Day 5

Today's favor focused on forgiveness. Sometimes the real purpose behind an event or choice differs drastically from our original assumptions. A friend requested I join her at a support group for the evening. I agreed and quickly discovered that accepting her invitation was actually a favor to me. One of my past Pilates clients asked that her favor be for me to take care of myself for one day, however that looked. I thought I would save it and use it for a day of pampering; perhaps a mani-pedi, massage or just sleeping-in late. Never in my wildest dreams did I entertain the notion that taking care of me might mean looking at the real me without judgment. Often it is easy to pass judgments because it offers us a way to categorize things and to assign value or priority which then helps us to allocate our finite resources of time, energy and and desire. However, what if it was possible to remain free of judgment and instead of deem something as having positive or negative value, we instead sat still with our judgments beside us rather than within us and remained neutral? This sense of neutrality at first may raise alarm or a false label of denial. This is not denial; this is quiet; this is forgiveness; this is peace. Chaotic value-assumptions are noisy in relation to our peace of mind but they are specific and finite; neutrality is infinite. It knows no beginning and no end; it just is and waits until called to action. The waiting of the process allows us to process and to free ourselves from rash and quick decisions motivated by fear which may then lead to feeling guilty or angry about said decisions. It is a vicious cycle of malcontent and the way to stop the cycle is to take the time to pause, be still, not judge and forgive ourselves for what we have not done. I am so grateful for the invitation from my friend and the gift of self-care from my client; both offered me the greatest favor one may give to oneself: love.