A story about the healing of a relationship between my old neighbor and me

Self-forgiveness is the key to self-honesty

I didn’t see this particular old neighbor for years. We had a falling out when her dog bit my daughter…I was out at the time but when I came back shortly thereafter, I saw that my daughter’s shirt was in shreds and her back had deep lacerations. She was still tearful but calm and had an amazing knack for forgiving the dog. I put my immediate focus on her and began applying what I called “magic spray,” - a brand of natural sanitizer with coconut oil and tea tree oil that, sadly, I can no longer find anywhere. Next, I did some energy healing on her. Within a short time her wounds looked a lot better and I decided to hold off on taking her to urgent care until my husband came home to have a look. When the neighbor came over, I told her I wasn’t mad, but I did want to ensure this didn’t happen again. Instead of hearing me, she told me it wasn’t a bite, it was a nip, and that anyway it was my kids fault. My children had been doing very normal things that children did at her house all the time - my daughter was on the swing. My son opened a door. I am pretty sensitive to gaslighting. I didn’t want to put my daughter in the middle so I chose not to ask her to show the neighbor the lacerations, but it was easy to look at the shredded shirt and easily seen this was no nip.

Things concluded with me telling her to get off my property and her telling me stay off hers as well. I do my best to practice forgiveness. Over time things softened and at least civility returned when we actually ran into each other. She eventually sent that dog away for retraining and when that didn’t work, they rehomed it to somewhere in the country. The dog was probably much happier there. I heard from one of my kids that her kid said they rehomed it because it bit too much. I met a super cute dog at the coffee shop yesterday who had the opposite story - it was on a farm but really it just wanted to snuggle, and a friend of the people who lived on the farm asked if he could adopt it and they said yes. Later, the old neighbors who had the dog that bit my child adopted different dogs which were totally chill and awesome. We don’t have to judge one another to find ways for everyone to thrive. Sometimes rehoming a dog is really the right thing for the dog and the humans.

Story continued after the picture of a lilac tree and the sky…

The partner of this neighbor and I never had a glitch - we didn’t talk much but he was always friendly. Once he bought my husband and me coffee at the shop out of the blue as a random act of kindness. Maybe he wanted to make amends on behalf of what happened on behalf of his partner who wasn’t able to acknowledge what happened or maybe he was just feeling kind and awesome. Another time he and their son invited me to come look at a cicada that had just been born. It was the most miraculous iridescent blue and turquoise; perfect, otherworldly.

Later, when that neighbor still lived here, for some reason she opened up to me that she was having a hard time with the world losing its shit regarding thinking clearly and critically. Her life partner is a vet. My husband is a doctor for humans. Neither of our families were into injecting ourselves or our kids or limiting our oxygen supply. When the two out of five families in a cluster have a doctor in the family and both are saying “uh uh,” but the rest of the world is saying, “You must you must,” it’s common ground that is meaningful even if there has been a history of difficult interactions. I gave her a big and sent her some resources in form of nerdy articles.

I asked my shaman at the time why she couldn’t just apologize, since clearly I was inclined to forgive her, I wanted to forgive her - I did forgive her, but I was still hurting. He said that she just couldn’t accept responsibility because it felt too hard to forgive herself. I think this is true of most good people who have trouble apologizing.

I once sat on a bathtub with my mother asking her to forgive herself. I knew if she could forgive herself, she might be able to change, might be able to look honestly at what she had done in a way that could transform and heal us both. But she said she couldn’t live with herself if she looked at it honestly that she couldn’t possibly forgive herself. That in itself was quite honest. Later, when I was talking to another spiritual mentor I had, when my first daughter left home and I was struggling with both feeling the unfairness of how my daughter treated me, as well as self-flagellation for the ways I wish I could have done better, even when I did my best, my mentor said, “This is a little bit of a family pattern. So don’t be hard on yourself. You can break the cycle by forgiving yourself. That’s what your mother couldn’t do.”

Here is an affirmation to help us heal when another isn’t ready to apologize. It doesn’t mean we have to reconcile the relationship, but it can help us reconcile with life, with ourselves and bring ourselves into the present to live more fully, bounteously, joyously whatever the choices of another along their life’s unfoldment, which is perfect for them.

You were doing the best you could do. You are worthy of grace. I am too.

I am allowed to let go of holding this grievance. I will no longer carry animosity toward you. It hurts me too much, and I am worthy to heal. So are you. I wish you the peace to heal, through and through. I am allowed to feel peace and ease within my body. I am allowed to feel it even if there is no resolution between me and you.

The neighbor and her family soon moved - to give their new dogs more room to run… I didn’t see her for a long time. Then in one week, my husband and I kept running into her! And now, there’s nothing wrong between us. Time, alongside forgiveness and a bit of common ground as dissidents has healed us. This old neighbor now in a program to be a couples therapist. She shared about how she feels she will be challenged by the limitations of what she can do - when she would want to be able to talk about nutrition and so much else. She still feels that most of our city is in a state of not being able to see certain things that are clear to both of us. I shared with her that she can support them just by being in a resonance of her sovereign divinity - that people can feel that and it can support them to begin to think their own thoughts, feel their own feelings, begin to listen to their own gut, intuition and soul. Later my husband ran into her again and she said she’d been thinking about what I said, and that it was helping her! And then a day later we both saw her again at the coffee shop with her son, who is now so big. He was standing on her feet as she walked him over to the case of goodies. They looked happy in their connection with each other and it was so good to see! This time our son was with us. On occasions in the past, he helped redirect that little boy when he had some aggressive tendencies, and modeled being a kind young man. I told my son, “Even though he doesn’t remember, you had an impact on him when it mattered. Look how much light is shining in him. You helped nudge the trajectory of his life toward the light of love.”

Each little decision we make to love and forgive ourselves and to love and forgive others makes a difference.

You make a difference.

Your positive influence matters.

You matter and you are here to be Love’s Light.

You are The Light of Love, mattering into Light.

• How will you nourish your own love for yourself so you can forgive yourself and others with more grace?

• How does forgiving yourself contribute to your own and others flourishing today? Does it include forgiving yourself for blaming yourself for things that aren’t your fault?

• How does letting go of the need for an apology impact your ability to move on even if someone else doesn’t feel ready to own their behavior and its consequences?