Hi Sweet Friend,
But what if you can’t forgive?
I wanted to kick off this blog by extolling the virtues of forgiveness. Every faith agrees that forgiveness is the seat of liberation. It allows us to be fully present in the moment, rather than stuck in the past. However, try as I might, I just can’t muster up the energy to write a big soaring blog on something I’m still having trouble with.
The truth is, sometimes forgiveness feels impossible.
Have you been there? Are you there now? Is there someone in your life that no matter how hard you try, how many books you read, how many lectures or workshops you attend, you still can’t forgive? Are you tough on yourself for that? Me too.
Today I want to talk about what we can do if we’re not quite ready or able to let go. And I’m really interested in your thoughts too. Because there’s nothing worse than feeling stuck.
Forgiveness doesn’t only resolve our past, it alleviates our fear of the future.
When we hold onto thoughts, memories or traumas, we’re unconsciously attempting to protect ourselves from experiencing that pain again. It can be a complicated process that takes time (not a prescription pill you pop to make it all better).
As someone who’s lived with chronic disease for almost 2 decades, I’ve learned that sometimes there are no short cuts. Forgiveness takes a similar kind of loving patience and ability to accept where we are right now. All healing happens in the right season. It can’t be rushed. Please don’t yell at your kale.
So for me, the first step is to stop forcing and judging. The more I judge myself the more negative, fear-based energy I bring to the situation. This leads to compulsively vomiting that awful word “should”, which only increases my inability to let the darn thing go. “You should be over this by now. You should forgive. You’re a Hay House author for Godsake, a supposed model spiritual citizen, if you can’t forgive you certainly have no business in the business of self-help. Give back your book deal, roll up your blog, join the Hells Angels–you’re done sister.”
And on and on. Sound familiar? (Hopefully not as dramatic.)
It’s pretty obvious that this kind of thinking gets us nowhere. In fact, it only dials up our dislike (or hatred) for the person we’re having a hard time forgiving! Because if they didn’t do such and such then we wouldn’t feel like such a bad person for not forgiving! It’s sorta funny really.
Release the pressure. It’s okay to press pause on problem solving before making your next move. We tend to focus on action and results, but sometimes there’s a gap between the place we really are and the place we want to be.
Here’s a baby step that helps narrow that gap: Forgive yourself for not forgiving.
Forgive yourself for not being ready—yet. Send compassion to yourself—first. Send love to the place that is so hurt it keeps you from taking one step forward. Sit quietly. Think of the pain you’re feeling. Breathe. Put your hand on your heart and silently say “It’s OK. I love you and I forgive you for being angry, sad, stuck, etc.”. Use whatever words bring you peace. Every time I do this it releases blocked energy. And I do it a lot. I do it whenever I start to judge or attack myself in any way.
This also works if you’re the person who needs to be forgiven, but you haven’t been, or perhaps never will be.
It’s not about condoning poor behavior, it’s about thawing the parts of us that stay frozen in old pain and patterns. While I can’t go back in a time machine or control what other people think, I can be gentle and forgive myself for not having the tools in the past that I have now. I can make space for healing, whether that person thinks I deserve it or not.
In some cases, I absolutely wish I could have done things differently. I may not ever have the chance to be forgiven and that might hurt my heart. But luckily, that’s not the end of the story.
When we start from a place of loving ourselves, no matter what, our next step will always be the best one we could have chosen. And that’s enough.
Your turn: What baby steps do you take to forgive?
Peace & pauses,
Seat Kris, God’s timing is perfect. I found by His Grace this post now, when I needed it the most. I have indeed to forgive some persons (with one of them I live in the house; it’s a long painfull story and I don’t want to tell the story; it’s enough if I say that the person which I live with, cursed me on my birth, I didn’t have wrealy a life and since last year I’m in a wheelchair, and the other persons which I can’t now forgive has trying to take advantage over me from my situation), I can’t forgive them now (I pray to God to help me forgive ), everybody are saying to me to forgive them for that God heal my body, and ….. if they are saying that, I start now to think that I am not worthy to receive healing because I’m not capable because my sufferrence to forgive them. And like this…… Of course that I can’ t like you say, to forgive myself that I can’t forgive them and also I can’t forgive for my own mistakes. I need for my sake to move from this house to getting out from this toxic environment but I need to make God a miracle in this sense also. But…..how to make God a miracle when everybody tells me that I don’t deserve, that now I think also that I don’t deserve ? So, dear Kris, sometimes it isn’t so easy to be resolved by hand on heart and good affirmations. And bellieve me, I tryied, I try, I pray. I shout to the Lord. I don’t have anyone else to ask help. I asked including 2 pastors for helping me move from this house, and I received …….prayers for God’s solution. Thank you, I pray also, but I NOW need a practical solution to step out from a house and a house which are toxic. Blessings , Mihaela
Thank You!!!
