A Note on Forgiveness
By Jenna Starkey and Erin Goodwin
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” - Paul Boese
“Forgiveness allows us to release the past and make space for love and healing in the present.” - Tara Brach
Forgiveness is one of those well-worn phrases we see in personal development books and Instagram memes, but can sometimes feel like an expensive coat hanging in the window of a store we aren’t allowed into. We are told that forgiveness sets us free, that not forgiving only hurts us in the long run. This make sense on paper, but the practicality of it can feel challenging to wrap our heads around.
What does it mean to forgive? How do we forgive in a meaningful way? How do we it without bypassing our feelings or invalidating our experiences? Why does it matter so much?
Honestly, for me, it wasn’t until I embarked on Tara Brach’s 2-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training that I started to really get what forgiveness was all about. She helped me realize that forgiveness is essential to any healing process, and how not forgiving (ourselves or others) prevents us from feeling truly free in our lives yet connected with others. She explains how forgiveness is less about the mental work and more about softening the heart. In those moments we can begin to lessen the emotional burden and persistent suffering (of feelings like blame and regret) stored within the body and spirit. Only then can we flow with love and live the lighter lives we dream of.
Why Forgive?
Most of us have experienced relationships that have left us with painful imprints. Sometimes that pain comes from relationships from our past, and other times from present day relationships, like our relationship with ourselves or a parent or sibling. Many of us hold onto the scars of these relationships because we aren’t and weren’t given the space to express how we feel. Our experiences were invalidated or we didn’t have the capacity or tools to unravel our emotions in the moment.
When we aren’t given the space to feel and express how we feel, and there isn’t a resolution to the conflict, we carry these repressed emotions and resentment and shame around with us. Our emotions aren’t given the space they need to breathe and integrate, so our body stores them until we are ready to face them.
If we continue to repress, hold onto, or ignore our emotions, our mental and physical health suffers. Repressed or unprocessed emotions can show up as anxiety disorders or health issues that may seem unrelated, but are actually our body’s way of getting us to pay attention. What we resist persists.
Unprocessed pain and anger can also affect our relationship with ourself and others. We may project unresolved hurts onto people and situations where they don’t belong - like a well-meaning partner or even a stranger. These projections can get in the way of us forming loving, safe relationships because our pain prevents us from seeing the person in front of us without the filter of our past.
On the flip side, we may also choose people who mirror the unprocessed pain others have caused us. Our subconscious may seek corrective experiences or situations with people who remind us of our past because it feels familiar. Forgiveness allows us to unpack our stories and differentiate between the body’s knowing, and an unprocessed story that is being projected onto a situation where it doesn’t belong.
Forgiveness is:
An embodied, felt experience.
What happens when we allow ourselves to process how we feel about the situation or person we are trying to forgive without judgment or justification.
Holding others accountable for their actions, and holding ourselves accountable for our own.
Empathizing with ourselves and letting ourselves off the hook for the ways we may have behaved in the past. We didn’t have the tools or capacity to cope in different ways at the time - and when we know better we do better.
Setting boundaries with ourselves and others where appropriate, like taking space from someone who doesn’t feel safe, or creating a budget and sticking to it.
What being forgiving is not...
Something we can intellectualize or force our way into feeling.
Spiritually bypassing our emotions, or using toxic positivity to pretend we have moved on.
Something we do for someone else.
Relinquishing ourselves of responsibility for the ways we have hurt ourselves and others.
Relinquishing others of accountability for the ways they have hurt us.
A way to justify or excuse our behavior, or others behaviors.
Approving of behaviors or actions that have hurt you. For example, forgiving a partner for cheating on you does not mean you approve of them stepping out of the relationship or breaking your trust.
A permission slip for us to continue engaging with people or behaviors that are not helpful or serving us. For example, forgiving yourself for having an addiction does not mean you have permission to continue engaging with the substance/behavior you are addicted to. Also, forgiving a person who constantly criticizes you does not mean you have to continue engaging with them, particularly if they show no inclination or desire for change.
The Art of Forgiveness
There are three types of forgiveness (this is not an exhaustive list, and please feel free to mentally add any other types of forgiveness I have not added here). The type of forgiveness we use depends on the situation. In some cases, we might need to use all 3:
Forgiving Self
Forgiving Others
General Forgiveness / Acceptance of what is
The core of true, embodied forgiveness is the continued practice of feeling our feelings in a safe container, validating our experience, accepting what is and what was, letting ourselves off the hook, and practicing compassion for ourselves and anyone else involved (while maintaining boundaries where appropriate). All feelings are valid in the forgiveness process: anger, grief, confusion rage, disappointment, frustration or (fill in the blank.)
The first step in forgiveness is to make sure you are well-resourced. Being resourced means having practices, tools and a support system that can hold you as you unpack your emotions. Forgiveness can be a heavy process and can bring up emotions we have been avoiding for years. Practices like breathwork, journalling, meditation, time in nature, therapy, massage, acupuncture, swims in the ocean or warm baths can all be tools in your tool belt. If you are still in a relationship with the person you are trying to forgive, taking space from them (if you are able to) could be a form of resourcing.
It is important to have someone (even if it yourself) to validate your experiences. If you are processing emotions about a relationship where your experiences were invalidated, this step in very important.
Don’t forget to practice self-compassion. When we know better we do better, and you were doing the best you could with the resources you had in the moment.
Remember, there’s no rush
It may take months or years to fully process what we need to process, especially if we are trying to forgive people who have deeply hurt us. . Sheleana Aiyana, founder of Rising Woman, speaks in her book (Becoming the One) about how it took her 10 years of consciously doing the work to truly forgive her mother for the traumatic upbringing she had.
Forgiveness isn’t something we do once and then it’s over. Forgiveness is a practice of keeping our pain warm (as Francis Weller says), visiting and revisiting the wound when we have capacity and support, and giving ourselves breaks and time to experience joy in between. We can’t rush to the warmth of forgiveness and compassion if it doesn’t feel real or true. Dip in and out of this work and feel compassion and acceptance when it feels natural to you. Allow yourself the grace to process on your own timeline.