Forgive Those Who Hurt You- Give Yourself the Best Gift Ever

You need to forgive those who hurt you. You and I, as well as everybody else, may be different in many ways, but there is one thing that is true for all of us:

Somebody somewhere has hurt you in the past. They did you wrong and it hurt so deeply that you still feel the sting long after the fact. Maybe years and decades later.

It may have been family or a friend, your boss or a colleague, maybe even your spouse. And because of it your relationship and the dynamics between you and that person were fundamentally changed up till now.

For me, it was my mom. As a single mom raising two kids, life was never the easiest for her or for us for that matter, but things took a turn for the worse when she allowed those pressures to spill over into her relationship with us and the way she raised us.

And that happened a lot. Over a period of years, up until I was able to move out of the house, I never knew what it was like to be validated, to be seen for who I am, or to believe I was worthy of love.

Inconsistency was the only thing stable, she burst into anger in a snap, and an hour later she would be all-loving and smiling as if nothing happened. That scenario happened almost every day.

Sometimes something that made her snap one day, wouldn’t bother her at all on another occasion. Some days I was all-bad (“you’re evil”, “you’re selfish”), and other days I was all-good (“you’re so smart and caring”).

That created a lot of confusion in me and mixed messages because I never knew what to do or what to say to keep her emotionally balanced.

Imagine spending years wanting nothing more than to escape from your own home. That was me. And it finally happened; when the time came I was able to move out of the house and step out on my own into the world.

Great! But you know what didn’t happen?

Forgiving my mom.

Forgiving Those Who Hurt You Can Be HAAAAARD!

Yup, forgiveness can be complicated (read: difficult), and it doesn’t necessarily get easier to accomplish over time.

It gets particularly complicated when it comes to pain that we carry with us from childhood trauma, or in situations where the hurt came from people who were closest to us.

In my case, I carried my mother in my heart for decades, long after I had left the house. I simply couldn’t make peace with the past and forgive; she had hurt me that deeply.

You can probably relate.

Your hurt may not even be as big as your mom messing up your entire childhood. But you still find it hard to forgive those who hurt you, after all only know how greatly the matter means to you and only you know where the shoe hurts.

I can totally respect that.

The last thing you need is someone telling you what you ought to do without even acknowledging your pain.

But it would definitely help to take a look at why it is so difficult to forgive someone who hurt you.

People primarily find it impossible to forgive people for hurting them because they have the wrong idea about what forgiveness means.

You hear that you have to forgive those who hurt you, and you immediately think

• “If I forgive, that means I need to trust that person again”
• “That means I need to be in touch with that person”
• “If I forgive, that means I love him or her”
• “Forgiving that person means I justify what was done to me”
• “If I forgive, that means that I diminish what was done to me. It would be like the damage caused to me is not important.”

But the reality about forgiveness could not be farther from the truth.

Reframe Forgiveness Once and For All

Once you realize what forgiveness truly means for you, there wouldn’t be any resistance left in you stopping you from letting go and moving on from the hurtful episodes in the past.

So here’s what forgiveness is NOT:

Forgiveness has zero to do with trusting someone again. It has nothing to do with forcing you to love someone and be all chummy with them as if nothing ever happened or as if the pain caused didn’t matter.

Forgiving someone who hurt you is not about turning over a new page and improving your relationship with them.

On the contrary, forgiveness is all about you and your own welfare.

It’s about improving your own emotional system. When you forgive those who hurt you, you release yourself from the painful burden of re-experiencing the painful feelings of fear, anger, hatred, and guilt, and shame.

It’s not for the good of those who hurt you that you forgive, far from it. Instead, when you forgive you do it for the good of your mental, emotional, and physical health.

When you truly, sincerely forgive, you take back the power and control over your emotions and your life, and dismantle whatever hold that person who hurt you has over you.

And this is important, because we all know how it feels when we bear grudges against people and they come around.

Your temperature and blood pressure hit the roof, your focus goes out the window, you can’t really be present, and your day immediately goes south. Whatever good feelings you had before immediately walk right out the door, leaving you in tatters.

Imagine that.

