Forgiveness Redux

Don’t forgive too soon. Forgiveness is never a quick fix. It is a process. ~ Rev. Susan Cartmell

There is a saying that forgiveness is very freeing.

And it is.

But the caveat is that it is freeing ONLY when done at the right time and for the right reason.

If you’ve been hurt, you may be told by others to let go of your anger and forgive, you’ll feel so much better. The truth is that you can only forgive after you’ve worked through your anger and pain. If you rush to forgiveness, you may never confront the boiling hatred you sometimes feel for this person who hurt you. If you forgive too soon, you may never turn cross-eyed in rage at how poorly you were treated. If you forgive too soon you may find yourself open to be hurt again, perhaps by the same person.

Seething with anger, melting with hatred, and cursing the existence of someone who hurt you does not feel good. Because the healthy thing to do is not to ACT on these kinds of feelings, you must process through them and that doesn’t feel great.

However, these feelings are TEMPORARY and normal and natural. So long as you don’t ACT on your anger and pain, you should acknowledge these feelings, work through them, process through them and later let them go. Even later you can come to forgiveness.

At some point in the grief process you need to make a decision to move on. At some point in the letting go process, you need to make a decision to stop hating. You need to come to forgiveness. FOR YOU. Not for them. At some point it behooves you to forgive them, the best you can, to move on, for you.

Forgiveness is not all at once. Sometimes it happens in stages and other times it happens not at all but you learn to live with it.

Over the years I’ve forgiven my ex-husband for what he did to me. It doesn’t matter. As someone once told me the opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy. I know that our breakup was the best thing that ever happened to me. I know that my life is a gazillion times better with him not in it. Over the years I’ve slowly peeled the layers of resentment away and forgave him for my own inner peace. I forgave him in stages. It did not happen all at once. It happened slowly and over time. I had to forgive MYSELF for a lot of year for being unable to come to complete forgivenss. For a long time I thought it was a shortcoming of mine that I could not forgive or forgive completely…but what I found from working through a lot of past relationships is that sometimes you can forgive 10 percent, sometimes 20, sometimes 50 or 75 or even 90 percent…and the remaining percentage is what it is…you can go back later and find your percentages have changed…but forgiveness rarely happens all at once.

Over the years I have managed to forgive my ex 100 percent for what he did to me. What I haven’t forgiven him for, completely, is what he did to his children and how he treated them all these years and how he refuses to take responsibility for anything. Everything was someone else’s fault. He doesn’t get it and occasionally my anger at him flares up and I know I haven’t forgiven him completely. Perhaps I shall never. When it comes to someone hurting my children, I find it hard to forgive. But I assume that one day I will because the anger gets less and less as I start to realize how well my kids have done without him.

Forgiveness is the END of a long process and it comes when it comes. Sometimes you have to decide to forgive and it’s hard but you know it’s time. Other times you try but you know it’s not time yet. The important thing is to do it AFTER you’ve hurt and been angry and said (to your journal or therapist or friends) all the nasty things you want to say about the person who hurt you.

Forgiveness is part of the healing process but don’t rush to it. Don’t ignore it, but don’t rush to it. It will happen when it happens. And when it does, it will be a benefit to you. And you will feel the cleansing power of forgiveness and move on even more.

But if you force it or rush into it too soon, it can hold you back from real and genuine healing.

Forgive in time…when you are ready…and after the strongest emotions have been felt…then forgive with all your might and be okay with you.

Always.