WE ALL HAVE SOMEONE we haven’t forgiven and someone who hasn’t forgiven us. Everyone struggles through forgiveness in one way or another. However, some would say is an even harder kind of forgiveness: forgiving themselves.
Forgiving yourself is the first step towards finding the freedom. When we are stuck in the past, it is hard to forgive those around us. The chains of unforgiveness are incredibly painful.
Forgiveness seems like the ultimate betrayal of yourself. When I was faced with a betrayal that damaged me to my inner core, I knew that there was no way in hell I could forgive this person. I trusted them with my heart and soul, and this person took that and stomped all over it. In my mind, if I forgave this person, I was betraying myself. I didn’t want to give up the fight for justice after what happened. But, I knew that even though justice would of felt good for a minute, it wasn’t going to solve anything.
But, I still just couldn’t let it go.
This anger I carried started to become a part of me, like an important organ that replaced my heart. Every beat of this anger started destroying my mind and body.
That’s when I realized that I had to forgive myself first, before I could forgive the person that took my life away as I knew it.
Forgiveness means giving up hope for a different past.
To me that means knowing that the past is over, that after everything is said and done, the destruction is what’s left. No amount of anger is going to reconstruct it. You have to do it yourself.
Forgiveness means accepting responsibility – not for causing the destruction, but for cleaning it up. By forgiving yourself, you restore your own peace. This newfound peace can bring on forgiveness for your destructor as well.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to make amends with who hurt you. You don’t have to be friends, sympathize with them, or validate what they have done to you. It just means that mark they left is now your burden to bear.
You forgive yourself for being done with waiting for the person who broke you to put the pieces back together again. You can heal your own wounds and move forward with scars.
Once I could forgive myself for letting go, I was able to brush myself off, get back on my feet, and decide that the rest of my life wasn’t going to be miserable because of what this person did to me.
Now, I walk bravely, with every scar left. When forgiving myself and them, I decided I wasn’t going to let what happened define myself any longer.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you are giving up your power. Forgiveness means you’re ready to take it back.
Perhaps that’s why Maya Angelou said, “It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.”
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