We cannot live happy lives unless we forgive. That includes forgiving yourself. We cannot judge our past selves with today’s expanded perspective.
Ask yourself who haven’t I forgiven? Someone will spring to mind. Then ask yourself, “can I forgive them?” It might be neighbors, family members, friends, colleagues, absolutely anyone. If there are people you haven’t forgiven, then you must forgive them to lead a happy life.
Forgiveness is releasing the energy you have trapped inside of you, allowing positive energy to replace it. Forgiveness is extremely cathartic. Holding anger or any negative emotion about someone is like setting yourself on fire & hoping the other person will die of smoke inhalation!! Forgiveness is liberating – to let go of the negative emotion you have been harboring.
Forgiveness is defined by psychologists as an internal process that frees us personally and is not specifically intended for those who have done us harm. The person who hurt us may never even know that we have forgiven them. And he probably doesn’t even deserve forgiveness. But the very act of forgiveness will contribute to our inner peace and that is what is most important.
What happens if someone close to us has hurt us – a family member, a friend, someone we spend a lot of time with every day and will continue to hang out with that person or live in the same house?
What psychology advises is that if we have truly forgiven that person, we should not return to that unpleasant event, we should not ‚‚torture‚‚ and constantly remind him of his mistake, nor should we use our forgiveness as a hidden weapon so that we can ‚‚charge“ something from that person‚‚ later, or blackmail them into doing something because they are ‚‚guilty‚‚ for our suffering. In that case, it’s not true forgiveness – it’s revenge we’re waiting to serve cold.
And revenge in practice only means new conflict situations with a certain person. Another question that arises is: how long do we want to ‚‚punish‚‚ a person who, for example, hurt our feelings? Before we forgive him / her… Or if we forgive him / her at all… And how will we feel in that situation? Is it pleasant to live that way? In a daily conflict and full of negative emotions?
As we can see, forgiveness has many benefits for both parties. We can’t change the past anyway. What happened – happened. It is desirable at some point to free yourself from the burden of the past, especially if something unpleasant happened in that past. And focus on ourrself, our health, the future – bearing in mind the lessons learned and taking care not to repeat the same mistakes (for example, not to give your trust to the same person again, to be more careful, etc.).
But what happens when we ourselves need forgiveness? And that is often the case… Forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we have made is perhaps the most important step towards progress. The same rule applies here – that we cannot change the past. We did the best we could in the given situation, we acted in accordance with the knowledge, experience, and maturity of our personality at the time. And yes, today we would do better and differently. And that’s life – most people make mistakes, mature, grow up, become wiser with time.
Forgive yourself and make the best of a negative experience. Let it be a lesson for your future behavior. Forgive yourself and start breathing fully and working on yourself and your goals at full capacity – guilt free.
