Forgiveness is misunderstood.

Forgiving is completely misinterpreted

Something I have learned over the years is that the act of forgiving is misinterpreted by society. We tend to forgive someone else, but what if that is not the actual key? What if forgiving is actually forgiving yourself?

Forgiving someone else is saying, I let go of what has happened, because I know someone did not know better in the moment. Forgiving yourself is giving yourself grace for what you didn’t do or know at the time.

You will keep feeling heavy emotions towards this person if you only forgive them. Sometimes there are situations where forgiving feels impossible. When someone did something on purpose for example.

You actually have to forgive yourself for not setting clear boundaries or not stepping out of a situation. It makes it easier to let the resentment go and not be bound by this ball and chain on your ankle.

Forgiving your caregiver(s)

A lot of us have parents that weren’t able to provide the healthy, safe and peaceful home we may have needed. You may still be angry or disappointed with your parents. In this case it is important you zoom in on your little self. Can you hold this boy or girl with compassion, can you see the situation(s) that occurred, can you see why your parents failed you?

That is just it, your parents (especially if you are born before the 2000) did not know any better than to repeat what they learned from their parents. Maybe they wanted to do it differently, maybe in the smallest ways they did. More often than not changing behavior is hard especially if they are tired or overstimulated and did not learn to regulate.

Some side notes

If you forgive someone that also doesn’t mean you need to get in contact with them or anything. You do it in yourself, with yourself. Only if you feel called to reach out then do so. If there was any abuse or foul play in the situations, I would advise you to think twice about letting them back into your life. Your act of forgiving, doesn’t give them the right to enter back in!

Forgiving yourself is part of self love. Also do not confuse forgiving with not holding yourself accountable. Take the lesson and do it differently next time.

Forgiving and being a victim

I feel that rape is somewhat a different topic. I don’t believe you even want to forgive the other. You would only do so because people tell you it will help. Still there has to be at least forgiving yourself, but what could you forgive yourself for? You can forgive yourself for:

• Not being able to fight back

• Not being physically strong enough

• Letting it happen (because of the paralyzing fear)

• Not screaming harder

• The natural instinct of your body to make you aroused

• Feeling ashamed

• Not telling anyone

• Not pressing charges

• For blaming yourself it happened

• etc.

Also note that with rape I do mean having any sexual activities without consent or with forced consent. If you gave consent and later feel it wasn’t, it is not fair to hold the man (or woman) accountable. They could not smell that your consent was fake. If needed you could start a conversation with them about what is living inside of you without pointing fingers.

You could also be a victim of domestic violence. See if any of the ‘you can forgive yourself for’- list, just above, resonate with you. I think the biggest one you did is: staying while knowing it wasn’t right. Know this is not shaming you. I want to give you insight into the things you can forgive. You could have had 100 reasons to stay, that is okay. You should give yourself grace for getting out when you did and be kind to yourself.

Journaling exercise

The next questions are designed to help you see what happened in a specific situation and where self-forgiveness is in order. Take any medium of your choice and start writing everything down:

• To whom do you still feel resentful, angry, sad or scared?

• What is the earliest situation where this feeling started with this person?

• Breathe, what would self-love have done during or after this situation?

• Why didn’t you do it?

• Did you know any better at that precise moment?

• Can you embrace this old version of yourself with compassion? If yes, do so in your mind.

• What lesson can I extract from this situation? Be specific.

• If that lesson is formulated in a more negative way: I won’t let emotional abuse happen again. Please rephrase this to a positive sentence: I know what emotional abuse looks like, so I can spot it in time and remove myself from the situation.

• Give yourself a hug and feel whatever needs to be felt.

• Thank yourself you took this time and see if you need to exercise or just want to be comfy with a blanket or some tea.