in my internet travels, i have occasionally come across white bison, a recovery initiative particularly geared towards native americans, or first nations people, our term here in canada.
today i chanced upon one of white bison’s premises:
“a spiritual person is one who screws up everyday and keeps coming back to the creator”
what a great definition! that’s me, for sure 🙂
as we keep coming back to the creator (or god, christ, allah, the universe, isis, our higher power(s), the path, our principles, dharma – whatever you want to call it/her/him/them), the idea of “screwing up” slowly changes.
it may start with “oh darn, i did it again, what an idiot i am!” – lots of self-recrimination, probably grounded in an internalized idea or memory of a demanding, punishing authority figure. there’s a right and a wrong, and the screwer-upper is most definitely in the wrong. the idea of self-forgiveness is not even on the horizon; it lives in an entirely different galaxy.
paradoxically, many people apply these cruel principles mostly to themselves. they may be quite aware of the idea of forgiveness and of the fact that most things in life are not black and white. what’s more, they may not even be aware of this double standard: a certain degree of forgiveness and understanding for others; fanatic, impossible-to-achieve perfectionist rules for themselves.
at some point in the journey with the creator (let’s just keep this term, for simplicity’s sake), awareness dawns and you allow yourself to question this double standard. this can be unsettling and also exciting. it’s a new discovery but there are also implications: if this whole idea of screwing up is not about black and white, then what IS it? is it just all grey? are there shades of grey? it’s all very confusing.
a question crops up: what can i forgive myself for? what is unforgivable? and what happens when the (mostly imagined) punishment does not set boundaries anymore? ideally, this phase leads into a period of experimentation. from a developmental perspective, this is similar to the teenage years: painful, fun, confusing, exhilarating – and identity-forming.
a person who is focused on appeasing a punishing authority often only has a very rudimentary sense of self. “emancipation” refers to “moving out of the house of the father”. this is what happens here.
as we mature on the journey, we can view “screwing up” from a much larger perspective. we start realizing it rarely has anything to do with right or wrong; rather, with love and honesty, and with how people, places and things harmonize with each other.
sometimes the screw fits and sometimes it doesn’t; and sometimes it sits in there a bit lopsided. that doesn’t make the
screw or the wall “bad” or “wrong”.
when there’s something to be fixed or an apology to be made, we go about it as soon as we can. that includes ourselves: when we see that we occasionally go back to the old, punishing ways, we forgive ourselves: “it’s alright. these things happen sometimes. don’t worry about it.”
otherwise, we smile a lot as we notice ourselves along the path – at times wobbling, at others dancing, or stumbling, running, and spending a good time going in circles. we go from screwing up to admiring the circles that wind themselves around this very useful little tool.
isabella mori
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