It seems like I’ve always owned at least one comfortable shirt that I call my lawn mowing shirt, even though I haven’t mowed a lawn in a very long time. The shirt is usually worn thin, has a few small holes in it, but each time I go to the closet it calls to me. Suzy of course can’t stand the fact that I always put it on, and after a few years it somehow disappears. I am wearing such a shirt as I write this meditation.
My shirt is like the resentments in our life, because it takes forever for them to fade away from our internal closet. I use resentment to gloss over my own shortcomings and to justify thoughts such as “getting even” for a wrong done to me.
My shirt is harmless, except to my personal appearance. Resentments are like dark clouds that prevent the light of the sun from reaching our souls. Yet, they are difficult to let go, despite knowing that the more I relive hurts ands hates, I hurt and hate myself.
I tell Suzy that I’m just breaking in my lawn mowing shirt, and she tells me to imagine life without it. She tells me to envision myself in a new shirt that looks good on me, much like a life a life without resentments—a life free of hurts and defects. She says I need not fear such a change but embrace it.
Maybe she is trying to teach me a lesson?
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