If You Can’t Forgive Someone, You Need to Read This Article
I hate all the clichés about forgiveness.
I know every quote, every piece of advice, every societal opinion because I’ve searched for answers in literature. I’ve read all the blog posts dedicated to this delicate subject. But nothing helped. Nevertheless, I know that the distance between saying “forgive” and feeling peace within oneself can be bridged in a short time. I know this.
Forgiveness is an impenetrable jungle for those who seek justice. The very idea that someone might get away unpunished for what they’ve done causes pain. We don’t want to keep our hands clean — the bloodstains of our wrongdoers don’t scare us. We want justice. We want them to feel what we felt. Pain.
Forgiving would seem like betraying oneself. We don’t want to lose the fight for justice. Hatred burns us inside and poisons our souls. We all know this, yet we still don’t want to lose control of the situation. Anger becomes part of us — in our heart, our brain, and our lungs. This feeling I know. I, too, lived these sensations when hatred coursed through my veins as fast as blood.
But we need to know that anger is an instrumental emotion. We are angry because we want justice. Because we believe this emotion will bring us benefits. Because we believe that if we get angrier, we will bring about more changes. Anger, however, doesn’t understand that the past cannot be changed and that harm has already been done. It tells us that revenge will bring things back to normal.
Being angry is like picking at a wound that bleeds, thinking that this way you won’t be left with a scar. As if the person who hurt us will one day come and heal the wound so well that no mark will remain. The truth about anger is this: it means giving up on healing. We’re afraid that when the wound scars, we’ll have to live with that mark on our soul. But we don’t want that.
When everything boils inside, forgiveness seems impossible. We would like to forgive because our mind tells us it’s the right choice. We want peace, the reconciliation that comes from forgiveness. We won’t release it. We want this storm inside us to cease, but we can’t do anything.
Because the most important thing about forgiveness has never been spoken: forgiveness changes nothing. It’s not an eraser that wipes out everything that happened. It doesn’t cancel the pain we’ve lived with and won’t bring immediate peace. The quest for inner peace is a long journey. Forgiveness is what will prevent us from “dehydrating” on the path we have to take.
Forgiveness means taking responsibility not for the destruction, but for the rebuilding. It’s a decision that will bring peace back into our soul.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean that injustice has won. It is about creating your justice, your karma, and your destiny. It is about the decision to stand up and decide not to be unhappy because of the past. Forgiveness means that our scars will not influence our future.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean giving up. It means you have decided to gather your strength and move forward.
