Forgiveness

One of the most difficult things you can do is to forgive. Someone hurt you. They betrayed you. They did what what they saw fit regardless of how it affected you. You’re hurt, mad and vengeful. Now…give it up and walk away?

That pain you feel is yours. The anger you feel is yours. The vengeance you want is yours. You did not ask to have these things. You didn’t even know you were going to have these things. They are unwanted and unexpected. They are still yours. You can keep them until you die. If you keep them they are yours and will weigh you down with bitterness, anger and resentment.

This person gave you this and you don’t want it. The feeling is that if you keep it you can somehow get justice for it. Either you can use it in someway to hurt them directly or you can use it to remind yourself to never trust them again. So if you give it up you give justice!

Not true. You don’t actually have enough power to exact justice. The truth is that they deserve pain they deserve separation they deserve to know in exact detail how they have hurt you. They deserve to feel exactly what you feel. Anything short of that will not feel right. It will not feel finished.

Just because you cannot exact justice doesn’t mean justice is given up. Forgiveness is the process of you agreeing to how much power you have. You can give fully give the responsibility back to the perpetrator by giving up the allusion that you can exact justice upon the person. You give up revenge and work through the hurt.

You remember it was that person’s issues and fears that lead them to treat you the way they did. It is not your responsibility to take on and maintain the consequences of their insecurities. You can end this. The pain can stop even if it doesn’t stop for the other person and they don’t change. You can accept that you were OK before everything happened and it’s OK being you and to get back to being you. Forgiveness is the pathway back to YOU.