The essence of forgiveness is seeing our humanness and seeing that we all have our limitations and follies.

In the Buddhist tradition, where mindful meditation comes from, anger is regarded as a somewhat unhealthy,unskillful emotion because we can be blinded by it. We don't see clearly and tend to do things and say things that are harmful out of the anger because we don't have clarity.

Mindfulness is the ability to be aware, to note, to notice. When we apply that to our thoughts and mental habits, we bring a clarity of awareness in seeing what's just an ordinary thought and what's a judging thought that's pejorative or putting us down in some way. So, we first bring that lens of awareness, and then we can do all kinds of different strategies. We can inquire.

It's important that we see clearly with wisdom and awareness, but also take action.

With mindfulness, we can be with the experience in more immediate way. When we find ourselves flooded with an emotion that's come after the judgement, we've often missed the very judgment that triggered the emotion.

There are plenty of times we need fierce compassion, fierce love. Just like when a child does something that is very harmful and we say "No!", we need some kind of fierceness. There's a certain kind of fierceness that can look like anger and has that fire of anger, but the difference is that it's not blinded with reactivity.

Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.