"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach." 

— Maya Angelou

Radical Empathy

You can mark your progress breath by breath. 

Literally. And it's there that I recommend you begin. Every time you think I hate that fucking bitch, I want you to neutralize that thought with a breath. Calm your mind. Breathe in deeply with intention, then breathe out. Do not think I hate that fucking bitch while you do it. Give yourself that. Blow that bitch right out of your chest. Then move onto something else. 

I have breathed my way through so many people I felt wronged by; through so many situations I couldn't change. Sometimes while doing this I've breathed in acceptance and breathed out love. Sometimes I've breathed in gratitude and out forgiveness. Sometimes I haven't been able to muster anything beyond the breath itself, my mind forced blank with nothing but the desire to be free of sorrow and rage. 

It works. And the reason it works is the salve is being applied directly to the wound. It's not a coincidence that you describe your pain as being lodged in your chest. when you breathe with calm intention you're zapping the white rage monster precisely where it lives. You're cutting off its feeding tube and forcing a new thought into your head - one that nurtures rather then tortures you. It's essentially mental self-disipline. I'm not suggesting one deny negative emotions, but rather you accept them and move through them by embracing the power we have to keep from wallowing in emotions that don't serve us well.

It's hard work. It's important work. I believe something like forgiveness is on the other side. You will get there, dear woman. Just try.

Your, 

Sugar

Extract from Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed