Forgiveness serves our souls. If you want to feel peaceful, connected, and aligned in your relationships, forgiveness is a practice worth exploring.
Forgiveness is one of the most profound and healing spiritual practices we can embark upon.
-Dr. Rachel
Forgiveness is primary and powerful element of soul-care.
What does forgiveness mean in relationships?
Forgiveness means that we are giving space for err. It’s a way to normalize and even revere that mistakes happen. Hurt happens. It’s natural. It’s how we learn and grow.
Forgiveness is an inner release of extra tension even if you’re feeling hurt. It’s a loosening of expectation.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean don’t feel hurt.
It means that even as you do, you can hold space within the experience to let go of shame and blame. That the other person who perpetrated the hurt is only suffering themselves, and can’t tune in enough to their own experience to regulate it so it doesn’t bleed over onto yours. The old adage “hurt people hurt people” is really, really true.
Holding onto any extra righteous resentment only adds salt to the wound. When we forgive someone who hurt us, we honor the hurt while simultaneously staying open to either giving them another chance, if they prove themselves capable of real repair and offer an apology indicative of continuing to build in the relationship.
Forgiveness is a way to foster repair and it can be a strong way to deepen trust and safety.
Forgiveness is way to of relating without needing to make the other person wrong for hurting you.
When there are feelings of hurt or anger, forgiveness is a way to accept the experience with recognition, kindness and care.
You can forgive and still not respect the behavior.
You can forgive and still not want to be close to the person.
You can forgive and still feel angry.
Emotions are nondual. We can feel forgiving and angry. We can be forgiving and boundaried.
Forgiveness is a way to anchor ourselves in our hearts enough to honor that intention can (and so often does) misalign with impact. Forgiveness means that you can honor clear and firm boundaries and remove yourself from a harmful experience or relationship, while simultaneously keeping your heart open to love and connection.
What doesn’t it mean to forgive?
Forgiveness doesn’t mean accept that which is unacceptable. We can forgive and still have strong boundaries.
It doesn’t mean don’t end a relationship that isn’t healthy for you. It means you can still choice to have what you want and deserve; forgiveness allows you to let go of what isn’t that so you can create the space for what is.
It means that you can let go of any righteous sense that it shouldn’t have happened, or that the other person is bad, or that harboring the anger that comes from deeply unmet needs is what is needed to protect yourself from it ever happening again.
It does not mean don’t feel pain or upset. Forgiveness doesn’t mean don’t feel angry.
Forgiveness does not mean allow into your life that which is unhealthy or unacceptable. If someone is in any way harming you, forgiveness doesn’t mean that you accept and allow this treatment.
You can still hold the other accountable, and honor your own need for justice and safety, while simultaneously taking a forgiving stance. You might forgive someone and still decide it’s best to let them go from your life.
Forgiveness towards self, others, ancestry, and systems that have contributed to any current experience of oppression are softened and soothed with the gentle offering of forgiveness.
Why should I practice forgiveness?
It provides a chance for deepened trust and repair. When we forgive we removes extra layers of suffering from the experience of the hurt. It can give way for the purity of the experience, a natural response of disappointment or fear without the muck of needing the other to change or be different than they are.
Forgiveness is an empowered stance we take for ourselves because it honors love and heart-centered living, and is an expression of what we most need to feel our most well. It’s a gift from our highest Self, offering us the healing we need to trust it’s okay to feel hurt. As adults we get to love ourselves the ways we most need.
How do I practice forgiveness?
Recognize the hurt place within and allowing it to feel fully. Close your eyes, place your hand on your heart, and breathe quite deeply into the hurt place in need of your own recognition.
Offer a gentle “What do you need, sweet girl?” Let the answer come and offer yourself that which you most need to feel seen, validated, and understood. Breathe quite deeply into that place. If tears come, let them. If your body needs to convulse, let it. If you need to yell, do that. Healing isn’t always pretty and that’s what makes it what it is.
Forgiveness is often a process that’s layered, and not very neatly. Let it be what it is.
And if you’re noticing you’re not ready to forgive, let that be there. Listen to that.
Above all, forgiveness is a spacious willingness to release that which no longer serves you. Letting go through forgiveness frees us to embody our truth with more gentleness and love. Our souls are fed and elevated when we offer forgiveness to that which has hurt us. It is a reminder that all experience is fertilizer for our growth and full spiritual embodiment. Forgiveness is the key to our expansion, nourishment, and fulfillment of desire.
What else may help:
Write letters of apology, Write back responses of forgiveness
Breathe deeply into the hurt
Cry, take hot bathes, light candles and create rituals
Practice compassion
Intentional dialogues
Take time in nature (perspective is found here)
Self-Reflect with journaling, meditation, and therapy
Try a compassionate mantra. One of my favorites: “May we be safe, May we be happy, May we be healthy, May we live with ease.”
Ask yourself,
- “What do I need to forgive myself for?”
- “How can I compassionately hold past mistakes and unconscious choices?“
- “What am I holding onto with fear, resentment, or hurt that needs my attention to be healed?”
- What do I most need from myself for soothing?
Whichever way you decide to cultivate a more forgiving stance, connect to it as often as you need to elicit the spaciousness your soul is calling for.
Consider embarking in meditation on a journey to forgive. Metta, Loving Kindness, can help elicit more compassion towards self and others.
We’re all ultimately just doing the best we can.
Forgiveness is a way to let go of stale hurt, and a reminder that humans mess up. And that that’s okay.
