Can you forgive someone who has broken your trust? Is it really possible to forgive the one who has caused you pain? And most importantly, why should you forgive anyway? You are a human after all. And isn’t this selfless act of forgiveness meant only for altruist? Isn’t forgiving someone means to open way to get hurt again? Does forgiveness make us an emotional fool who is ready to take it all again?
No. Forgiveness isn’t any of that. In fact forgiveness is not selfless, rather it’s selfish. But how? What is forgiveness really?
What is forgiveness really?
Forgiveness is an act where you are trying to free yourself from the hurt, pain, anger and resentment that someone else has caused you. Because these emotions are causing YOU harm. Forgiveness is when you decide to stop holding on to grudges and decide to channelise all your energy inwards. Forgive them because you would NOT waste your strength in getting even with them, rather you shall focus all your strength in transforming yourself.
Forgiveness, because it’s time for healing. Because you DESERVE to move on.
Why is it so hard to forgive?
Because we fear that forgiveness makes us vulnerable
So, we were wronged and we felt pain and anger. Anger towards the person who caused us pain. And now we are holding onto that anger as our armour. Believing that it will shield us from more pain. And if we drop this armour we shall make way for people to throw more stones at us. But how is this anger helping us anyway? How does it affects the life of others? Do they even realise that we are still angry? And even if they know, what changes? Nothing.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you are not considering their action. It doesn’t mean you are ready to be taken advantage of. Forgiveness means you are freeing yourself from this fear of vulnerability. It’s a sign that you have grown up emotionally and have taken your learning from that experience.
Because we believe that to forgive we have to forget
So forgiving someone is to leave the past behind, pretend that nothing has ever happened and you have forgotten all about it. NO. It’s not like you have excused them for the harm done to you. You are not giving them a signal that you are absolutely okay with what has happened. And you won’t forget the lesson that you have learnt from the experience.
Rather, you are freeing yourself from feeling miserable. Because that is how you evolve. You shall always remember your learnings. Learning that have transformed you, build your character, confidence and resilience.
Because we mistook forgiveness for acceptance
Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that you have accepted what happened and have come to terms with it. It simply means that you have agreed to not waste your strength in the childish tit-for-tat game. You are not going to return the harm they have caused you.
Because forgiveness breaks you free from grudge and the revenge cycle. So that instead of focusing on them, you channelize your energy on making something productive and meaningful out of your own life.
Because it’s not time yet
Wounds take time to heal. You are not ready to move on because it still hurts. And that’s okay. There is no rush, there is no timeline. You need time to process your emotions, to feel them and to accept them. And most importantly, you don’t need to forgive until YOU feel it’s the right thing to do.
You just need to keep trying to move forward and go on with your life. Moment of forgiveness will come on it’s own. As the time will progress and hurt would start to ease out and you would no longer feel the resentment.
Why should we forgive anyway
Because you don’t need an apology to forgive
Forgiveness is an act centred around you. You don’t forgive for the other person, you forgive for yourself. Even if the other person doesn’t realise or doesn’t care about how you felt. But you do care about how you feel. And you are not staying there waiting for an apology to recover from the hurt. Because you are ready to move forward. Letting go isn’t their choice but yours. May be they don’t deserve your forgiveness but you do deserve mental peace.
Because you want to break free from pain
You no longer want to be chained to those heavy feelings. Rather, you want to break free and live in your present. You don’t want to stay hooked to the past and relive those painful moments again and again. Instead you want to leave it all behind because it’s draining you of your energies. You want to come out of that spiral loop of negative thoughts to become an emotionally and mentally stronger person.
Because you don’t have to reconcile with the person
You may choose to forgive them and never want to see them again. They don’t even need to know that you have forgiven them. By forgiving you are just freeing yourself from bitterness and anguish. Because these feelings are holding you from enjoying your present. Not by any means forgiveness is opening ways for reconciliation. Whether you want to trust that person again or not is totally up to you. Forgiveness is an entirely internal process and can have nothing to do with the person you forgive.
Because you need your power back
Because you are no longer a victim. Maybe you were weak when you were wronged. But you’re not today. So, you won’t keep reminding yourself how helpless you were back then. Instead, you would come up even stronger with all your focus entirely on writing your own story. You won’t be bothered about the person who has wronged you. You would only care about what lies next.
How to let go and move on
Start by forgiving yourself
Yes, it starts with you. Because the bitterness you have in your heart is not entirely for the other person. Some of it is directed towards you as well. Because it’s not only about what they did to you, but what you let happened to yourself. So first forgive yourself for not acting in a way that you should have. Forgive yourself for trusting too much or being too soft. Forgive yourself for making a wrong decision, forgive yourself for feeling helpless. Because, to be able to move on, you need to first break the chain of negative self talks. Your compassion starts with you.
Address your emotions
Negative experiences and setbacks bring in hell lot of emotions with them. You cannot simply ignore them with positive self affirmation. You can’t keep telling yourself that it was all in past and I am now looking forward. I don’t want to feel the anger or bitterness, because I am a happy and positive person. No, it doesn’t work that way. You need to be honest with yourself. Healing can not be rushed, it’s a process that everyone has to go through. So instead of taking a short cut of avoidance, give yourself time that you need. But at the same time instead of focusing it all on emotions alone, bring your focus on the learnings too.
Protect yourself first
Forgiveness isn’t complete unless you protect yourself from future hurt. You can not forgive if you leave yourself open for repetitive negative treatment. In fact you need to raise your boundaries if needed, instead of lowering them. Forgiveness is like a cleansing process, where you are trying to get rid of any thought or emotion that is causing you harm. But before that you need to take your lesson for future.
That is why forgiveness is selfish, an act entirely centred around you. An act entirely for your betterment. An act that is beneficial for YOUR physical, mental and emotional health.
"It's not an easy journey, to get to a place where you forgive people. But it is such a powerful place, because it frees you." - Tyler Perry