Everyday I went on my walks and kept feeling my feelings and trying to let go of them with varying degrees of success. One morning I came across a rabbit limping towards me. She looked a really sorry state. The poor creature had obviously been mauled by a predator, probably a fox, But I also noticed that she had the kindest, and most serene face I had ever seen. My heart still felt for her, even though she looked very happy. For a while, I forgot my own problems and wanted to hear her story.
I stopped to talk and the conversation flowed very easily and I learnt her name was Lettie. We reached a point when I felt I could ask about what had happened to her, if she I didn’t mind talking about it. Without hesitation, considering she was relating what was going to be a very painful experience, she began, “As you can see I have some scars and injuries. I was chased and caught by a fox and in the struggles I suffered severe injuries to my whole body. Just at the point when I thought my life was over, I made one last huge effort to escape and freed myself from the fox’s mouth. As luck would have it I was right next to the hole, which I’ve been heading for just before I was caught. I fell into the hole and rolled down out of reach of the fox who was too big to pursue me. In the end the fox gave up and left.
I was near to death, but again I was lucky because some very kind creatures nursed and fed me all day, every day until I regained my health.”
I was taken aback that she twice mentioned she was lucky, while relating her horrendous ordeal. Then she proceeded to say…
“This may sound a very odd thing to say, but I think I was actually lucky in a strange way to have suffered a lot of physical injuries.
So many rabbits after being chased by foxes, on escaping, become traumatised and develop the fight-or-flight freeze response, which makes them extremely vulnerable to another attack. They very often don’t recover psychologically and don’t survive long. But because I acquired all these injuries, it brought me out of my head and back into my body even though the pain was dreadful.
The injuries healed. But my leg injury was more serious, so I remained in the burrow for a long time. I also set about healing my mind. I would lie there for hours daydreaming. My mother had long since passed away, I found myself replaying some of her words again and again. My name is Lettie and my mother used to continually say let’s go Lettie, let’s go Lettie. Maybe she enjoyed repeating this little phrase because of the alliteration. Anyway I kept hearing those words, like a mantra, in my mind. But after a while let’s go Lettie turned into ‘let go’ Lettie, ‘let go’ Lettie.
I knew that if I was to heal I would have to ‘let go’ of what happened so I kept repeating to myself let go. let go, and I found the images of the traumatic incident began to have less and less hold over. Of all the things I needed to hear, let go was probably the most important. I wasn’t quite sure where these fortuitous words came from but, I was very grateful and my mind began to heal.
Then one day, and this is just too much of a coincidence, I heard another one of my mother’s sayings. Now my mother was a straight talking individual. She was direct even blunt at times, but she had a habit of saying ‘forgive me’ before she made her comments. I could hear her voice saying, forgive me but that’s not right. Forgive me, but I have to go now, I’ve got things to do. I kept hearing her voice saying the words forgive me followed by some statement. After a while, in the same let’s go Lettie became ‘let go’, forgive me became forgive me as in ‘forgive myself’.
I wondered what this could mean. I realised that even though I was angry at the fox, that’s what foxes do. It would be like running headlong into a tree and blaming the tree. I realised, I could accept what the fox did. Maybe forgive is too strong but I could certainly ‘let go’ of what happened. But it occurred to me that what I needed to do was to forgive myself. My mother had drummed into me to always be vigilant and look out for foxes which most of the time I did. But on the day that I was mauled I ventured further than usual, while lost in thought and not watching out for danger.
I realised that I needed to forgive myself if I was to recover. Once I understood this I set my intention to forgive myself and although it took time I slowly began to start forgiving myself for being caught that day. I remembered a saying, which really helped me, which is very different from what we perceive as forgiveness. It called forgiveness a form of ‘selective forgetting’. I thought I can do that.
Forgiving myself for what happened and letting go of worries and my problems has changed my life and I’ve known a level of happiness that I never knew before.”
“Wow, that is an incredibly inspiring story. You are an inspiration Lettie. Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. I have learnt such a valuable lesson today. We talked for a while longer and then I set off back to the river. On the way, I realised how this story put things in perspective for me. I had magnified my problems. Lettie had actually been through a life and death experience. I decided to look at what I hadn’t forgiven myself. It proved to be extremely and enlightening.
Now, I related earlier, Milo that Blissy had initiated the separation, which is true but it would have been truer to say that she told me her feelings had changed and she didn’t want me anymore. In effect, she rejected me! This rejection totally devastated me to my core. I had poured my heart and soul out to her throughout our relationship, professing my love for her, and making a lifelong commitment to her, while she told me that she felt the same. Then to be rejected. After the initial desolation, I felt angry, but I loved her so much that I did not want to be angry with her. I did not want to dissociate from my feelings, so instead I decided to feel them all, which even though extremely painful to do, was also the best thing I could have done.
I needed to let go of being rejected and also forgive. But I realised like Letty that it wasn’t really Blissy that I needed to forgive, I needed to forgive myself for losing myself in her, becoming so vulnerable and needy and allowing myself to get into a state of despair.
I was determined to forgive myself. If Lettie did could do what she did then I could forgive myself for this.
I did not realise how much I would learn from Lettie. I forgot my problems for a few minutes, enquired about her story, suspended my expectations and allowed the best to happen. I was beginning to make progress.
What an incredibly inspiring story Soul. It certainly puts my problems into perspective. I’ll go back to my burrow and reflect on that tonight.”
“Lettie is amazing and she has helped me more than she will ever know, Milo. Tomorrow, I’m going to teach you something, which will really help you with letting go. You won’t be just listening. You’ll be having a new, transformative experience. Be here a little earlier than usual. We’ll be travelling to a different location.”