Forgive yourself for being exactly who you are. Forgive yourself for asking for more when someone was very clear about wanting to give you less and less. Forgive yourself for wandering down the wrong creeks and into the worst gulleys without stopping to drink in the pink light of dawn over the prairie first. Forgive yourself for saying the wrong thing, being weird or rigid, making a bad joke, backing away, becoming dismissive, because maybe that’s what made it safe to have the parents you had as a kid.

From Monday reading How Open-Hearted Can You Be and Still Survive?