We are entitled to joy.
We need to claim it for ourselves and our children.
Ann: Hello. Do I understand that you have something you want to say?
Princess Diana: Yes. Hello, Ann, I appreciate your taking my call. I have been trying to get through because what I see happening to my family is, in its own way, a repeat of my experience, and an echo of many disastrous situations in my country and elsewhere.
Inclusion rather than exclusion was the lesson I hoped to pass on to my boys and to those who touched my life, however intimate or peripheral, but that has not been my heritage so far.
I weep to see the estrangement between my boys and the resolute path that each has taken believing that there is no other way under the circumstances.
It’s understandable, but it solves nothing. Yes, of course there were wrongs done me, but I did plenty of my own! This must be a time of forgiveness and reset. It is not that hard to swallow your pride. I should know, I had to do it many times! Practice makes perfect!
But what has developed is not inevitable. It only repeats the history that took everyone to a painful isolation, for or against this one or that until all communication was lost. It serves no one. My grandchildren need to know each other. My children need to focus on their children, turn away from their own dearly held grievances, and let their children show them the way.
Charles is still enmired in the old ways, but he loves his family and longs to know his grandchildren and have them around him as he ages. Not that he didn’t want to serve as monarch, but it has not been what he expected because he is cabined, cribbed, and confined by the strife within his family.
So of course I want my boys to take steps away from what seems like the irrevocable paths they have chosen. I want them to understand that nothing is irrevocable when human beings accept and allow for the flaws that each of us have.
But more than that, in this world where attack seems to be the first line of response, we need to see that there is another way, the way of children, laughter, safety, and health. This is what will take us into a new world so we can teach our children to see and act differently from those who have buried themselves in history and grievance.
I ask my boys, I ask each of you in your lives, to find forgiveness for yourself and others. Do not to let anger become entrenched in your heart and harden into hate. Even in the most trying of circumstances, reach out, reach out without condition. Lead with kindness. Focus on whatever will allow children to grow up in a world where resentment and past grudges no longer govern the course of conduct.
We are entitled to joy. We need to claim it for ourselves and our children. There is always a way if we try hard enough to find it.
December 11, 2023
Free Image Credit: Pixabay
When you have a broken leg it takes time to heal, it’s painful, it’s miserable, you’re stuck with it, and there’s little you can do until the bone heals. When there’s a betrayal or act of cruelty, there’s an emotional and mental pain that’s lodged in the heart and mind, it seems like the pain will never go, but like a broken bone it can heal if you give it time and the right medication.
How can you forgive when someone has been so vile, so cruel and disgusting? Forgiveness is the medication, it soothes the healing process because it liberates you, it will slowly, or in some instances instantly free you from the mental and emotional turmoil tha…
That was a nice treat! Forgiveness is not easy. It took me many years to forgive myself and others and I'm glad I did. I think people need to understand that forgiveness may not help or change the person you're directing your forgiveness at, but it certainly helps YOU. I believe that that is the most important thing to remember. Thank you Diana and thank you Ann. 💙🌈😊