Our attachments and pain prevent us from progressing towards a happier, more fulfilling life. A key part of processing our pain and moving beyond it is the act of forgiveness. By forgiving someone or something, we let go of the pain brought to our life, releasing ourselves from it. There are, however, common misunderstandings about what forgiveness is.
A great many people think forgiveness implies forgetting. That everything can “go back to the way it was before”, with the relationship reverting to former levels of trust and respect. They want it to feel like the incident never happened in the first place.
This concept of total, instant absolution is not what spirituality—or religion—asks of us. It’s what abusive, toxic people want us to think forgiveness is.
When something or someone causes us pain, it creates in us a heaviness and noise. It weighs us down emotionally, and burdens us psychologically. We devote far too much precious energy to the act of mentally replaying the incident over and over again, picking it apart and scrutinizing every aspect. With hurt feelings, we look for ways to defend our part in things, and to lay blame at the feet of others.
All of this is normal, but it’s not good for us to stay in this place of dwelling long. The biggest gift we can give ourselves whenever we feel wronged is to look for a way to process the experience, release it, and move beyond it. The longer we hold on to the weight and the mental noise, the more harm it causes. It can truly crush us. And by failing to move beyond the pain, we give those whom we feel wronged us the ability to hurt us even more, for a possibly infinite amount of time.
Don’t get stuck in pain.
Forgiveness is acknowledging what has happened, and agreeing to let go of our attachment to it. It involves understanding everyone involved did their best at the time, even if their actions failed to live up to expectations. It means declaring the incident finished, that we wish the others involved well, we send them love, and we are releasing all our negative feelings about it.
By forgiving, we are able to leave the past in the past. We stop trying to drag it forward into the now. This is a healthy thing to do! We must always strive to recognize that the past doesn’t exist, except in our thoughts and emotions, and we all have total control over our thoughts and emotions. We can choose to only hold onto the ones serving our highest good.
What forgiveness does NOT mean, is forgetting what happened. The reason we endure trials in life is so we may learn from them, thereby allowing us to act differently if something similar happens again and spare ourselves further pain. These trials might be avoided by staying away from certain people or situations, or by adjusting our own behavior. Life itself is a series of lessons. We’re defeating the purpose of life by ignoring the lessons it presents us.
Those who attempt to define forgiving as forgetting are actively working against the point of being alive.
By learning that touching a hot stove causes burns, we learn not to touch hot stoves. Forgiving the stove for burning us does not mean we can go around touching hot stoves without consequences! It just means we are recognizing it’s in the stove’s nature to be hot, and it wasn’t a personal attack against us when we were burned.
It is possible to forgive those who fail to be accountable for their actions. Being accountable involves the three R’s: repentance, restitution, and being personally responsible. Repentance is remorse or self-reproach for what one has done or failed to do. Restitution is the act of making amends; of returning or restoring to someone what is his. It is reparation for injury or damage. And of course having personal responsibility means being legally or morally obliged to take care of something, and being able to account for one’s actions.
There are unfortunately many people who cause pain in others, and totally fail the test of accountability. These people do none of the three R’s, and they go on to cause pain in the same ways repeatedly in many people around them.
Please understand it’s not our job to fix this people, or even to force them to behave differently. Their behavior is completely beyond our control, thanks to free will. We cannot stop them, but we can learn the best ways to protect ourselves from them. Forgiving them is how we break the ties linking us to them, setting them free and wishing them well as they continue on about their lives.
People who do not have accountability are not people you want to be linked to for any length of time. Without forgiveness, you’re permitting them continued access to your energy and happiness. You’re giving them the power to make you miserable for a long time. Please, spare yourselves that.
We are only responsible for our own actions and feelings. Take care of yours by releasing painful ties with love. Love will always guide us to happiness and light. You can show love to someone doing terrible things without losing the moral high ground. It’s loving to discover ways to prevent further pain. It’s loving to deprive others the ability to hurt us. It’s loving to witness who someone really is, and to hope they also learn and grow.
Forgiving does not mean our trust is restored or our respect earned.
Learn, let go with love, and move forward with a free heart.
Love and blessings, friends.