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Without True Forgiveness, Life Cannot Be Fully Experienced
Most of us know anger and emotional anguish due to traumatic experiences that have happened in our lives. These events may include sickness, the passing of a spouse or child, marital problems, or any number of different events that might eventually go on to become learning experiences if only we could process the events in a healthy manner. The last thing we are thinking about is healing and forgiving or seeking forgiveness for our participation in the event. Similar to a physical wound, an emotional wound will not close immediately. It will need time, and if the hurt is serious enough, professional help.
Our immediate response when we are hurt include attacking those around us, focusing attention on our hurts, and harboring enmity against the individual that we perceive as having wronged us. Eventually though, we reach a point when healing must come about if we are to move on with our lives. We must pass from a place of being unhealthy to a place of being healthy again. For injuries that involve others, that healing cannot fully occur until we candidly and openly forgive them. If we do not forgive, that hurt may leave a painful emotional scar, if it even closes at all.
While forgiveness is a prerequisite for absolute healing, it is not always required to confront the individual that wronged you. Sometimes it is not even preferable to interact with that person as that might in reality inflict more trauma. A possible example might be a violent criminal and their victims. Also, if you want to ask someone’s forgiveness, it may not be in that individual’s best interest for you to interact with them as facing them may actually harm them. In these situations, a neutral party like a counselor or therapist should be involved to properly lead the interactions and communications so that healing instead of destruction can come about. For less extreme situations though, if feasible and as long as it does not damage the other party, grant forgiveness and ask for it face to face.
When you do grant forgiveness to somebody, be prepared for the possibility of having to do it again. We are merely human, after all, and those emotional injuries may still be irritated and raw to the point that we discover ourselves holding resentment again and again. That is fine. While some may argue that you never genuinely forgave the other person, my experiences have taught me that oftentimes forgiveness has to be granted time and again. While the first act of forgiveness toward another may free them, we may have to forgive them again and again before we finally let go of the hurt from ourselves. We might have to act on the decision to forgive before the emotions of forgiveness flow. Irrespective of how long it takes though, what is important is that we keep forgiving.
People who do not forgive tend to become bitter, and they take that bitterness out on the people around them. They project what they have gone through onto different situations and the actions of those around them. This is neither healthy nor fair to the uninvolved party. It might likewise prove to be devastating to significant family relationships and make a person to grow isolated. Consider the victim of rape who, because of her experience, begins to believe that all men behave in a threatening manner. Those experiences she has gone through lead her to see in others the behavior that she endured. Because rape is such a deep injury, she would not only need to forgive her assailant, she would likewise require counseling and therapy to help her overcome the pain. The point is though, that before that wound can completely heal, she will need to forgive.
We all work through trauma in our lives. It is impossible to live in a world in which there is interaction with others and not be emotionally bumped, injured, and battered. Even with our best intentions, we may harm others and not even be aware of it. It may help to consider the act separate from the person. Good people sometimes do bad things. After we are bruised though, as a step of the recovery process, we need to forgive the person who injured us so that we can fully live again.
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