I have been beating myself up about not being able to forgive someone close to me for years of bad behavior ( behind my back).
I’m trying to consider reconciling the relationship, but I realize I may not be able to forgive him for a long time because of the things he did and how long he did them.
Just because I am a Christian doesn’t mean I am a doormat!
He seems to be getting it finally, but it may be a little too late to have a real relationship.
Hey Kris,
I needed to read this today…thanks! I struggle with forgiveness and letting go.
I can let go, forgive and feel peace and joy…but mostly get stuck in anger.
I feel (at times) if I let of anger means I will continue to allow people to hurt me and do nothing about it…irrational thinking, I know, but often get stuck there!
Good Morning Kris
Thank you from the bottom of my healing heart ! I so needed this reading today ! Thank you for all you do and write you are amazing soul…….
Thank you❤️ Yes, I will forgive MYSELF for not beeing ready to forgive those who don’t understand our sitruation. Even if I know they can’t, but they can behave. Yes, I am ok, it is ok❤️ Thank you! My anger is ok. Everything is ok ❤️
I’m having a hard time forgiving a family member who betrayed me because it also involved my son. Without going into detail, the fallout of her actions has been devastating for me, and my family is too dysfunctional to help me cope with it or to let me speak my truth about what happened. It’s totally crazy-making behavior that feeds on itself, so I have very little to do with my family, and the distance has helped.
I’ll be honest with you: I agree with the Psychology Today article that says there may be too much pressure these days to forgive everyone, and all this forgiveness talk puts every betrayal at the same level and wraps them up in some bumper sticker aphorism. You’re right about all the “should” talk, and it comes from both internal and external sources.
After reading a lot about forgiveness lately, it helps me to redefine forgiveness on MY terms, not society’s. I prefer to think of it, as others have written, as “releasement,” which focuses more on my reaction to the betrayal and not the past or the action itself. I’m working on releasing the past, and as you so beautifully suggested, closing the gap by forgiving myself first. I may be able to one day put myself in my sister’s shoes and find compassion for her skewed view of the world that made her do what she did, but I will never say it was okay, and I will always have to have the boundary of not having a relationship with her anymore.
I guess that’s the hard part–my definition of forgiveness and my family’s are so different that they will never see my release as forgiveness. Unless we just forget it all happened and go back to the way things were, I haven’t forgiven her in their minds. I will be subject to criticism and attempts at intervention (“If we put them in the same room together, she’ll have to forgive her!”) for as long as I have contact with my family. In addition to the damage with my kid, that makes forgiveness pretty hard to find.
Being stuck and not being able to have a voice in all this is affecting my health in serious ways. I’m at the point where the only way I feel like I’ll be able to move forward is to remove myself from my family entirely. I can’t be with them and keep stifling the truth and pretend everything is fine when it’s not. I realize that’s not true forgiveness, but that’s all anybody really wants–pretend forgiveness. Kiss, kiss, bygones. No. This wasn’t spilling salsa on a borrowed favorite sweater or not inviting me to a birthday party. This was a betrayal that completely changed my life, and my family is compounding it, so it feels like betrayal over and over again. I just don’t know what to do about it.
Forgiving is hard because many of us want to just let go and move on with our lives. The sad truth is that if you don’t heal from a situation that hurts, you cannot move forward. It is like trying to heal a wound by covering it up with band-aid without disinfecting first. Does it make sense?
Zaria
I find the funniest thing about forgiveness is when we actually logically examine it unforgiveness doesn’t make any sense as shown here in this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfQUDpXvbac&feature=youtu.be
Sometimes the honesty of that comment you made about being the person that needs to be forgiven, but you haven’t been or perhaps never will be, just destroys me, it takes me to my most painful place. It makes my experience so real and hurt so much all over again. I will keep trying to forgive myself and stop the cycle of replaying the events over and over in my head, but it has been and is the thing that has defined my life for so long. I am tired. I want it to end. But letting it go is scary, it feels like I have to let go of the people too and I can’t, they are much too important. I am truly stuck. Yet, sometimes I have these moments of clarity that nurture and nourish me, and I carry on with my work and all that is left and I look forward to moving on. When I read other peoples stories I actually believe I might be able to. Thank you for the space to put my thoughts down and for writing words that help me feel understood and not alone.
Yes, I do have people I need to forgive, But I can’t go back into relationships with them, I do need to let the resentment go however,
Zinger, Kris! Right on target. Love the <3 of your <3
I like your suggestion to forgive myself for not forgiving. I am stuck in a negative place having a very hard time accepting someone I trusted completely who betrayed me. I’ve never experienced heart hurt like this and I’m no spring chicken. I struggle because it’s obvious that forgiveness is the path to MY healing…but I just can’t get past the feeling of injustice. It feels like forgiveness is like trying to cuddle a rabid dog. Also, everything I read about forgiveness always talks about why and how – but maybe wrong doers should not be forgiven – where are the consequences for non-criminal violators of the heart and soul. I wish I could channel Nelson Mandela.
