Art of Forgiving

Recently, I realized how much energy I was putting into hating or being angry with people who have wronged me in the past, even though those things or people didn't directly affect my life anymore, but I had gotten obsessed with the idea of being angry with them, because I was holding onto it so tight.

This happens to so many of us, we spend years hating a person, who is no longer connected to our life, but we continue doing so just because we've been doing it for so long, and that is the main reason for all the unhealthy cluttering of our minds.

I'll call myself a practical person, but when it came to letting go or moving on from something, I struggled a lot. But then I thought that those people are probably leading their lives well, I probably don't even cross their minds every day or worse, they don't even realize that they've wronged me. For a long time, I hoped that karma will somehow come around and make them learn that they did wrong to me, but unfortunately nothing happened, except my obsession over hate kept increasing. Now just to be clear, by obsessed I don't mean planning to do evil things to them or killing them in my mind, but I just didn't like the idea of having them around me, because I kept thinking about all the wrongdoings.

· Don’t hurry

Forgiveness should be a blissful gift and not an ugly obligation. It is one of the biggest things people can give anyone, so if something is that important, a person should take their own time to give it.

You may seem like a smaller person to not forgive someone after they have apologized a lot, but you need to understand that if someone has hurt you, it is their choice to apologize and you are NOT liable to forgive immediately.

Also, avoid said “it’s okay” after someone apologized to you, simply say “I accept your apology” and then take your own time to process everything and forgive them only when you really feel you can.

 

· Change your story

We often end up victimizing ourselves in the whole situation because we’ve been hurt but when you think about it deeply, it is only affecting you at the end of the day. So change your outlook about the whole situation, now again this doesn’t mean you forgive them, but start looking at things from a different perspective. You think that somebody ruined your life by hurting you but in reality, someone hurt you, and you didn’t take it well and let the incident ruin your life. Learn from the incident and think about how you can save yourself from the hurt next time. By accepting that you let the situation and hurt overpower you, you no longer victimize yourself and give yourself the room to grow.

 

· It’s about you

You have the choice of whether you want to tell the person who hurt you about your feelings or not. You might receive a heartfelt apology in return or you might not. You might have a better relationship with that person in the future or you might now. Regardless of any of that, the choice of forgiveness is and should entirely be yours. So don’t give in to forgiving someone if you aren’t ready to do so.

 

·  Have realistic expectations

Apology or forgiveness won’t necessarily give you the peace of mind you expected. Forgiveness won’t erase all your pain. After processing the whole incident, you may come to forgive a person, but that is not going to erase the pain you went through.

The process of forgiving is an evolution, not a one-time process, so everything will take time and everything will happen in baby steps, so don’t lose patience.

 

· Letting go

Forgiveness is a slow process but one must also know when to let go. Now that you’ve obsessed over hating or being angry at that person, you cannot let it continue at the risk of your own mental health.

They may be guilty or they maybe not, but you need to understand that you cannot continue being angry at them until they realize, because that may never even happen.

Forgive them. Not for them. For yourself. Move on. Know that life has better things in store for you. Know that forgiving them won’t make you a smaller person. You don’t even have to tell them that you’ve forgiven them, you don’t even need to take them back in your life if you don’t want to, but don’t carry the grudges on your shoulders, waiting for the unexpected to happy. Once you’ve done your process of healing from the hurt, move on.