What is forgiveness? It can be a tough one for many to grasp and not an easy one to live.
I believe that many of us confuse forgiveness with acceptance. To me, they are two very different things. When we forgive someone we are NOT accepting a particular behaviour or attitude of theirs and saying that it is okay, what we are instead doing is giving permission to love ourselves enough to move on and continue our own lives in a healthy and positive way, to not let this person continue to hurt us by past deeds, to not allow their words or actions to control our future decisions.
Holding onto the hurt that others cause, only hurts ourselves, believe me, the majority of time they don’t give a crap that they have hurt you, and by holding on to that hurt, you are allowing them to continue to hurt you. When we realise this and then detach ourselves from the emotion we can clearly decide who should be in our lives and who we should let go of.
It’s all about detachment and that isn’t easy, no-one is saying it is, it is an incredibly difficult lesson to learn but one that when we have learnt it – provides us with so much freedom to get out and enjoy our lives instead of allowing someone else’s behaviour dictate how we live.