Get the Permission Slip: This week’s printable keepsake, subscribe to the Authentic Voice, and get the free 365-day 'Author of Your Own Life' journal prompt eBook are available at: https://melissaannpalmer.substack.com/p/start-here-finding-your-authentic. Grab my book here: https://books2read.com/Danceofthefirefly Check out my website here: https://melissaannpalmer.com/ Disclaimer: The content on this site is for educational, creative, and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or mental health advice. Always consult a qualified professional regarding your health. If you are in crisis or immediate danger, please reach out to these confidential 24/7 resources: Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 National Domestic Violence Hotline: Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text "START" to 88788 Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 Transcript: Welcome to The Authentic Voice, a space for women ready to own their strength, find their voice, and rewrite their stories. I’m your host, Melissa Ann Palmer—Women’s Fiction author and clinical social worker. Today, we’re continuing our year-long journey together: The Author of My Own Life Project. Throughout this year, we’re exploring twelve distinct monthly themes to help you pause, reflect, and reclaim the pen to your own story. And remember, if you’d like to follow along with the journal prompts, the full companion workbook is available as a free eBook when you subscribe. This is our space to find our own authentic voices, one month at a time. Today’s reflection is about forgiveness. I can still feel the cold leather of the steering wheel against my hands at 4:00 AM on a Sunday morning in July, sitting alone in my car outside a house that wasn’t mine, waiting for a man who was never going to show up. I remember the day I met Mike like it was yesterday. I had been working at a group home, and I was in a CPR and First Aid class. The instructor lined the group of participants up in two lines, facing each other. Then she told us that we’d be paired with the person across from us. This would be our partner for the 2-person CPR. I remember standing there, in shock, because I’d gotten paired up with Mike. I had only seen him from afar. He worked at a different group home for our company- across town. I had never actually spoken with him at that point. Mike was tall and handsome, with reddish blonde hair and a goatee. My stomach did a little flip. I had no idea who this young man was, but I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. It didn’t take long for Mike and I to hit it off, and that day was the start of a 7-month relationship. It was the kind of intense relationship that can only happen with 20-somethings. Mike and I were a typical young couple. We went out to dinner on Friday nights. We spent Saturday nights dancing at the clubs in downtown Providence. We’d rollerblade through the park on a Sunday afternoon. And the passion was intense. I was head over heels and wanted to spend every free moment I had with him. I was never popular in school. Sure, I had friends, but I was always part of the nerd-crowd. I was not athletic and I didn’t hang out with the cool kids. Dating Mike made me feel like I was finally hanging out with the cool kids. I couldn’t believe that he had chosen me as his girlfriend. Mike thought it best that we keep our relationship quiet at work. He didn’t want it to seem unprofessional. I was disappointed, but I respected his choice. I told myself that it made sense. But deep down, it was the first agreement I made to let myself be hidden. When our company had large gatherings, I’d sit with the group from the house I worked at, and he stayed with his team. He’d barely look in my direction. He and another young woman, Patty, often had the same shifts, so they had become quite chummy. I remember a day that we had a day long retreat, and he sat with her the entire day, including lunch. I felt jealous. One day, I was at Mike’s house before he had to go in to work. He was working second shift. When I got to his house (he still lived with his parents), he told me that his dad felt that I came to the house too often. Granted, I’d been coming over most days before he had to go to work, but we worked at different group homes, and I felt that I hardly ever saw him. So, I started going over less frequently. Another time, Mike and I were at a party, it was summer and everyone was having fun, playing volleyball. There was an older woman there, and she had been drinking, so she was rather talkative. She shared that one of the young men, Bill, had confided that his girlfriend was “high maintenance.” I later learned that it hadn’t been Bill who’d made that comment. It had been Mike. Probably the worst incident that occurred, though, and I’m still embarrassed about it to this day, was a Saturday night in July. Mike and I had talked about spending the night together at his