I know that we need to forgive more for ourselves than for the person who we are forgiving, I hear that said, I see it written, I understand the whole reasoning behind it intellectually. What I do not understand is how to truly do it fully, emotionally, I do not know how to forgive you.
I just feel the need to write down these thoughts occupying my mind right now, I apologise I have put no forethought into this blog post, I am just spilling words . . . .
I have moved on with my life, I don’t even obsess over it, or think about you every day. I am happy, I have a great life, I love who I am. I just can not say I forgive you.
I don’t want to hold on to this, I want to let it go, I want to say I forgive, not to you, but in my own heart. I want to feel cleansed of this. I have worked on forgiving myself, for any part I played in what happened. I know I was naive, I know you walked all over me and I allowed you to because my voice wasn’t strong enough, because I didn’t think I should spit words back. I thought I was the bigger person, but the truth is you made me feel so small that I didn’t actually allow myself a voice. That is on me, I know better now. You were in the position of power, I wasn’t, and so I let you have your way. That is on me.
So why is it that I can not forgive? I can not forgive you because you don’t acknowledge that you were so cruel, that you were in any way wrong for behaving the way you did. I can not forgive you for attacking me when I was at my most vulnerable. I can not wrap my mind around how you can justify your behaviours. I am baffled by how someone can be so heartless. I just don’t understand, actually I hope I never do because I would hate to be anything like you. I watch the way you treat people who you say you care for, who you call friend, and I wonder why you are so clueless as to why they walk away from you?
I am frustrated that you can not see beyond your nose. Beyond your ego.
Writing this makes me reassess, maybe I have not forgiven myself after all? Maybe it is me I am angry at? I am angry that I stood there and let you attack me, and attack those close to me. I am angry that I was not brave enough to say how I truly felt. I was nothing but the doormat you wiped your dirty boots upon, and I let you.
Mac
9 comments
I have a half written response to your comment on my post that I was going to PM you but here goes …
Much of the comment I’ve seen about forgiveness treat it like a one and done act. But life isn’t tidy like that. Forgiveness is a process to an end state with many steps forward and as many steps back. It starts with acknowledging the need to forgive someone for something. Then it wanders through wanting to forgive until one day you realise that you have. It’s forgiven but not forgotten. There are scars that will always be there. As well as valuable life lessons. I suspect that most of us never quite work out how we got from here to there.
It’s totally about you. Your healing / well-being rather than the other person. They’re kind of irrelevant to the process. They may never acknowledge their actions require forgiveness. You may no longer be in touch with them.
I’ve got a few biggies that I carry around with me in my mental handbag. I’ve tried writing things down and burning them. Bashing the life out of innocent cushions. Imaging that the handbag has been thrown far away never to return. Prayer is also helpful. As it talking to others about.
Hope this helps. Sending you all the hugs!
Tubbs what a brilliant explanation of the forgiving process. I think if we view it in stages we all may be able to see that we are heading in the right direction on the path. An I love the thought that the person we are trying to forgive is irrelevant to the process. That thought makes me feel a bit more empowered .
Do you think that being able to view the past behaviour of that person as irrelevant means the equivalent to having forgiven?
#ablogginggoodtime
Don’t know. It probably depends on the person doing the forgiving. What I meant is that forgiveness is about you, not them. It’s about your own peace, emotional well being etc. It’s not the same as forgetting or excusing. Its more about moving on and drawing a line under stuff.
As Tubbs says, forgiveness is something you need to practice every day, like self care. Very often it’s something you must do on your own as you’ve left that person and the mess they caused behind you. That in some ways can make it harder. They’re frozen in time as the person who did that to you, and not as the person they’ve perhaps become now, perhaps someone who knows that they were wrong and could apologise. In my experience the deepest hurt usually means you have left that person behind, because when it comes to self preservation they are too toxic to be around. I certainly have known that with a significant person in my life. It’s been almost twenty years since we’ve spoken. I don’t forgive them for how they’ve hurt me, but I can understand that in their mind they felt justified. They weren’t, but I accept that in their own narrative it is okay. My acceptance of that is the closely that I’ll get to forgiveness. It’s a quite resolution which I remind myself of frequency. They will never change. I can’t effect their behaviour. I can’t change what they did. I can control the person I am however. I can let the anger go. I can choose to avoid the toxicity. I’m not sure that’s forgiveness of them, but I do feel some degree of peace for myself. I hope you find it too lovely.
Mac this is a very powerful post and hope it was at least a little helpful to write even if it seems like you are yet to have closure. Forgiveness is a very complex concept and one I don’t thing I have a proper handle on. Take care xx #ablogginggoodtime xx
Oh Mackenzie, this is such a heartfelt post. There is someone from my past that exactly fits the description here too and I often wonder if I’ve forgiven him… I don’t dwell on what happened anymore, but when I hear news of that person, I become very agitated. I want him to get a taste of his own medicine but I have no intention of ever seeing / hearing / thinking about him again. I don’t know how you know if you’ve forgiven someone, but I think if you can get to a place where you can say “that was then and this is now” and separate the two, that’s pretty close. And that goes for forgiving yourself too. xx
forgot to add #ablogginggoodtime
Oh Mac! I have written about forgiveness myself. I think you may have read it but I’m not sure. I agree with Tubbs that forgiveness is a process and can take years, even a lifetime depending on each person and each situation. I don’t often talk about the childhood abuse I went through but my father was one of my abusers. I have written about him but not to a major extent. He was (and still is) a sadistic sociopath and I honestly never thought I would be able to forgive him. Part of me – a HUGE part of me didn’t want to because while he got prison time for what he did, they let him out very early which was unjust because in my opinion anyone who hurts a child so badly should never be allowed to see the light of day. So in a sense I wouldn’t forgive him because I felt that was my way of justice. It made me feel powerful to not forgive.
However, as I got older and became a parent myself I started realizing the anger and rage I was holding inside of me. As I got better and started healing from my past trauma, forgiveness became a matter of allowing myself inner peace. Once I did that, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders and I was finally free to be happy.
I also got members of my family trying to convince me that if I truly forgave him then I could allow him back into my life. That’s not true though. Just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean they have to be a part of your life. I forgave but I haven’t forgotten. More so, I know full well that he has never changed. He is still the same person he was when I was a kid and to this day doesn’t acknowledge anything he did was wrong. So, no, I will not allow him into my life and I definitely won’t allow him around my children.
However, I still have one more person in my life who I need to forgive but it isn’t easy to do so. Just because I forgave one person, doesn’t mean I can just forgive someone else. Because again, it’s a process and it’s a hard one.
So if you can’t forgive him Mac, don’t beat yourself up over it. Maybe you just aren’t ready. Maybe you have to work on forgiving yourself first before you can even think about forgiving him. That’s usually how it works and something I had to do myself. If you want to talk about this more I’m always available. PM me anytime. I’m no expert on forgiveness but talking about it will help just as it probably helped you to write this post. This is a deep topic that I think so many people struggle with because the concept of forgiveness is ever-flowing, ever-changing. It’s complex and complicated and one size definitely does not fit all. And I’m serious. Anytime you need to talk, I’m here:) #ablogginggoodtime
#thesatsesh ummm…did this spill out from my brain? totes with you lovely. I think a really important line in this is forgiving yourself….you cannot be responsible for others, or with someone as so sad as this to expect any less.
Raise your pedestal and stay there hun x
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