Unfold Your Wings and Watch Life Take Off

Part 3 - Your Healing

Your Healing From Bitterness And Resentment

When we feel wronged, when we feel our life is unfolding beyond our control, when hopes are quashed, it is easy to feel bitter and resentful. When I became disabled by schizophrenia I blamed it on my tutor. (See Your Calling Needs To Be Trusted). I was very bitter and resentful. I remember sitting up in bed in the Mental Hospital, where I had been taken to recover, and shouting abuse towards my tutor, (who was 200 miles away in a different country). I think the staff thought this behaviour was caused by a schizophrenic delusion, but I was simply angry.

When I returned to college a year later, unsure if I could survive the rigor of university life because of my newfound vulnerability, I could not even look my old tutor in the eye. Whenever we had the opportunity to meet or make eye contact I avoided him. I never did manage to make peace with my old tutor, at least not in person.

What upset me most was that I had trusted him. I had even allowed myself to be guided by him in what project to do for my design thesis. In my eyes he had broken that bond of trust and had let me down. Now I had to take powerful tranquillisers to prevent me from having destructive hallucinations and to subdue paranoia. Taking the medication was making me feel drowsy, sapping my spontaneity. I had little tolerance of pressure and stress. Levels of stress that others found quite normal would cause my mind to seize and I would slip into dark depression. I also had to live with the possibility that if I experienced a very stressful event I could once again be thrown into madness. Medical authorities advised that I would have to live with the after effects of schizophrenia for the rest of my life. I felt enslaved by the limitations imposed by my disability. I was angry, bitter and resentful. How dare he do this to me!

However, by spending time alone in nature, and by going for walks in the mountains, I began to contemplate the events that led to my illness. Through discovering my solitude I learned to live with my disability and gradually came to see things differently. I realised that I was the one who had decided to trust my tutor and to place his opinions above my own. I had opened myself up to his influence and had willingly placed myself in his power. In the end I had to admit that I had played a prominent part in my own downfall.

Eventually I realised that if I had been more discriminating and more aware, then I would not have chosen this tutor to help me with my design thesis and would not have suffered as a consequence. As a result of these contemplations I became wary of taking risks and more interested in developing my awareness, so that I would not find myself in a similar situation again. I became more reflective and began to study books on personal development.

The episode with my tutor became my wake-up call. I fairly quickly grew into an aware, mature adult, who knew how to handle tricky situations and difficult people. I also became softer and more compassionate.

Before the incident with my tutor I had always felt as if there was some strange glass screen between other people and myself. Despite my bubbly hyperactive personality, I felt fundamentally alone and separate. Once I began to see the lessons for me in the incident with my tutor, the glass screen that had kept me apart from others began to dissolve and I felt a new connectedness. Although I was now a disabled person, I definitely experienced more love and peace. This made it easier for me to forgive my tutor for treating me badly.

Forgiving my tutor has not been easy. I have also had to learn to forgive myself for hating him. It has taken many years and many tears, especially as I am left with a disabling legacy that I am told will last a lifetime. However my newfound vulnerability and awareness has propelled me along the path of mature adulthood and given me wisdom to share with others. Paradoxically instead of being the great disaster it appeared to be at the time, this seminal life event has proven to be my greatest blessing.

	UNFOLDING YOUR WINGS
There is a great blessing to be found in traumatic life events. If you have suffered an injustice try going with the experience. By allowing the injustice to work within you are challenged, through quiet contemplation, to find deeper meaning and a more profound understanding of life. You open your heart through this process and become more connected to life in all its abundant glory. As you reflect on, learn about and receive the blessings from this apparent injustice, you will find it easier to forgive the person who has committed the wrongdoing. Someday you may even want to thank them!

Life is not always as it appears on the surface. If we have been wronged, we can allow ourselves to become enmeshed in bitterness and resentment, or we can choose to learn from the radiant inner swan and grow. By learning and growing we are eventually able to forgive our abuser, discover a much greater connectedness and experience a deep, heartfelt joy.

Envoi

I have been wronged.

By turning inward,
By grieving,
By offering compassion to my abuser,
I am freed of a need to blame.

By freeing myself from a need to blame,
I grow in awareness.

By growing in awareness
I grow in joy.
By growing in joy
I grow in forgiveness.

By growing in forgiveness,
I am healed of my bitterness and resentment.

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