Hi Starlight1 ⭐️

Sounds like “Selfish” (her interest AT your expense) was your mother’s middle name and the church goer religious affiliation 😞

I am sorry, Starlight, that this happened to you.

In this context, forgiving would mean saying that it is okay to take advantage of one’s own daughter/ fellow church goer, is it?

That you ended your original post with the thought that your mother would be pleased with having mostly blocked your creativity says a lot about how much it hurts that she did.

.. When a mother is so far from what a mother should be.

I remember observing 🦌 mothers and their fawns years ago (I live in a wooded area outside the city limits) and I realized that although mother-deer don’t go out of their way to protect their young (they don’t, I was disappointed!), they never turn around and bite or attack their offsprings, or actively harm them.

Unlike too many human mothers.

🦌 😞 Anita

Hi Starlight

I don’t normally comment on personal matters, and glad you have someone like Anita walk with you… but when I read a heading like ‘I don’t forgive,’ I worry.

I worry because I’ve often experienced and observed that our relationship to certain words, the way we define them in our own minds, can unintentionally undo us.

It might sound strange, but I’ve seen how holding onto a rigid definition of ‘forgiveness’ can act like a weight that hardens the heart. It’s as if by saying ‘I don’t forgive,’ we think we are protecting ourselves, but we might actually be accidentally giving those people a permanent seat at the table of our lives.

I’m concerned that this definitive stance, while totally justified by your pain, might be part of the very thing sustaining the creative struggle you’re feeling? To me, forgiveness isn’t about the other person being ‘right’ or even ‘okay’; it’s about deciding that you are no longer willing to carry the heavy end of their behavior. I’d hate for a word to keep you blocked from the art you were meant to make

Hi Starlight1 – great name

And great question. We often use ‘unforgiveness’ as a placeholder for a boundary, but it may not be the thing we think it is.

A boundary is a fence you build to keep yourself safe; unforgiveness is often a heavy stone you carry to remind yourself why the fence is there. You don’t need the stone to keep the fence strong. And I think its also important to remember that forgiveness doesn’t make what happened okay, and it certainly doesn’t remove accountability. It can, however, change your relationship to the event and to your own heart.

Words, when we’re not careful, and I speak from experience, can become like ‘spells’ we cast over ourselves. When we say “I don’t forgive,” the mechanical mind takes that as a literal command to stay in a permanent state of defense and anger. Many wisdom traditions warn us about this: when the mind gets stuck in these rigid, automatic definitions, it eventually ‘hardens the heart’ to protect it. We then become ‘stuck.’

Such a definitive stance on a concept like forgiveness, while completely justified by your pain, might be the very spell keeping your creativity blocked. Yet what if forgiveness was defined as ‘releasing the weight so I can breathe,’ rather than ‘letting them off the hook’? I feel that breaks the cycle; it stops you from being tethered to the stone while you tend your fence.

As for your question about art… yes! I think it can!

For me, this ‘wrestling’ with words like forgiveness is exactly where the creative work begins. You could explore this visually: What does a ‘mechanical’ thought look like compared to a ‘living’ one? How would you paint the weight of a word versus the space of a breath?

Instead of waiting for the block to go away so you can make art, use the art to investigate the block. Turn the struggle with ‘forgiveness’ into a study of shapes, weights, and colors… and perhaps tears. That may be how you avoid being the victim of a word and start being the creator of your own narrative?