Kris – great post! I too am struggling with forgiveness. I recently wrote about my struggle to forgive my bio mother – it’s amazing how hard it really is. It took me a long while to realize that I needed to forgive her – for myself – and some days I think I have, but other days I realize that is not the case.
http://www.mostlyinspiredmom.com/?p=30
First time comment, ever!
Thank you, Kris, for this message that feels like you wrote just to me! Your kind words made more sense to me than any self-help book or magazine article I’ve ever read. You’re pretty awesome!
Hi there
I seriously need to forgive myself and my mother and my husband and his son for many things and I am struggling since I’ve moved only 2 months ago and I have 2 beautiful boys aged 18 and 13 to live for and I cannot afford to let them down as I am a single mom. I find it difficult to forgive and I desperately need to release myself and others of wrongdoing. Surely life is about more than self loathing and hatred of the ones that hurt you because you think you are not good enough and that is why they hurt you. I need to know that after 2 suicide attempts and failing each time that I have some greater purpose here and that the universe or God has a plan to keep me here.
Thank you SO much for these words that somehow I just happened to run across when I was desperately in need of them. I’ve always found it very easy to forgive peopl, because I know that’s what God wants me to do. People have often commented that it doesn’t make sense that I can remain friends with or keep contact with people that have hurt me so badly. But in the last few years and more so the last few months, it has come to my attention that someone has hurt one of my children. I had already forgiven this person for the things he’d done to me, but our child?? I have never had this feeling of just pure hate in my heart before I’m not sure how to handle it. I feel like I’m coming completely apart from the inside out!! And I have to hide it from everyone. Your words here have helped me quite a bit, and I thank you.
I’m so sorry for you. I was much like you, but finding out that I had been betrayed for years in secret behind my back by the love of my life turned me!
I was a sweet person who loved everyone; tried to see the good in all people.
But, when you find out that there are some sick, selfish people waiting to take advantage of kind people it can cause you to become bitter!!!
I am sorry for your child, and will pray for her and you as well. I pray that this person will be caught and stopped.
I’m just learning to become wiser about whom I trust, and let into my close circle. Don’t blame yourself. This person has probably done this before. You can’t tell by looking!
Be safe and Be healed!
Take care of your little one?
Kris i have forgiven everyone but myself, just want to forgive myself about what people have done to me, ive been done wrong and could really care less,wanna forgive myself for what i put MY family through, just can’t get through it and im a tough dude. Help just cant get over my mistakes
I used to be a horrible person. Not bitchy or cruel. I did a few things wrong that I cannot let go of. I was blinded by my own instability, and I had no support from others (not making excuses). I came from a very unstable family, left home and blindly went into stupidity.
I had no boundaries, no love, no back up. I ended up trying to kill myself when I was 18. Everybody was horrified. I came out of the hospital with less friends than when I had gone in there! They all backed off. They couldn’t cope with my, um, mood swings! I never told my Ma and Pa, after all I had been self-harming for 4 years and they hadn’t noticed/chose not to notice so no support there!
I continued to be a nice person with the odd bad habit. My worst time was when I stole a lump of hash off a girl at our table, took it home and continued to smoke it. Everybody knew I had nicked it, looked horrified, then smoked it. I felt EXTREMELY bad. I wake up over a sweat on that one constantly.
If I could go back…
Dear Kris, What an insightful story about compassion being the step to forgiveness. You are one smart cookie! Or, I should say, a smart red bell pepper strip with almond butter. Have you heard Dr. Daniel Amen say that his daughter preferred to be called a smart red bell pepper strip with almond butter, not a smart cookie, because the pepper strips are much better for you and are what she ate for dessert? In short, thanks for your wise words.
Thank YOU so much Kris! This email came perfectly in time to answer my prayers about how to un stick myself from a cycle of anger, and frustration with myself for not being able to forgive. I think in our North American society – we are always looking for quick fixes, and results as you said. And this attitude can extend to our relationship with our spirituality. I am learning that it is ok to not be perfect, to be human and that there can be a lot of wisdom, grounding, heart opening, vulnerability, self love, compassion… that emerge in taking time to ‘heal’, to really experience whatever negative emotion we have be having. I am so grateful for the wisdom, vulnerability, love and compassion that you shared in your blog post. I am now having more compassion and forgiveness with myself for not forgiving.
Blessings
xoxo
Good for you, Julie. And in time you will forgive. It’s just Your Time, yet.
Peace.