Forgiveness

Well this is long overdue, but I promised my readers that I would make a post about the topic of forgiveness, as it was voted for on my Instagram survey I posted a few weeks back. I asked my followers what was something in their life they needed help doing- or wanted me to address. It is a component of my life I struggle with tackling as well.

There are so many interlocking parts that go into the concept of forgiveness. So I'll start from the beginning. The term "forgive and forget" is spewed in mainstream culture. Thrown around like it's as easy as flipping a switch. But do we learn to forgive, or does it come naturally? This is a difficult, multi-layered debate. Can we truly forgive and forget, let bygones just be? Or is a part of ourselves, deep down, always going to be stuck on another person's choice to hurt us? I suppose it depends on the context, and severity of the hurt.

Forgiveness is a hard burden to bare.

All of us have likely encountered a situation in our lives that involved the choice of forgiving someone, letting it go, choosing to move on, or cutting them out of our aura.

Whether it's a family member/close relative you feel the urge or need to forgive, a close friend that you just don't know how to reach out to/reconnect with, or even coming to terms with forgiving yourself and addressing regrets and mistakes you've made... we must confront this dilemma head on. Each situation has its own complexities and challenges separate from each other, though often times you may feel similar emotions throughout the process. And it goes without saying that this will impact other sectors of our lives. It’s all related.

What I do know from experience, is that once we assign feelings and care to anyone in our lives, we are essentially (and most likely unintentionally) giving them permission/allowing them to hold enough power to hurt us. Pain in this life is inevitable, and it only makes sense that much of the pain we experience is derived from the ones we love most.

Holding on to, honing in on that hurt...letting it consume us, and (in an unconventional way) allowing it to be a source of comfort, has only misled us to a destiny of hurt and self-hatred. It's ultimately more harmful than helpful. Think about it... When was the last time you felt good about being jealous (wanting something you can't have)? When did being spiteful ever make you feel good about yourself? As we look back and reflect on the harm others have inflicted upon us, we also have to recognize the ways in which we've harmed ourselves (consciously or not) by remaining stagnant. Allowing that hurt to sit with us, overwhelm us, and not be an active participant in our healing process.

     And no, this is not supposed to shame or blame anyone. But no one can help you, until you truly want to help yourself. The first step in feeling better is accepting where you are, and acknowledging how you got there.

     In any situation, opening up and being vulnerable allows for others to take advantage of us. It's not our fault that people with their own internal battles choose to harm us, prey on our insecurities, or project their hurtful experiences onto us. That is simply a reflection of the war they have lost. They may not know how to deal with their hurt. They may not have found the power to heal yet. And it is not our jobs to fix another human being. Do not misinterpret the mistreatment of you as a shortcoming within yourself. It is an outcome of someone else’s pain being transferred to you.

     We can be understanding, listen actively, empathize, and support them. But at the end of the day, the person who hurt you needs to take responsibility for their actions, be held accountable, and face their demons for themselves.

Did you ever want to change for someone else, or want them to change something about themselves... then realize that portion of you/them didn't stay changed once they were gone from your life? When you make a change, it has to benefit you, first and foremost. Real change takes time. And it is an internal investment/commitment.

Allowing ourselves to forgive is a process. Accepting forgiveness is quite freeing. It's like you release a sort of unspoken barrier that was living inside of you, holding you back from achieving the best versions of yourself. Breaking those chains of resentment, guilt, hurt, anger and shame is going to metaphorically free you from the mental prison you may have been stuck in. Just reading this post alone may not force you to reach this conclusion, it takes a lot of time and self reflection. But when you reach that self-peace and the ability to recognize that whatever someone did to hurt you is a portrayal of their own self-crisis unto you, you see that though you may have flaws, their actions are not on you.

How we choose to react to heartbreak -- or other forms of harm to our spirit -- how we COPE with any abusive or hurtful situation, is a reflection of our resilience. How we recover says much more about us, than it does about those who have harmed us. We get to redefine our circumstances in the aftermath. We get to rebuild and reconstruct our lives. Living free with forgiveness allows us to choose our path.

True forgiveness takes digging deep into your soul, and searching for the meaning behind it all.

We hold grudges, pass judgement, and always seem to feel some type of way when we see something that reminds us of someone we have yet to forgive... all due to feelings we have internalized and yet to process. Aren't you tired? Don't you just want to release it all, let go? You've got to heal your soul.