Forgiveness and Healing. What Do They Really Mean?
Forgiveness and healing, there’s been a lot written about it. But what do forgiveness and healing even mean?
Let’s take a step back to the place before you even need to forgive and heal.
What happens when someone hurts us?
Usually, we try and run from the pain. Because no-one really wants to go through emotional pain. It’s an instinctive survival thing, however, running doesn’t help us to heal.
In this life, we often don’t know how to show ourselves love. So when someone hurts us, we go numb. Maybe you shrink or even lash out at the pain.
That’s what we do as humans, we lash out at the one that caused the pain with words such as “I’m never going to forgive you for doing this to me” or maybe asking the question “how could you do this to me?”.
Both very natural and very human responses!
Did you know that they are actually your ego trying to propel your pain onto them? Or that you’re trying to reject what has happened to avoid that pain?
It’s incredibly rare to offer forgiveness as soon as we’ve been hurt. In fact, if you did that some may wonder if you’re just suppressing the pain that you’re going through.
However, if you’re still not able to forgive years down the track then what that hurt and anger has turned into is resentment.
Know what resentment is?
It’s you telling yourself that you’re good and the other person is bad, which in turn is turning yourself into a victim.
It can sometimes get to the point where people enjoy being the victim and don’t want to forgive nor do they want to heal.
Forgiveness is something that you need to do so that you can let that hurt go and start the healing process.
Is it easy? Hell no!
Like everyone I’ve dealt with plenty of hurts in my life and what I usually did was pick myself up, brush myself off and felt a little snipped of my self-esteem disintegrate.
And then something major happened.
I had my heart broken into a thousand pieces. Shattered. I went numb, totally numb that’s how I dealt with the hurt.
But this time, I wanted a different outcome. There was nothing left of my self-esteem.
So, I had to do things differently.
I admitted that I needed help so I went and saw a psychologist.
I read and devoured and read some more.
I changed the way that I thought about others and the way that I thought about me.
I went to the depths of my soul and started healing myself from my childhood right up to the point of where I was.
That took three years!
Three years of forgiving others but most importantly forgiving myself.
And that’s finally when I started to heal.
Here’s a few things that you need to remember about forgiveness and healing.
- You need to want to forgive – if you don’t really want to, then no amount of words is going to make the forgiveness nor the healing happen. You may want to ask yourself why you don’t want to forgive. Maybe you want to be the victim, maybe you feel you deserve to feel the pain.
- You need to remember that most people are doing the best that they can with what they have. If someone intentionally hurts you, it’s more than likely that they’re going through pain themselves. Doesn’t make it right, but if you look at things with a different perspective, then you’ll not take that hurt personally.
- The only person and thing you have control over in this world, is you. It all begins and ends with you. Forgiveness and healing is all within your control, not anyone else’s.
- Once you’ve forgiven you need to let the issue, the hurt go, and that can be bloody hard! But that’s all part of the healing process. You can’t dwell on it and keep going back to it.
- You don’t need someone to say that they’re sorry to forgive them.
You need to remember this: Forgiveness and Healing are a process.
You’re going to think that you’re all good to go, that you’ve forgiven and you’re healed and then something happens and those emotions swamp you again.
You’re not thrown back to square one because you’ve started the healing process so you’ll be able to work through things easier and better.
Don’t beat yourself up.
I realised that when I could think of the situation that caused me such pain and not feel anything, I was done.
I’d forgiven and healed, and by doing that, I was a better and stronger person than before.
Katrina-Jane