Thoughts on Forgiveness

Forgiveness is discussed as if we owe it to ourselves, or to someone else, to forgive. Like it’s the right thing to do, or the bigger thing, or the more enlightened thing to do. To forgive. So many of us don’t even fully comprehend what it is to forgive someone. Is it to fully move on from whatever hurt us? Is it to tell someone that it is okay they hurt you? Is it to maintain a relationship in spite of a past hurt? 

There are infinite nuances to forgiveness, and every wisdom tradition has its own context and advice about forgiveness.

But I’m here to say that we do not inherently owe it to anyone (ourselves, others, or even God) to forgive. Some hurts will stay in our bodies for the rest of our lives, regardless of how much healing we embark upon. There are ways people treat each other that are cruel, and we don’t have to pretend they are not. We can understand that hurt people hurt people, and still not be able to move on. Or forward. Or through. 

Every wound that we incur becomes something we must integrate into our beings. There is no surgical removal. Even healing doesn’t mean it’s gone. We learn anew who we are, how to be, with this new hurt. We learn it’s language, and how it communicates with our other wounds and joys. We learn the shape and size of it, and how it shifts day to day. 

We can spend our lives parsing out why it happened to us. How much of it was the other person, and how much of the hurt was our past wounds, compounded on circumstance. How much of our wound is just us hurting ourselves?

Forgive

fər-gĭv′, fôr-

intransitive verb

1. To give up resentment against or stop wanting to punish (someone) for an offense or fault; pardon.

2. To relent in being angry or in wishing to exact punishment for (an offense or fault).

3. To absolve from payment of (a debt, for example).

   
   

Are we bad if we never stop resenting someone for an offense? Are we bad if we live with anger, or if we want payment? 

Is the very act of forcing ourselves to stop feeling how we feel not aggression in itself? There is so much pressure to forgive.

What if we walk in our wounds, giving life and breath to all the ways we feel in the dance with them? What if we are allowed to be angry and resentful because the child inside of us is scared, and longing for love? What if we build a relationship with the ways these things shape us every day, and with our journey through and with and around them? 

What if we stop thinking that relationship and healing can only exist in the absence of anger and resentment? 

What if we embraced the WHOLE ENTIRE THING?