Acceptance works as well as forgiveness.

Throughout my childhood, I had learned to hide my emotions because there was really no one who had time to listen, and I was too busy taking care of household duties and younger siblings to ruminate on problems or negative events in my life, but while researching ways to express emotions, I learned that emotions are so important that they must be expressed. When I was younger, that was all well and good, something I understood, but I didn't really "get it" until much later.

I was starting to write a book which I'm now in the process of editing. Back when I was trying out exercises and considering whether I wanted to include them in the book, I was reading John Bradshaw’s book, Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child (1990). While completing an exercise and addressing what John Bradshaw and others refer to as my “inner child,” I had a flashback:

One early morning long ago, my brother in the military had called, and I had answered the telephone. He had asked for our mother, but when I looked into her bedroom, she was fast asleep. It was well past midnight, and he only wanted to chat; it was not an emergency (or so I thought). I explained how tired our mother had seemed and asked my brother whether he could call back the next day because she had just fallen asleep. He said that he could, so we talked for a moment and then said good-bye. He never called back and never got another chance to hear his mother’s voice. My voice was the last he ever heard because two days later, we were visited by an officer from the United States Army who said my brother had been killed. I don’t even think I cried at the funeral, don’t think I ever did. But it wasn’t that I didn’t love him. It was that I wasn't accustomed to expressing emotions, and didn't know how to tell my mother that she had missed my brother's call.

Before completing the exercises on the “inner child” according to John Bradshaw’s book, I had never acknowledged the extreme sense of guilt and sadness I suffered because of my misguided vigilance over my mother. I had protected her since childhood because she had been ill or was preoccupied with a newborn, but this one time, I had been overly protective, and I felt this was the worst mistake I had ever made. To this day, I have shared this with one best friend--and you.

Reading Bradshaw’s book, I uncovered an unexpressed emotion which had followed me since very early adulthood. After this was acknowledged, finally, I was able to mourn the loss of my brother without the accompanying guilt. I cried about the incident as though it happened yesterday. Although I never shared the telephone conversation with my mother, Ms. Essie, who passed away in 2009, never expressed my remorse, and could never ask my brother to forgive me, I assumed they both would understand. Still, I couldn't forget.

But beating negative thoughts takes practice, persistence, and moving past negative emotions once they've been expressed. As for me, after a brief period of mourning, the usual negative thinking returned, and I accepted them like they were a familiar adversary. I still didn't think I deserved to be happy, still didn't forgive myself. It took months before finally, I "got it."

We might not be able to forgive and we might not forget, but these are only words. In fact, I must admit, I don't really understand these two words. What do they really mean? What I really understand is the word, acceptance. Happiness requires acceptance of what we cannot change. My mother, Ms. Essie like to recite,"The Serenity Prayer" :

"...Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

This is what I understood. Once I realized I couldn't change what happened, I was also able to accept that I didn't do anything wrong. Wanting to protect someone isn't wrong. Also, there were options. My brother could have insisted or might have said it was urgent, and I would have awakened our mother. Once I challenged my negative thoughts, negated their validity, I was able to move past the pain. Like it or not, there was nothing I could ever change. Acceptance works as well as forgiveness.