Strings to Shackles

I’m currently reading The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu. I’m on a self-help kick and loving it.

One quote I want to dissect a bit here: “The problem is that the strings we attach to the gift of forgiveness become the chains that bind us to the person who harmed us.” If we make the forgiveness of others conditional on anything, whether that be an apology, a recognition of the pain they inflicted, or a change in behaviour, we burden ourselves with the weight of that expectation. Instead of moving past the situation we tie ourselves to the hurt.

In a process of forgiveness that I’m working through now, I’m finding my self-inflicted attachment to an unmovable reality deeply troubling. It’s difficult to use this time to work on anything creative because I’m constantly thinking about the things that were said or “should” be said. And I’ve been here before. I’ve neglected creative projects because I was consumed by perceived injustices.

So I’ve started the journey of ~releasing~. ‘Cause hey, I’ve got some cool stories to get out in the world. And tying myself to something that probably won’t change is certainly not going to help me do that.

I recommend the book. It’s proving very useful at this time and helping me get back to my creative self.