise continues for well over an hour raising Liz’s spirits and bolstering her resolve.

Later, still in the passenger seat of the car, she grabs a quick nap and is awakened by her ringing phone. “You’ll never guess”, her attorney from New York exclaims without even saying hello, “He just signed the papers!”

God, I love that scene! Because I love magic, and I believe in the Physics of Quests, clues, and signs, and our right to Petition God or the Universe to take the wheel on our behalf, and so it dawned on me that I should write my own Petition, regarding my own crazy brave,crazy, brave, batshit crazy endeavour, and send it to my tiny inner circle—my tribe—so I did last night.

“Just like in the book I’d love it if you could sign it energetically (or literally) and send it out to others in the aether, living or dead, and let me know who we’ve got working on this.
I’ll put mine at the bottom.

I love you all more than words can express.
xoxJ”

And all day the names of the signatories have been pouring in!
Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Kennedy, The Obama’s…
Even the Pope signed it! What??!!

I wasn’t going to share it but then I realised that you guys are my tribe too! Below is what I wrote so you can use it as a template for your own Petition.

Then, I had what I thought was a great idea! I wanted to offer YOU this: If you want to write a short sentence in the comments about something that needs some energetic surrendering—start your own Pettition—I (we) will add our names and the names of others to it and up that juju factor.

How about it? Wanna try it? What do you have to lose?

I love you all more than words can express!
Carry on,
xox

Dear God, Universe, Nora, Nixon and All,
It is now time for you to intervene and facilitate the making of this “darling” screenplay into a movie. I humbly and respectfully acknowledge that I haven’t the faintest idea of what comes next or how to make this happen, and I am well aware of the fact that if I attempt to meddle in matters this far outside my paygrade, well, let’s just say ‘I’ll fuck it up’.

I realize that you may have more pressing things on your agendas like Chinese and North Korean diplomacy, Syria, finding a great karaoke song and looking for other ways to demystify death, and that helping me to ‘mind my own business’ seems like an insurmountable challenge, but we’ve come this far and worked so well together—that I beseech you to try.

Please attract only those to this project who are lifted by its message. Let it easily find its way to the best and the brightest. May the making of the movie be surrounded by as much love, light, fun and magic as the writing of the screenplay has been and may those that lay eyes on it see beyond what was written on the page. May it live to touch hearts and soothe souls.

Thank you for your kind consideration,
Respectfully,
Janet Bertolus

Picasso
Diane Sawyer
Mike Nicols
James Cameron
Elizabeth Gilbert
Oprah
Gayle King
My dad
Tom Hanks
Rob Bell
Erma Bombeck
Dear Abby
Clark Gable
Eva Gardner
Frank Sinatra
Andy Williams
Bob Fosse
Hemingway
Mark Twain
Martha Stewart
Mama Cass
Stevie Nicks
Joni Mitchell
Cameron Crowe
Ron Howard
Bryan Lorde
Rob Lowe
Prince

“It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission”

This quote is attributed to Grace Hopper, a crusty old broad who, if given the choice, I’d want to sit next to at most dinner parties. Except she’s dead.

It should be attributed to my husband since he swears by it, lives it and quotes it almost daily.

He’s also pretty crusty and he breaks the rules. Rules are just suggestions to him. Gentle recommendations that are made to be broken. I find that quality sexy in a person. In men in particular. Really sexy. (I’m going to see if he’s still at his desk and tell him so. I’ll be back in…thirty…)

So sorry about that. Please forgive me.
Anyhow…

When you see a No Trespassing sign do you turn around or do you keep going? I keep going. I can’t help it.

I trespassed the shit out of my hikes around the hills of Soquel this week and it unleashed my inspiration.

My pup and I explored all sorts of forbidden paths, trails and otherwise off-limits parts of this gorgeous backcountry. Several Ted Kaczynski’s unleashed their hounds on us (no biggie, my dog is a one-woman welcoming committee, like the head of the local PTA, and the hounds all loved her. They’ve organized a bake sale and are coming over for tea at three.)

We happened upon a babbling brook, found someone’s abandoned Airstream trailer, stopped, kept from making eye contact, and turned around when we came across a guy, in the middle of nowhere, sitting in his junk heap of a pick-up truck, staring at us while he listened to a banjo strum slowly on the radio.
I’m not kidding.

Undeterred, we kept on walking the road less traveled (in the other direction), and two things came to mind.

In LA I powerwalk. I try to notice my surroundings but most days I’m focused on completing my 10,000 steps and getting my day started. These hikes among the pines, oaks, and lush green hills are food for my soul. I walk slowly, inhaling the scent of the moist, dark earth, moss, wet grass and the occasional field of wildflowers.

One road we trespassed on became so steep in the middle that I had to practice my yoga breathing in order to keep my heart INSIDE of my chest where it belongs when I noticed all of the delicious smells I’d been enjoying were gone. That’s just one of the things I hate about cardio (there are at least 500 more. I have a list.), it robs you of your senses.

My mouth was open so wide, gasping for air like a naked astronaut on the surface of Mars—that I couldn’t smell a thing.

So, number one: You must walk at a leisurely pace in order to smell the roses, so to speak. A full sensory experience cannot be had at 135 beats per minute.

Number two: Nothing interesting or noteworthy happens on the beaten path. It’s the safe route. Well traveled. Crowded actually. Every rock has been turned, every idea hatched.

I am convinced that in order to reach inspiration you must NEVER ask permission because more than likely—the answer will be NO.

Nope. You must trespass in life—then beg for forgiveness…then bring pie.

Carry on
xox

“Activate in your mind only the things in your past that you want to see in your future.”
~Somebody Wise

I can’t remember who said this, Joseph Campbell? Rumi? Oprah?
Doesn’t matter. I think this is the BEST advice I consistently forget to remember. THE BEST.

Have you ever thought of someone from your past, a friend, an old co-worker or that crazy-ass woman who used to sell seashells down by the seashore? And then, out of the blue, or so it seems—they call you?

“Hello, Janet, this is Lunatica, I’m down here at the shore and I have some really great overpriced seashells to sell—and I thought of YOU.”

Ah, fuck.

I had an old luvah contact me around Christmastime. But first he had his special-needs little sister feel me out on social media.
Can you say, Schmoe?

He is someone who inhabited that very special place in my heart — the place where people go after they take my heart and break it into a thousand tiny pieces, then grind it down with the heel of their shoe into sand and blow it into my face, blinding me into thinking that I lost something special and precious. And this blind-eyed, bullshit belief caused me great suffering. For years and years. Five to be exact.

You know what I’m talking about.

I had a hard time being objective.

I wanted answers.
I wanted closure.
I wanted an apology.
I wanted a time machine to carry me back thirty years so I could ask all of the right questions I didn’t have the sense to ask at the time — and then I wanted to punch him in his squishy man-parts.

He wanted to reminisce, to catch up. After we talked I was like, “OMG, dodged a bullet!” He was like, “This was great! Let’s talk again, soon!”

Ah fuckity, fuck, fuck me running.

How in the name of God has this happened and what am I going to do about it?

Once I stopped running around with my hair on fire, I figured out that since I’d been in the process of jettisoning a ton of excess jetsam from my past that he had somehow received the unspoken, psychic memo on his way to the trash heap and just like Lunatica, he wanted to say, Hey!

I spent days writing about it. Hours of activating all of those old emotions of loss and heartbreak, bringing them out through my arm, onto the page and right back into the present.

Hello, 1986, I’d like you to meet 2016.

All it made me was more confused. Re-opening a thirty-year-old cold case and grieving the loss of a twenty-three-year-old boyfriend does not jive with gray hair. It just doesn’t.

Don’t I get to choose who comes back into my life to torture me?

Then the older, wiser, part of me, the sagging boobs and soft belly part, reminded me that YES! dammit! Yes, I do!

It reminded me of that phrase I always forget (and the fact that I need to get to the gym more often).
“Activate in your mind only the things in your past that you want to see in your future.”

Ah, fuck.

My wise friend Kim saw me spinning, on fire, and had the decency to put it into perspective for me. “Don’t waste one more minute of your time on this guy. Your life is great. Remember what that situation gave you and move on. Pronto. Like right NOW!” then she shoved a piece of chocolate into my face and gave me a slap on the ass.

That night I made the choice of exactly what I wanted to bring into my future.
I had started my spiritual practice in earnest after our break-up due to the complete bankruptcy of my self-esteem. It set me on my life’s path and brought me to where I am today.

Hey, not too shabby. Resilience, self-worth, ability to love, forgiveness, bravery, self-discipline, resolve. That’s the part of my past I’ll carry forward—the rest of it can go to hell!

When I freed up some emotional bandwidth and stopped the angst over what to do — he stopped texting.

Now I just have to set Lunatica straight.

What part of your past, if any, do you want to bring with you into your future?

Carry on,
xox

Dearest body of mine,
I would like to extend my most heartfelt apology for under appreciating you all of these years and for being your harshest critic.

It is high time I write this. It is way past time actually–horribly overdue by years, maybe even decades.

I’m sorry. I can be such an ass.

I certainly deserve your indifference and yet you are so endlessly forgiving.
I could learn something from your example.

Anyway, I’m here to say…I’m sorry. And I love you.

I have repeatedly ignored your wishes, judged you and even called you names.
Tiny department store dressing rooms, covered in carnival mirrors and bright, unforgiving fluorescent lights can attest to that fact.

Please accept my sincerest apology.

