I spent Memorial Day, finishing the first revision of my book, watching a family of baby birds leaving their nest, adjusting my mother’s HVAC temperature via an app (She was cold. She was hot. You get the gist.), and then I made an amends. It was a full day.
Finishing my first revision round, made me feel accomplished, but owing an amends, well, it made me feel ashamed. I am sassy, sarcastic, and can sometimes cross a line where I hurt someone’s feelings. It isn’t intentional. So, when it was pointed out to me that what I said, may have been taken the wrong way, I was remorseful. Sometimes I need to see it from someone else’s vantage point to see the harm.
I don’t know the individual well, but it doesn’t matter. My spiritual practice suggests that when I am wrong, I need to promptly admit it. Experience dictates that I feel a lot of peace when I walk through that process. I have to own my part. So, I constructed an email and followed it up with action, because sometimes words aren’t always enough.
Once I made my amends, I have to let it go. Shed the shame that came with it. Move forward and understand that whether the apology is accepted or not, I have done all I can do to keep my side of the street clean. And learn, that sometimes, what I think is light and funny, may not be taken that way by others. I am a work in progress. Flawed. Human. Forging my way just like everyone else. The difference today is that I can forgive myself instead of holding on to the errors of the past. It certainly is an act of love to myself and to all those involved when I can accomplish that.
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