I believe everybody is on their own journey of forgiveness, but sometimes their current phase or even ultimate destination is one without it.
Forgiveness as Children
From when we’re young children, we’re conditioned to always say “I forgive you” after being hurt, for the sake of social niceties. I understand why our parents taught us this, in most cases it is far better to forgive and let something go in order to get on with our day, and our life. And when we’re children, we want more than anything to be good for our caregivers, for their love and validation. As children we truly cannot make it without them.
Our parents teach us to forgive so that when we grow up we may know what is expected of us, and be accepted into society. This lesson of almost automatic forgiveness is an effort to make our lives easier, yet that isn’t always the outcome.
Forgiveness after Childhood
If you have ever been truly hurt, you know the story. Maybe you were the victim of a violent crime or someone betrayed you on a base level. Maybe a friend or family member has been gossiping behind your back to everyone he or she knows, making you look like a fool. Maybe you’ve been abused, or kidnapped, molested, maybe someone murdered your loved one.
In these cases, you are struck at your core, and making the next move can be confusing and frightening. Many of us think we ought to forgive on some level, because were taught that we have to let it go to move on. We think this is fact, regardless of if we’re feeling forgiveness, and we try to forgive the person at fault.
Automatic Forgiveness
Have you ever done that? Automatically forgiven someone even though their violation was too great? When you do this, your words don’t align with your feelings. I would argue that you haven’t forgiven, instead you have said the words “I forgive you” and then continued to police your hurt feelings around the situation. But fake forgiveness helps no one.
It’s funny, but we don’t expect the world to forgive homocidal dictators, and in fact it’s quite socially acceptable to hate them, even if the harm they caused was not to you or even anyone you might’ve known. So why is it acceptable to hate Hitler, but not someone who has done you major damage? Familiarity? Larger scale evilness?
Why People Push You
As humans, we seek to be comfortable and safe. When we see major conflict play out in front of us, most of us wish it would end, or at least would rather watch it at a safe distance. I hear it said that abusers will protect abusers, and often people who defend those in the wrong are called “flying monkeys”, as if they are nothing more than cronies of malicious tyrants. This may be, but I don’t think it applies to everyone.
Many people are reasonable people, just hoping for the confrontation to be over soon. They are not trying to cause you harm, but rather see you as another reasonable person, and hope that you will be the one to put the tension to rest. So even though it hurts, it can be counter-productive to be so angry at these people, and it certainly doesn’t address the root of the problem.
After the Slight
Just because someone’s intentions are benign, however, doesn’t mean you need to agree with them or appease them. It hurts, but sometimes some space is called for in these times. If someone cannot respect your pain and your right to ensure your safety, then perhaps the distance would do you both well.
In the case of abuse and other crimes, make sure you are safe both physically and emotionally, before worrying about forgiveness. You are more important than this problem, and deserve to be safe above all else.
But once you are safe and removed from a situation, where do your thoughts fall? We’re taught that if we do not forgive, that we will never fully heal our pain, and that we must forgive for ourselves and everyone else. But what if the path of healing lacks forgiveness entirely? Is that possible?
I’m not advocating for revenge. I think it is important to try to problem-solve, instead of feed into the problem further. But this doesn’t necessitate forgiveness. In fact, we may find that by trying to force ourselves into forgiving someone, we re-traumatize ourselves, creating a worse situation than there was before! It is for this reason I suggest being cautious with forgiveness, and do not support asking someone else to forgive a person.
In absence of Forgiveness
So, if our path of healing doesn’t involve forgiveness, what does it look like? While everyone’s issues are different, for our healing journey we need the same thing. We need to turn inward. It’s time to redefine ourselves, our identities and our roles. We need to re-evaluate our thoughts, friends, environment, boundaries and needs. In short, your life needs to become about you again as opposed to the person or problem that you were hyper-focused on.
Everyone talks about self-care these days. We throw the term around so flippantly that very few understand its significance. Sometimes self care involves doing some pretty silly things, or rather, things that make us feel silly.
Forgive Yourself, Not Them
We need to forgive ourselves first, before we forgive whoever hurt us. We need to tell ourselves (and if you can look in the mirror while doing this aloud, it will work even better), “Hey. I know you are embarrassed and hurt and in despair. But I love you. I don’t blame you for what happened or your feelings about it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. I forgive you for being tricked, when you didn’t know better. You have a beautiful heart, and I’m going to take care of it today.”
The aim in doing this sort of exercise is to find the words that give you the biggest reaction. The things that you are most ashamed of, angry about, and sad over. We need to start acknowledging our part in our traumas, and standing up for ourselves saying “you know what? I am whole, complete, and strong anyways. I am enough, and I’m not going to abandon myself just because everyone else did.”
Loving Actions
Alongside this words work, we learn to take action steps towards loving ourselves. For some people it might be eating healthy even though they hate their body, or pampering themselves when they think it’s silly. We avoid things that make us feel uncomfortable, but we hardly stop to ask why. Some of these things hold the key to our old wounds, and that lends itself to our pathway of transformation.
If we do this very personal work, we will find that forgiveness of those who hurt us never gave us this. It is the forgiveness of self that causes transformative healing, and perhaps down the road, brings us to forgiveness of others.
Stop apologizing for the broken person someone else made you, instead begin loving the imperfect person you always have been and will be, regardless of your past.
Have you ever been pushed into forgiving someone before you were ready? Leave a comment below to show people they’re not alone. If you have started the slow, but powerful work of self-forgiveness and self love, keep going! There’s gold down the line, I promise. And please, if you know anybody who is struggling to forgive, share this article with them and on social media, so that they may know they are not alone, and they don’t have to push and hurt themselves for forgiveness.
