I’ve had a long struggle with the concept of forgiving. I have read/heard/seen compelling arguments regarding the profound importance of the act of forgiveness. I understood that forgiving is important for one’s own healing, as a way of declining to let the person who harmed you maintain their power in your life; it does not mean condoning the offender’s actions, or embracing them in any way. While I saw the wisdom and the virtue in all of this, my response, at least in my head, was always a heated debate centered on my belief that some things are unforgiveable. Some people should not be forgiven. Ever.

Also, I had no idea how the act of forgiveness might be undertaken. I was not raised with a religious practice, or any kind of new-agey substitute. Even if I could be convinced that forgiveness is better than refusing to forgive, how would I begin?

Anyway, I was too angry to forgive. Even though I believed that being angry was a character flaw, I refused to let go of my anger. It was what fueled my creativity. It was what had fueled survival of terrible unfairness, what had allowed me to reset the course of my life. I had always thought of forgiveness as something that is done peacefully, in a state of elevated serenity. Anger stopped me in my tracks as soon as I tried to approach forgiveness calmly.

Then the other day, I was thinking hard about forgiveness. I had said to someone, in complete sincerity, that I did not expect to be forgiven. She had responded by saying, “It’s a little soon to ask for or receive forgiveness.” This made me consider the acts of asking for and offering forgiveness, and the amazing miscommunication possible when anger is involved. It made me rethink forgiveness as being between individuals, and it made me rethink forgiveness as requiring that anger be set aside.

What I realized is that you can try to make amends when you have trespassed against another, you can apologize and accept accountability, but forgiveness is more complex. It is not necessarily something asked for and granted between two people. It is more of an offering or a request released into the air between people.

I did not ask forgiveness from the person mentioned above, and she clearly is not prepared to offer it. But in contemplating this, I suddenly realized that if I ask forgiveness for my actions which hurt her, I may be forgiven in some transcendental manner that is between us but separate from each of us. I have the power to seek forgiveness and to receive forgiveness, when I am ready. Someday she may offer forgiveness, and her offer may be accepted in the same transcendental manner, regardless of whether I accept, or even know of, her forgiveness. She has the power to offer forgiveness and have her forgiveness accepted. She does not have the power to withhold my forgiveness, nor do I have the power to reject hers.

This was a wonderful revelation for me, and gave me the ability to truly seek forgiveness for the first time in my life. To quietly, unconditionally, release the request to be forgiven for my trespasses against others, new and old. Without qualifications, explanations, context, or filters. I simply named the offenses, felt the depth of regret, and humbly asked forgiveness. This does not excuse me from apologizing and offering accountability in person, but that is separate from seeking forgiveness.

As hard as it was to distill things down to just the trespasses, it was also relieving. It is obviously much easier to say, “Forgive me for causing harm in the midst of struggling with the overwhelming pain and distress of my life.” Or, “Forgive me for misjudging what would upset that person.” However, saying simply, “I ask forgiveness for keeping X secret” or, “I ask forgiveness for not trusting person Y” turns out to be more comforting in the end. Being concise, without extenuating excuses, clears a way to move forward without that mistake, to remove the mistake from your repertoire of coping mechanisms.

This was profound progress. But then there was still the act of forgiving. And there was still the obstacle of anger. I was sitting in the quiet morning trying to meditate and be mindful and replace anger with personal accountability, when a belligerent voice in my head said, “Fuck it! Sometimes you just need to express your raw, one-sided feelings without thinking about being fair and balanced and putting yourself in anyone else’s shoes. Just wail and be pissed off, at least in your own head, in your own journal, on your own back porch.” I recognize that it is not ok to do this out loud directed at another person, but it occurred to me that it had to sometimes be ok to do for one’s own self.

And it hit me: That’s how forgiveness can work! It suddenly occurred to me that forgiving does not have to involve reconfiguring your emotions, or reconciling relationships, or coming to a place of spiritual bliss. Maybe you can forgive and express your rampant anger at the same time. Maybe it does not have to be like a prayer, it can be like a tirade.

Maybe you could say, “I forgive you for being a crap bag. I forgive you for being a cold hearted, soul sucking bringer of pain and misery.”

Maybe you could say, “I forgive you for being shallow and unable to be there for me.”

“I forgive you for systematically assaulting my sense of safety, trust, and sanity.”

“I forgive you for so quickly disregarding the years during which you knew me to be warm and kind and reliable, and jumping at the chance to judge me at my worst moment, in a period during which I became lost. I forgive you for assuming that the gone-astray me was the real me, and having no faith with which to see the deeper me.”

See, anger. But, as it turned out, also genuine forgiveness through acknowledging the pain caused.

It was not a process of making room in my inner world for each person who trespassed against me, not inviting a damaging person into my life or even addressing them directly, not recasting them as better or worse than previously judged. Just acknowledging the full weight of the trespasses in an act of forgiveness.

Forgiving was exhilarating, in an understated kind of way, and it did bring a sense of peace…not the yoga-breathing/affirmation-absorbing/pseudo-zen kind of peace I thought you had to have (and I would never have) to initiate forgiveness, but a kind of lightness, a rising of humor, and a noticeable easing of anger.

All of my life I have absorbed the lessons that anger is harmful, mistakes are to be hidden, and forgiveness is virtuous. Finally, I have seen the simple truth—that anger is useful, mistakes are dangerous when hidden, and forgiveness is not just for the holy and righteous, it is also for the messy and struggling.