The topic of forgiveness has come up several times with clients and it's usually one that we have the most difficult time with. Not only do we hang on to wrongs done to us, but we hang on to wrongs that we've done. These are the things that wake us up at 2am and run over and over in our minds as we try to think "Why did I do that? What kind of awful human am I?"
You're not awful. You are human.
Most people - complete psychopaths notwithstanding - do not set out to hurt other people. Even if we know what we're doing is wrong, we're usually doing the best we can with what we have at the moment - and that includes our operating systems.
To break this down a bit further, we act and react in ways we learned from birth. Even if a way of living is really no longer serving us, we simply don't know how else to do things. The same goes for wrongs done to us: our transgressors might have had good intentions, or maybe they just simply were functioning based on their earliest programming.
Now, what this looks like in reality is understanding that happy, well-adjusted people don't do awful things to others. People who are in deep emotional pain and turmoil do. And forgiving them for those awful things does not give them a pass, nor does it mean that they were justified. All it means is that we understand they were operating from a pretty fucked up system - and that alone opens a pathway to forgive.
And, forgiving others is the ultimate self-compassion because it frees us from re-living drama that has long-since passed. We can't go back in time. No amount of stressing at 2am will change what happened. What can change is how we think about it. When we can say "I love myself enough to forgive you," we're taking a step towards freedom.
The holidays can kick up all sorts of emotions, particularly this year. If you find yourself struggling to forgive, let go, and experience hope, please reach out to schedule a call. We can figure out the best path for a bright future.
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