forgiveness....

forgiveness! a complex subject for a tuesday morning but one i have been thinking a lot about in recent weeks! see i made a mistake, i did something that put a friend in a difficult situation...i've acknowledged what i did, i've apologised sincerely and she is now ignoring me...

sooo then of course it gets me wondering whether she in fact ever a friend in the first place - sure we had been spending a fair bit of time together since meeting earlier this year, sure we've talked a lot about business ideas etc, and sure she's put me in touch with the nightmare consulting company...but has she ever been a friend?

i don't really think so...and interestingly some time ago she said to me that she told her husband that she was enjoying having a good female friend...of course i conveniently forgot about that when i was beating myself up...funny, as she isn't a particularly warm person and tends to engage on the professional rather than personal level which i find rather difficult to be honest - knowing myself a lot better in recent times has helped me to see why some friendships work and last, and some....don't!

reality is, i don't think she has been a particularly good friend...my impression is largely that she calls when she needs something, doesn't do any sort of small talk, only responds to emails about business/work stuff, and ignores emails of a personal nature...so for me, i am now looking at this and thinking 'why did i ever think she was a friend?'...a colleague perhaps, and someone i might pursue some business opportunities with, yes, but a friend....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

sooo my challenge is now to be able to forgive her...and why would i do that? good question: well really what i find is that when i hold onto something (expectations etc) i'm the one who suffers! she probably has absolutely NO idea that i have been really hurt by her initial 'dropping me like a hot potato' when she got busy, so the only one spending any time thinking about it is me! go figure, and i'm not the one who's been a subpar friend...

as with a lot of things, i look at the meaning of the word and the dictionary has a number of entries, but the one i think most fitting for forgive is 'cease to feel resentment for'...mmmm a challenge but i think one that i am up to...if i use my buddhist teachings of cherishing others instead of cherishing self, that will help...meaning i can put her needs above mine...it's not gonna be easy though...but i'm going to TRY really hard!

so i'm going to do some role modelling of my own and focus on forgiving her so that i am no longer plagued by it all...

universe if you are hearing this, please help me through this...