Good morning, dear friends, again sitting on my sofa with the coffee, enriched with some natural flavors of cinnamon and other spices. Mhhh! Inspired by Diane´s post, I am especially aware today of the gift of these spices from the other side of the world, which I use daily. So grateful for them! And how would my meal taste like without salt? The basic addition for cooking, essentially needed for the body to be alive. Today I will gratefully pay attention to all the spices and natural odors which enrich my food and my life and which bring so much joy to my soul. Looking forward to having a rich day full of flavors! Have a lovely day, you all out there!

During the hardest time of my life so far, gratefulness nothing less but saved me. It transformed a dark state full of hopelessness and despair, a feeling to be completely cut off from everything which makes it worth living in this world to feeling gratefully inspired again, connected and supported. It allowed me to see that I am the one to choose the perspective, the lens through which I perceive the world, and that this is not a fixed reality but a choice I take. In choosing gratefulness, all came back; so deeply grateful for this process, which brought back hope, inspiration, joy, love, humor, space and more freedom. May gratefulness, which is offered in so many creative ways here on this site to be experienced as transforming and healing to all of us, may blossom in every heart.

Good morning, friends! When I looked out of the window this morning, snow again! I love it, gratefully aware of my warm shoes and my woolen cloak to put on. I pray this could be so for each one who has to face the cold outside.
Sitting on my sofa with my delicious coffee, thanks to having the opportunity to use a computer and connect via Internet, I am wondering how you are today, THenry, Anna, Aine, grateful sea, manda, Pilgrim, Diane, Nancy, Palm, Kevin and some others who share here and looking forward to hearing from you. Have a good start into the week ahead, wishing each of you to be well, and gifted moments full of joy and wonder!

Fortunately, all changes, nothing lasts forever, and in this situation, this always may give you hope, dear Aine. The closing of your parent´s hearts do hurt themselves as much as it hurts you, I am sure of this, only it might not be completely conscious to them, as they might still carry the wounds of their own parents, as you described it for your husband´s parents, and they try to push it away . But really, things do change.

I guess, the door to forgiveness we find in our hearts, and the way to find this door I would agree with you and Anna varies. For me I was guided to through the article and connected thoughts, which were leading me to this door to embrace my own state in the loving light of forgiveness, and may be the video and the working in class may carry you there like a river is arriving at the ocean without doubt. We are with you in this, dear Aine. Gratefully with you.

Dear Aine, your theme of forgiveness is moving me and gives reason to ponder deeply on it. You are courageously approaching such an important theme, both personally, as you said, as well as its huge collective meaning, and I would like to mention some aspects, if you allow it.
Some things you described do resemble my own dysfunctional family system of once, and like you, I wish all the best for my parents and that they may feel well and happy. May be I can tell a bit about the perspective, which helped me to forgive and let go.

Recently, there was this beautiful article of Torkin Wakefield on “after the fall” posted here. Then I started to be able to name the process, which then helped me to acknowledge and embrace my own unhealthy state of mind and to start to forgive myself.

The abyss between my wrong perception of the state of mind I was in and “reality” was bridged by being able to widen my perspective with the beautiful help of this article through perceiving the problem from the wider self, through including the bright light, which always surrounds the possible fragmented or broken parts of our being.

Somehow I feel that such an inner perspective, like it is described in this beautiful work of T. Wakefield, might be helpful to find your way to forgiveness?
It is a way to see that in general, states opposite to each other (like in our childhood between parents and self) are a natural part of our existence in this universe of duality, and that even paradoxically, exactly this represents the unity in our dual world, including you and your parents as one. I don´t know if I am able to express clearly what I mean. Does it make sense to you?

I so wish for you to find this uniting perspective and to find back to peace of mind. With you with all my heart, dear Aine.