The importance of forgiving.

People talk a lot about the importance of forgiving in an attempt to create a better world. Forgiving is important as a step on the way, but, it is not the final objective because it implies guilt. Forgiveness can not exist without blaming the other. First we blame and say that the other is guilty of something that did hurt us. Then we forgive.

It is a paradox, first we blame, then we forgive the other.

Forgiveness is a step on the way towards Freedom, the final goal is freedom. Once you understand that your life is yours only and that every action or non-action is your responsibility and to learn from, then  maybe you can understand that nobody can blame you for that. Of course there are consequences for your actions but they also are yours and yours alone. You cannot be held guilty for living your life’s experience the way you created it, simply because it is your life.

Therefore, at a certain moment you will not be forgiving others anymore, nor blame them. You will simply live your life and I trust that when you reach that point your life will be an example for all.

Only when we connect positive and negative without judging them true Light will shine, all other light is an illusion. A wish to be better then we think we are, because we are still pushing our shadow away.

Freedom is embracing positive and negative, fuse and sparkle.

The importance of touch

My father in law died and was buried yesterday.
His funeral started with a mess in a chapel. A young priest with a merry round head preached to the people gathered in the small chapel. He talked about the importance of touch.

Touch is an important issue in a human life. We can touch a person with our eyes, with the words that we speak, we can metaphorically touch a person’s heart but the most important is maybe the physical touch. The physical touch can be clinical, casual, abusive or loving and supportive. What they all have in common is that they have an intention, nobody touches without any intention. Therefore touch is an intended movement from one to another.

When you touch another person with a loving, supportive intention, something magical happens. The person relaxes and seems to come to the point of contact, muscles there become more alive.
Touching someone in this way means confirming his or hers existence.
It is like saying, “I see you and respect you for who you are.”

Recognition is a vital ingredient of life and touch is a strong way of recognizing someone. Nowadays there are somatic psychotherapists that promote psychotherapy without touch. This is a reaction to the threat of sewing a person in puritan countries like the U.S.A. for sexual abuse in therapy. I am sure that this sometimes happens but if you know that 30% of all people, as children, were somehow sexually abused in their family we cannot say, let’s put all children in an orphanage directly after being born to prevent them from possible abusive family members.

Therefore, I admire the priest, whose name I do not know, for speaking freely about the importance of touching each other. Especially because the priests are scrutinized for all the sexual abuse that happen(s)(ed) in church. And it all started with a simple touch.
Jesus touched to heal, Judas kissed to betray and Lionel Ritchie sings, ‘It started with a kiss, never thought it would come to this.’

It is not in the touch itself but in the intention and awareness of the touching person.