Forgiveness

Forgiveness. When I was a kid, forgiveness was as simple as saying or hearing the word “sorry”. Like magic, sorry fixed everything. Sorry made people get along and sorry made relationships run smoothly. As I got older, forgiveness became much more complicated. I’m not sure if the reason was because the actions and things that needed to be forgiven were becoming more significant and consequential? Or if it was just my growing ego that was getting in the way? “How dare they !” was most often what came up instead of a certain understanding and compassion towards the other. As forgiveness became harder and harder, the level of resentment that I carried steadily grew inside of me. The grudges that I held were not punishing those that had wronged me. They were a form of self-poisoning, a cancer that slowly gnawed at me from the inside out. The whole point of forgiveness is not to deny wrongfulness. The whole point of forgiveness is to no longer let the other continuously re-traumatize us over and over again. We need to let it go for us, not for them. But one must also never forget that the person who needs forgiveness the most is our self. Forgiving our self for our mistakes and regrets. Forgiving our self for being human. Being our very best self requires being able to look at our reflection in the mirror, or in the window of a busted door like in the second photo, and feel more self-love than self-hate. Stop victimizing your own self. Go ahead. Let it go. Freedom lives on the other side. Forgiveness.