I Forgive Myself

If I Forgave Myself, I Would Do This

If I forgave myself, I would recommit.

To what?

To this body. This temple of sinew and the home of my soul that I have fed like a glutton and punished like a penitent.

I would recommit to food as sacrament. To tracking it, journaling it, blessing it. To putting intention into meals, not punishment or numbness.

I would recommit to my environment. That means a full, somatic, spiritual, and architectural cleanse. Basement. Attic. Every drawer, every closet, every inch with a ghost of the past whispering not good enough. Gone. Out. Recycled. Given away. I want my home to feel like a deep exhale. I want my home to hum like it’s been saged by Mary Oliver and organized by the Dalai Lama.

I would recommit to not ruminating. And instead, I would turn to the part of me that lacks compassion. The part of me that carries a dagger behind her tongue. She needs a name, not a muzzle. She needs my love, not my exile.

I would recommit to art. Singing. Dancing. Musical theatre. To losing track of time in a song. To podcasting. To one newsletter a week. To using my voice like it was given to me by the gods to cast spells of truth and permission.

I would recommit to my children. To laughing with them like life is hilarious and God is a prankster. To playing like it’s my job. To showing them what a human looks like when they give themselves back to themselves.

I would recommit to becoming lovable again—not by anyone else’s standards—but by mine. By the part of me that remembers being hungry as a child. Hungry for food. Hungry for attention. Hungry for peace while my parents fought. I would recommit to being the kind of mother that inner child would have wept with gratitude for.

Because here’s the truth: that little girl who stole food from neighbors never got a full meal from the people who were supposed to feed her.

And now?

Now she’s the one with the keys to the kitchen.

And I have never really forgiven the ones who kept me hungry. Not truly.

Maybe that’s the root of my hoarding. My compulsions. My rage. My judgment.

But maybe… just maybe… that little girl has grown up enough to forgive.

And with that forgiveness, comes the superpower:

The discipline to feed myself.

To listen to myself.

To commit again.

And again.

And again.

Because this time, I’m not starving.

I’m ready to live for something.

Not die for it.

Not rage about it.

But build something sacred out of the compost heap of my unprocessed pain.

I FORGIVE MYSELF.

(Picture credit: Soul Nation)