Over the years, I have deprived you of sleep, rattled you with stress, covered over your anxiety by overworking you and then made up for it at times by smoking and drinking too much, (which I’m sure is exactly what you did NOT need).

Other times, I have marinated you in a melancholy laced dissatisfaction until it affected your health, at which point you knocked me on my ass with anxiety attacks, Mono, a lung infection, strep throat or some other malady long enough to get my attention and give me time to re-group and let you heal.

Thank you and I’m sorry.

I have systematically starved and over fed you; brutally sunburned you summer after teenage summer; changed your natural hair color and texture too many times to count, tweezed, waxed and lasered you beyond all reason and basically treated you like shit since, well– since I was old enough to get away with it.

And don’t get me started on that face.
Every time I look in the mirror I only see the flaws–the thin chicken lips and over-plucked eyebrows, several deep divots due to teenage acne and just when it looked as if I had come to terms with it all–alas, the wrinkles.

But you always cut me slack. Don’t you just want to strike back at me? Like with a giant forehead zit, you know, the kind that hurt like a mutha or a stye in my eye?

You should! What the hell’s wrong with me?

Just the fact that my eyes have sight, my legs still carry me and that I can hear and smell all the wonders of the world around me–is a lottery win! You are sturdy and strong, hearty and healthy — but why hasn’t that ever been good enough?

I’m so sorry.

As a young woman I was naturally thin, (another unappreciated lottery win), so of course, I wanted to be curvy.
I never appreciated your stellar metabolism for one minute. I took it for granted, stuffing my face with junk food knowing you’d save me from myself, when suddenly at around age forty you dialed it back so that now I have to exercise like an Olympian and watch what I eat–every morsel registering on the scale.

Well-played. I know, I deserved it.

I apologize for never knowing you were good enough just as you were.
Listen, I’d like to call a truce. Can we be friends?

I finally realize you are not some cosmic mistake or last minute consolation prize. I wasn’t supposed to be Cindy Crawford or Florence Joyner. I get that now.

God chose you for me, or better yet, it was a collaboration between both of us before we were born, for the life we were meant to lead.

You house my soul for crying-out-loud–my very essence. We are a team, you and me, so you’d think I would have held you in higher regard.

I am so sorry.

So now, having said all of that,
I don’t care what you weigh as long as you’re healthy.

I don’t care if you can’t run five miles like you used to, your legs are still strong enough to hike–hikes are good.

I don’t care if you have wrinkles. Together we have worried and we have laughed–we earned those lines by engaging in a life well lived.

I promise to try to drink less alcohol (you keep telling me it no longer agrees with you).

I promise to get you checked out on a regular basis, you know, for tune-ups –like the high-performance vehicle you are and trust that you can fix yourself most of the time.

I promise to get enough sleep.

I promise to keep us stimulated, body, mind, and spirit, well into old age.

I promise to quit looking around to see how other women are aging and just be happy and make the most with what I’ve been gifted.

I promise to listen to you and to pay closer attention to what you’re telling me.

You, my glorious friend, are a work of art and a freaking miracle and every creak, groan and crack are there to remind me to treat you with respect–After all, we are a team.

Love you,
xox

Yeah…I was going to write something high-minded and profound on the subject of forgiveness, but after today—sometimes it really is just this simple.
You’re an asshole —and I forgive you.

It doesn’t mean that you need to overlook what that person did wrong.

It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shitfest.

It doesn’t even mean they were completely wrong and you were completely right.

I’m pretty sure it takes a party of two to get a table at the shitfest—right?

Here’s what I do know for sure:

The object of our forgiveness may never change—but we can!

Carry on,
xox

Yeah…I was going to write something high-minded and profound on the subject of forgiveness, but after today—sometimes it really is just this simple.
You’re an asshole —and I forgive you.

It doesn’t mean that you need to overlook what that person did wrong.

It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shitfest.

It doesn’t even mean they were completely wrong and you were completely right.

I’m pretty sure it takes a party of two to get a table at the shitfest—right?

Here’s what I do know for sure:

The object of our forgiveness may never change—but we can!

Carry on,
xox

*HAPPY SUMMER SUNDAY YOU GUYS!
After the week many of us have had, I felt like I needed to show you this recent post from Danielle LaPort. I need the reminder. Shit storm, followed by a miracle. The natural order of things. Good reminder. Whew!
Carry on,
xox

You’re on the verge of a miracle. #Truthbomb elaborations

A Course In Miracles defines a miracle as “a shift in perception.” I love that, because that definition covers a lot of bases. You can choose to believe in spontaneous healing and create a physiological miracle. Or you can simply decide to forgive someone you thought you’d never, ever forgive. “It’ll take a miracle,” you might have thought. But often, the miracle comes from within. And you can create that miracle anytime by changing your mind about something. Let it be easy. Let it be grand. Let it be now. Let it be so.

~Danielle LaPort