The Art of Beginning Again

Forgiveness

Fights happen in every long-term relationship. The real practice isn’t avoiding conflict—it’s learning how to repair.

My wife, devon, and I had been apart for a month teaching separate meditation retreats—mine in New York and Wisconsin, hers in California. We carefully planned a three-day reunion in Nashville, Tennessee, where we would have nothing on the calendar after coleading a small retreat. No teaching, no logistics. Just unstructured time to walk, talk, reconnect.

Then devon got Covid.

She arrived masked and exhausted, still testing positive. I was exhausted too. I’d driven our van solo from New York to Nashville and taught a weekend retreat alone. There was no reunion time. She quarantined herself in the bedroom of the Airbnb we were renting. I slept in the van parked in the driveway. Small tensions built—the kind that feel manageable until they aren’t.

By the second night, devon was well enough to teach and gave a dharma talk—in which she told an embarrassing story about our life.

We tell personal stories about our relationship all the time. It’s part of our teaching style. But we have a cardinal rule: If one of us is going to share something personal about the other, we run it by them first. Having veto power matters. Devon was tired, foggy from Covid, and she forgot.

The Fight

After her talk, we went for a walk. She was feeling shaky and asked how it went, looking for reassurance.

“It was a good talk,” I said.

Then silence.

“You’re upset,” she ventured.

“No,” I said, in a caricature of someone pretending not to be upset.

After a stretch of quiet, she said, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Well,” she said, “what you’re doing now? Also not fantastic.”

Finally, I exploded. “That story. You threw me under the bus. No warning. What the hell?”

She fired back. “I just flew 2,000 miles in a Covid haze to teach this retreat with you—still masked, by the way—and you want to talk about what kind of stories I’m allowed to tell?”

We retreated to separate corners—devon to her room in the house, me to the van in the driveway.

We got some sleep.

What Happened Next

The next morning, we planned to meet after breakfast and smooth things over. That gave me time during the retreat’s early morning meditation to work with what had happened.

The feelings were layered. I felt sheepish—I’d violated our own rule by firing feedback reactively instead of asking whether it was a good time to talk about it. I was pissed that she’d told the story without consent. And I realized I was lacking empathy—devon was exhausted and I should have given her more grace.

During that morning meditation, I guided myself through a forgiveness practice.

First, in my own mind, I asked devon for forgiveness for how I’d behaved, letting myself feel the regret fully.

Second, I offered myself forgiveness. I’d betrayed my own intentions—to stay present, to give feedback skillfully, to remember that relationships are rough and we all need grace.

Third, I internally offered devon forgiveness for what she’d said in the heat of the moment. Not because it hadn’t hurt, but because holding onto it would only keep us stuck.

Repair Is Ongoing

This practice has helped me find my way back to devon countless times over nearly 20 years together. It doesn’t erase what happened or prevent the same fight from happening again. It simply allows us to start fresh—to meet the person in front of us now rather than carrying forward the hurt and defensiveness from the night before.

I didn’t know what devon was doing that morning while I sat with my practice. But I trusted she was finding her own way to soften. I can forgive in meditation all morning, but if she shows up still holding the fight, we stay stuck. Both people have to be willing to begin again.

Repair isn’t just one thing. It isn’t a perfect apology or a single conversation that fixes everything. Repair is multi-pronged and ongoing.

Sometimes it’s a solitary forgiveness practice. Sometimes it’s careful conversation—though we’ve learned not to talk things to death. Sometimes it’s going for a long walk without processing anything at all.

After the Nashville fight, we did all of it: forgiveness practice in the morning, a real conversation after breakfast, long walks over the following days.

What matters isn’t finding the one right way to repair. What matters is the willingness to try—knowing we’ll mess it up—and then try again.

The Invitation to Begin Again

After 20 years together, devon and I still fight. We still wake up tense sometimes, still say things we regret, still retreat to opposite corners of whatever space we’re in.

What has changed over the years isn’t that we’ve eliminated conflict. What has changed is that we’ve learned multiple ways back to each other. Repair isn’t something you do once and check off the list. It’s something you return to—again and again—imperfectly.

The person you hurt yesterday is the same person you’re making coffee for this morning. That’s the invitation: to keep beginning again.

It’s how you say good morning. Whether you ask a real question. Whether you let your body soften instead of bracing for the next round.

Partnership is rough. Love doesn’t eliminate that roughness. But it can teach us to stay present with it, take responsibility for our own hearts, and return to each other again and again.

That’s the practice.

And like all practice, it never ends.

• by  nico hase, PhD