“True forgiveness is when you can say ‘thank you’ for that experience.”

Oprah Winfrey

*****

Flashback to a few years ago and an interesting conversation with my daughter, Natalie. She was working her way through some difficult medical issues, and I asked her how she was doing.

“Everyone gets some shit to deal with. This is mine.”

I was pleased by Natalie’s wisdom, yet I was struck more greatly by the truth of it and the power of the idea: that our task is to find a way to reconcile ourselves to whatever comes to pass.

Clearly we do not have control over what life brings, and the truth is we often don’t have any power over our feelings, attitudes, or reactions. It’s a human vanity to think we can choose, when in fact, choosing is simply not possible. (If you doubt this, and want to argue for your freedom to choose, try not feeling what you are feeling when something catastrophic has befallen a loved one.)

Regardless, it does seem to be possible to practice being with our experiences.

A renegade Buddhist once told me that enlightenment does not happen in our thoughts, but in our bodies. That it is felt experience which brings us to awareness, to learning and eventually to awakening from our psycho-spiritual lethargies.

A friend with whom I discussed these ideas said it this way:

“I guess what I see … or maybe I feel it … has provided me a new level of love for … well, kinda … everything and everyone. It’s like my breathing shifts and then somehow, peace shows up inside me.”

That is the sound — the feeling — of reconciliation to reality and to ourselves.