Forgiveness
[The song for this post is You Learn by Alanis Morissette]
Growing up I was never good at forgiveness.
I held onto my grudges and anger as hard as I held onto my teddy bears. I couldn’t let it go enough to forgive.
I wouldn’t say I was that much better at it as a young adult. Up until a year ago I’d have used the word never a lot more often than I do now.
For example, you would have heard me say more than once that I’d “never” speak to that person again. Or I could “never” forgive them for what they did. Never, never, never.
These days I don’t feel even close to the same way.
Never still exists in my vocabulary but for many different things and reasons.
I don’t feel strongly about “never” speaking to someone again. It’s quite the contrary actually. These days I feel strongly about forgiving everyone that has ever wronged me and never holding onto that anger.
Don’t get me wrong. I have not forgotten anything, but if someone I said I’d never speak to me called me tomorrow I’d speak with them. I can’t say we’d go back to being the best of friends or whatever we were back when but I’d be present, I’d be available, I’d have forgiven them.
Why?
Because life is so much more than the grudges we chose to hold onto. I’m sure I’ll have to still remind myself of that from time to time because I’m human but possibly far less often than I think.
If you think about it forgiveness in itself is a selfish act. By forgiving I don’t forget what’s happened, I don’t move forward as if nothing happened, but rather I selfishly forgive so that I don’t carry anything with me moving forward. The anger, the hate, the frustration, the whatever doesn’t carry on with me. I let it go. I let it go, for me.
I feel much better these days operating from this frame of mind. I know that I may not feel this way if life hadn’t taught me this lesson in an instant in 2019 but I’m glad it did.
I’ve forgiven myself for my lack of forgiveness and we, my past and present self, are moving forward.
[ Photo by Anastasiya Lobanovskaya from Pexels]
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