That’s too much power for anybody to wield over you.

Forgiveness corrects the status quo by acting like a valve or an outlet. It releases the anger and negative emotions bubbling inside of you. That doesn’t mean you tacitly agree with whatever was done to you.

Instead, you get empowered to tell your story without breaking down into little pieces every time you remember it.

When you forgive those who hurt you, in one profound, conscious, and responsible decision, you take back for yourself the control over your emotional state because that is how things are meant to be. You deserve to feel good.

Pace Yourself and Forgive at the Right Time

One of the lies that you’ve been told is that you have to forgive those who hurt you and move on even when you’re not ready to.

Not only is that untrue, but it is also actually quite destructive to your mental and emotional health.

You need to process the pain and acknowledge the wrong that was done to you before taking the final step to forgive. Trying to forgive prematurely does not work. It becomes an uphill task to convince yourself that you’ve gotten over the pain.

When you forgive the right way at the right time, on the other hand, you would have allowed yourself the right and dignity to connect with your emotions.

You have allowed yourself to grieve over what was done to you, your lost childhood, to feel the pain and associated negative emotions before letting them out of your system.

Oftentimes we try to speed up natural processes because we don’t want the unpleasantness of opening up old wounds. We choose the convenient, albeit unhealthy, route of sweeping things under the rug and locking them in the basement of our souls hopefully never to see the light of day again.

But things seldom work out that way, if at all. The deep wounds of our soul refuse to heal and go away. Unless we give them the respect and attention they deserve, they continue spreading taking their poisons along with them as they course through our being.

When You Forgive Those Who Have Hurt You They Don’t Need to Know

Many of those asking you to forgive those who hurt you are doing so for the sake of the aggressor, rather than the aggrieved party.

Listen, it’s all good and fine if we could all one day hold hands and dance in a field of flowers under the Springtime sun. But it is not so up to you to make that happen that you have to forget about your own mental health to go telling people that hurt you that you have forgiven them even when you don’t want to.

Like we have already established, forgiveness is not about the other person, it’s about you. You do it for your sake.

Forgiveness unlocks you from the chains of unending anger so that peace can finally take over. It calms the turmoil within and opens your heart up to the goodness and light that wants to flow in.

It gives you a whole new vibe that is pleasant, positive, and empowering, allowing you to attract similar into your life. In other words, it aligns you with the good and perfect plan that the universe has for you so that you start receiving the positives that you deserved all along.

Forgiveness means that you have developed and matured into higher consciousness… but it doesn’t mean the other person has as well. The two are not the same.

Simply because you have achieved inner silence doesn’t mean that the other person has been on a similar journey and achieved the same. In fact, they could be worse than when they first hurt you, not having grown at all.

They could be toxic, narcissistic, and unable or unwilling to undergo any personal transformation be it spiritual, psychological, or emotional. They may simply be less self-aware and unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.

In these cases, it makes sense sometimes to avoid contacting that person and letting them know you forgive them. Doing so would be best for your internal disposition and health.

You simply are not compelled to go back to the same toxicity that left you in such bad shape earlier. Especially so soon after detox.

Forgiveness is possible if you choose to. Eva Moses Kor, may her soul rest in peace, was able to forgive the nazis. I encourage you to watch her amazing speech –

In my personal life, it was very hard for me to forgive my mother for all the pain she caused during my younger years. For years I groaned under this heavy burden, and I believed that refusing to forgive her actually protected me.

But not only did it not protect me, it actually hurt me. My mother hurt me, and I obstinately continued carrying that hurt two decades later by holding unto the grudges.

By deciding to forgive her, I set myself free.

I ceased being her victim. I am no longer bitter; neither do I feel sorry for myself. I feel stronger than ever before.

After having processed the pain for long enough I finally gave myself the gift of forgiveness. If you are ready to experience forgiveness and feel that relief, make sure to check out my mind-shifting program.

I did it for my own sake. And at the same time, I understood where she came from and her destructive upbringing.

I decided to take back my power and control and live the happy life that I deserve. A life free from past pain and hurt and regret. You do the same for yourself when you choose to forgive those who hurt you.