I always struggled with what it truly meant to forgive a person. I only realized that this was a struggle when my way of forgiving was causing me more pain than the person inflicting the wound. 

Let me explain. 

I would forgive a person and continue the relationship, only to have them do something else that was shady and end up forgiving them all over again. I’m sure you can understand why this wasn’t working out for me whatsoever! I literally thought this was the way to forgive a person. I was raised to see it this way. Make no mistake, the way I demonstrated forgiveness is similar to its true meaning, but there was more I needed to learn that went into the act of forgiveness in order to prevent me from recreating a toxic cycle. 

I came to a point in my life where I was emotionally exhausted from forgiving certain people time and time again. It was clear that I needed to make sense of what I was doing. Why was I hanging out with people who thought I was a revolving door to constantly be misused and/or mistreated? I knew I wasn’t a fool, but my way of forgiveness had me feeling very foolish. 

Before change comes awareness, and I was well aware that I didn’t want to feel this way after forgiving a person. So, I had to make changes which propelled me to meditate on the concept of forgiveness. I listened to different speeches on forgiveness, and from there I was able to discover what I wanted, and what I needed forgiveness to look like in my life moving forward. 

Let me share my discovery.

I learned that forgiveness is for myself (we’ve all heard this before I’m sure) and I realized that it’s also for the other person. It liberates me from the negative encounter with the person, and it also alleviates them from shame and guilt. I also realized that while I can forgive a person, letting them back into my life isn’t an automatic result of that forgiveness; just because I forgive someone, doesn’t make them my friend or someone I need to have in my life. 

The relationship moving forward after that trust has been broken can only be reinstated if the person who demonstrated the shitty behaviour takes full ownership, and understands what he/she has done. The reason being that if a person can’t understand how their behaviour caused pain to another person, then they’ll be more likely to do it again. While forgiveness is a must to begin healing, the relationship isn’t necessarily a must to continue the healing process!  

Listen…I’m nothing close to perfect, nor do I want to be, nor will I ever be, and so I don’t expect perfection from others. However, in order for any relationship to recover after it has been compromised, I know for sure that ownership is extremely important –period. 

What I know now… is that pride and shame plays such a big role in the things we refuse to take ownership of, and this leads to the damaging of our relationships. If we can just remember that we’re not perfect, then pride and shame will disappear when it time to own our shit. Granted, sometimes even when we do take ownership, it may still ruin the relationship, but at least we’ll leave with integrity. I learned a long time ago that the outcome turns out better when we speak the truth, even if you’re not proud of your behavior, at least you’ll be free from carrying the shame. 

Speak your truth and set yourself free (I said this to an old friend a long time), it works!

From my journey to yours.

K.G  

Credit of photo to: sabrinafvholder from nappy.co