brother’s house. His brother, who was married, was going out of town and had asked Mike to watch his house. So, Mike had suggested I come and spend the night with him. I was still in college and living back with my parents at the time too. So, I headed out about dinner time, and drove to his brother’s house, my bag packed. Cell phones were still relatively new, and I don’t think that Mike had one at the time. I did, and I left a message at his brother’s house to tell him I was on the way. He didn’t pick up the phone, but I left a message on the answering machine, knowing that he would hear it. I arrived a little later and was surprised to see that his car wasn’t in the driveway. I didn’t feel comfortable pulling in since he wasn’t there (and I had never even met his brother), so I parked on the street. I called a couple more times over the next hour, and wasn’t able to reach him. I wondered where he was, whether we’d gotten our times mixed up. Maybe I’d gotten the address wrong? The night sky darkened and it started to get cold. I wanted to go home to my parents house, but I was embarrassed that my plans had fallen through and I couldn’t even explain where Mike was or what had happened. I ended up sleeping in my car that night, in the cold, outside his brother’s house alone. I woke up at 4 am, and the sun was just started to rise. I felt humiliated and I desperately had to pee. I decided to go back home, and snuck back into my room, thankful that my parents were still asleep. Later that day, Mike called to apologize. He explained that his friend had surprised he and his buddies with the announcement that he was getting married, and they’d all gone out for the night. That was the moment that I had to finally face what I’d been doing. I had been allowing myself to be treated like a doormat. I had put him on a pedestal, and allowed myself to be treated like dirt in the process. For years, I wished I’d been paired up with someone else in that CPR class. I was angry at Mike for how he treated me. But what took me decades to realize is that the anger I was carrying wasn’t actually pointed at him anymore. It was pointed at me. I was angry at myself for staying seven months. I was angry for compromising my dignity and playing small just to keep a seat at the table. And, I understand now, that I was simply acting out of a deep, human desire to be seen, chosen, and valued. We often talk about forgiveness as an act that is directed outward. We need to forgive the people who have hurt us or who broke our trust. For month 11 of The Author of My Own Life Project, we are exploring the topic of forgiveness. Learning to forgive is an essential part of rewriting our stories and creating the life we want. But what is different than what we typically hear about, is that I believe, the most important task is finally learning to forgive ourselves. We can all look back at things we’ve done, choices we’ve made and wish we’d done things differently. Taken the other path. Worked harder. Made the other choice. I think something that gets in the way of having the life we truly want, is not forgiving ourselves. Let’s face it, if you’re human, you’ve made mistakes. And refusing to forgive your past self keeps you trapped in the embarrassment or shame. Real peace comes when you stop punishing your past self for lacking the wisdom you had to suffer to learn. Past-you didn’t have the internal security, self-worth, or firm boundaries that present-you possesses today. She was doing the best she could with the tools and emotional maturity she had at that exact stage of life. My relationship with Mike was about 30 years ago. (Boy does time fly!) And, as uncomfortable as that situation was, I’m not sure that I would actually change it now. I certainly learned a lot from those 7 months. It was an important stepping stone that taught me that I was never going to settle for that again. So, as we rewrite our stories, I’d like each of you to think back on a situation where you still need to forgive yourself. Maybe it’s a time when you felt foolish, or acted desperate. What did you learn from it? How did it change you for the better? If you want to take it a step-further, write a letter to your past self. What would you tell her if you could go back in time? What would you want her to know? And then offer her forgiveness. “I see why you did that. You were trying your best. I forgive you, and I’ve got it from here.” Being The Author of Your Own Life means taking responsibility for every chapter, **including the ones where you wrote yourself as a side character in someone else’s story. Before we go, I want to leave you with this week's Permission Slip: Permission to forgive your past self for needing to live through the lesson to learn it. You can find a digital copy of that ticket and all the links in the show notes. And, if you want to become the author of your own life, head over to my Substack to join our community and get
