​Step Nine

Forgive ourselves for all harm we may have caused, even if it was well-intended.

I’ve make mistakes and injured others by my religious beliefs. I’d like to believe my intentions were good, but I suspect that those good intentions missed their mark. Just because my intentions were well-intended doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t real or that I have no need to seek forgiveness. The good news, however, is that when we recognize the harm and decide to correct as much of it as possible, our efforts at healing also spread throughout the lives we touch, multiplying even faster than the sickness we originally created.

Sometimes the resulting healing isn’t directed towards the ones we injured. Instead, someone else might touch those lives, and our role is to heal lives that were hurt by someone we might never know. The Universe has a way of taking care of itself, and our part is to heal our little cubbyhole. For me, and for many of us, we might not know the depths of the hurts we caused and to whom we caused them. Hurts can be passed from one person to another and multiply like cancer cells.
​
The first and most important person we need to forgive is ourselves. Some people believe their injury to someone else was so devastating that they will never forgive themselves. This saddens me. No one is beyond forgiveness. Everyone is redeemable. I can only imagine that the belief that a person’s crime is so heinous that they don’t deserve to be forgiven originates from some religious teaching that somehow denies the power of Divine Love. Everyone is worthy of redemption.