Our hearts melted into one another’s in instant recognition during that first hug. Two bodies reunited after 36 years…two spirits that had never been separated. The gap of time was instantly filled during that one moment of reunion. The bond of mother and daughter can never be broken. Only shame, guilt, and remorse fed the fire of apparent separation. Only forgiveness would dowse the flames and complete the circle of love.

Thirty-six years before, I’d given birth to my first daughter and then released her for adoption. Suffering from a heart broken by your choice to honor my parents’ wishes that I not marry my first love a course in miracles podcast apple, I emerged from as an “unwed mother” with emotional scars so excellent that my only defense was to bury them deeply, get my life like nothing had happened, and go on. So successful was my denial of the gaping hole in my heart that, whilst the years passed, I really could not really remember my child’s birth date.

How was it possible then, some 30 years, four children and two marriages later, that I really could find myself in a type of spiritual counseling students that had six other women who shared the exact same closely held past that Used to do? We were all birth mothers. Our secret became our magnet, and we began to generally meet and vision a ministry at our church that can prayerfully support all people who are suffering from adoption: adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents. It was a noble idea, and one that would require that people do our own healing work to be able to be available to others.

And so we began the excruciating journey of dredging up our pain. We individually faced our own demons — guilt, shame, blame, anger and self-recrimination — at whatever pace we felt effective at moving, and collectively we prayed for each other and all those whose pain we share. We created the Adoption Triad Ministry at The Agape Center of Truth in Los Angeles and invited people touched by adoption ahead and tell their stories and participate in prayer each month. We opened how you can allow each person in the triad — adoptee, adoptive parent and birth parent — to dialog with the other, seeking an knowledge of the initial emotional problems that each carries. And many of us searched to locate our child and/or parent. My decision to try to find my daughter opened our Pandora’s box.

It was in that atmosphere of prayer and spiritual guidance that I felt safe enough to handle my very own walls of defense and denial and try to bring them down. The process was agonizing. Not just was I delving in to the shame and pain I’d caused my parents and siblings by becoming a pregnant teenager, I was allowing to surface the hatred I held for myself for lacking fought for what I wanted…my mate and my baby. What I was inviting into conscious awareness – and ultimately acceptance – were the shame and guilt of experiencing sinned, in line with the church of my childhood along with the mores of society in 1961. I was admitting that I was full of rage at my parents for interrupting my fantasy to truly have the perfect family, and at my boyfriend for lacking fought harder to save lots of me out of this torturous sentence of a banished offender. Throughout the search for my daughter, I was required on numerous occasions to recall those difficult circumstances surrounding her birth, and it was all I really could do to keep from passing out. As I unleashed one tidal wave after another of suppressed feelings, I was constantly on the verge of emotional overwhelm. What kept me going was my deep, deep desire to locate my daughter, to inform her simply how much I loved her, to fairly share with her that she was conceived in love, and to accomplish the circle that began with her birth.

And so I searched…and I prayed…and I started initially to forgive. As I progressed through the classes in spirituality that have been preparing me to become a spiritual counselor and prayer practitioner, I came to understand that without forgiveness I’d be unable to free myself from the maze of negative self-judgment which I’d permitted to tarnish the sweetness of the birth of my daughter. I understood when I were to welcome her with true open arms now, I’d to obtain the good in my being her birth mother. I knew that the healing miracle I so dearly sought was possible only when I released my guilt, shame and blame concerning the circumstances surrounding her entering this world.

“Seventy times seven.” Jesus admonishes us that this is one way often we must forgive to be able to be free — quite simply, as frequently since it takes. I was well on my way to completing my forgiveness of the other actors in my drama — my parents, my first love, my church, my society. Now it was time for you to forgive myself. I’d held myself on the cross of self-blame and shame for way too long that I wasn’t sure how exactly to let myself off.

I started by feeling great compassion for the teenager I was who was so in love and so passionate about life, and who only wanted to see and express that love by any means she knew how. I listened compared to that 19-year-old’s pain of profound loss and of feeling that she did not belong. That pain have been so severe that she had essentially shut herself removed from trusting her very own beautiful heart. I heard her, consoled her, informed her simply how much I loved her and that I would not let that sort of pain occur to her again. The I AM of me (my God Self) forgave her for just about any belief she held about being truly a “bad girl,” a “sinner,” an “undesirable good-for-nothing,” and a “reason behind pain to others.”

The months — and yes, years — that I have spent forgiving the layers of self-recrimination and loathing I felt for myself have truly unburdened me. Freeing myself from the shackles of this seemingly unforgivable and unforgiving past has truly given me a new life. The attitude I now hold toward myself, my family, my first love and my pregnancy is just gratitude, gratitude for one of the greatest growth experiences of my life. By arriving at terms with my past, the gift of compassion was ignited in me — something special I will and do readily share with all those I teach and counsel. The miracle experienced from my commitment to forgiveness could be the profound love I share with my first-born daughter, a love activated the moment we hugged that has continued to enrich my life ever since.