Forgiveness

It is hard to forgive—to let go of the weight of the pain we carry. It is hard to forgive ourselves for the harm we have caused others. It is especially hard to forgive the harm we have caused to ourselves. It is hard to forgive others for how they hurt us. 

 

But we need to forgive. Not forgiving closes our hearts. It keeps us angry, resentful and defensive. It closes us to seeing a better future. It makes us less compassionate, less loving and less wise.

But there are lots of misconceptions about forgiveness.

 

The first misunderstanding is that in forgiving we are saying what happened is OK. Or that we need to forget. It has nothing to do with that—in fact what happened is almost always not OK (if it was OK we would not need to forgive) and in most cases we would be wise to remember. It is about letting go of our anger, our hurt, our sorrow, and our grief because we don’t want to carry that pain anymore.  

The second fallacy is that we are letting people off the hook—we are not. We all need to take accountability for our actions. We need to make recompense where necessary, say we are sorry where safe and appropriate, and accept the emotional, physical and relationship costs of our actions—and so do others. 

 

The third delusion is that you can forgive while you continue the misbehavior or let someone else’s harmful behavior continue towards you. How do you forgive yourself the damage that misusing yourself physically or emotionally or spiritually has done, if you are not prepared to take the hard steps needed to fix the issue(s). Unless you sincerely attempt to stop your own detrimental behavior you cannot truly forgive yourself. You are just kidding yourself. Unless you set healthy boundaries to stop another from hurting you, you cannot forgive them. Letting the behavior continue is self-harm. We need to take care not to be complicit in someone else’s detrimental behaviour. You can forgive and still say I won’t let you hurt me again. You can offer help and support as appropriate and still say with love, you can’t be in my life while this behavior continues. Remember everyone one of us can change, at any time, even if it seems unlikely now.

I have had a lot to forgive in my life. Forgiving others took a lot of effort, reflection and determination. Forgiving myself, is an ongoing process, and it is much harder. But with each act of forgiveness, I am more whole.  

So, to anyone I have harmed—please forgive me. To those who have hurt me—I forgive you. And to myself--I forgive myself for all of it.