Forgiveness Liberate Me
Forgiveness,
liberate me today.
What do you feel when you say the word forgiveness?
Does angry boil up?
Fear?
Discomfort?
Sadness?
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness. What I have noticed is within the collective, me included, forgiveness has been associated with so much pain. It is resisted, fought, and avoided on all levels. While themes of empowerment through ‘canceling’ or cutting people out are becoming trendy and praised, forgiveness still seems to be the unpopular one on the block.
I am all for empowerment and placing healthy boundaries for your well being. I just wanted to take this moment to give forgiveness some more attention.
I don’t think we talk about it enough. I know I sometimes am afraid to bring it up because I don’t want to be disrespectful or not validate someone’s feelings of hurt. The flood of emotions that forgives can open up by just saying the word, makes me feel like it could be risky or too touchy of a subject to speak about. I feel this might be why it is so unpopular- we’ve been afraid to talk about it. Afraid to make someone upset. Afraid we will be seen as not understanding.
When I stop and think about these patterns, I see how truly toxic our relationship with forgiveness is.
This narrative about forgiveness needs to stop, because it is dividing us, it is making us sick, it is closing our hearts.
The story we have right now about forgiveness is NOT the truth. At least not the truth for me.
Forgiveness does not mean your pain & hurt is not seen. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you are not understood. Forgiveness does not mean what happened was not wrong.
It just does not mean that.
Forgiveness means you deeply see the pain & hurt within you so much that it spills over into your ability to see the pain & hurt in the one who hurt you.
Forgiveness means you have truly accepted your reality and circumstances so much that you were able to break down your barriers of wishing things were different than what they are.
(Another post will come about how truly toxic it is to resist your reality and reject the honest truth of your life)
Forgiveness means you have stretched your heart and have grown to be more compassionate to yourself.
This last one is really important,
Forgiveness is ALL WAYS an dual action of: Forgiving self & Forgiving other
You can not have one without the other. This is the biggest mistake we often make in fear of offending someone. We think that we can just forgive ourselves but still hold angry towards the other. But it doesn’t work, because when we hold anger towards the other we are still holding some anger towards ourselves.
In truth all the feelings we have about others are actual feelings we have within us about ourselves. ALL of the THEM. I won’t fully explain why here. But it is simply just how the psyche works.
So if we have not forgiven ‘the other’ we will never have truly forgiven ourselves.
This is making us sick folks. So so so terribly sick.
As I stopped to reflect on what I DEEPLY know about the nature of forgiveness, I realized how terrible it is that I am part of the problem. I often hold my tongue and don’t bring it up when I see so clearly it is what is needed. I have fallen for the narrative & that FALSE story that forgiveness is a bad word. They will think you don’t care about them, they will think you don’t see how deep their pain is. They will think you’re not taking their anger seriously.
STOP. These thoughts just need to stop. Because it is just not true. It is keeping us sick. It is keeping us divided. It is keeping us unhappy.
I don’t want to be a part of the problem anymore. I want to be a part of the change in the narrative about forgiveness.
Would you join me? Can we speak more boldly about forgiveness? Can we risk the ache it will feel to open our hearts to forgiveness? Can we let the burn we feel come as our hearts stretch open to hold all the emotions that come up when we think or speak about forgiveness?
Can we just be present with those feelings that forgiveness brings up and let ourselves feel to heal?
I pray deeply today and everyday:
Forgiveness,
please dear forgiveness,
liberate me today.
Practice & Play
Wishing you free,
Jenn