What Forgiveness Really Is
The topic of forgiveness comes up quite frequently with the clients I have worked with over the years, and it is one I am sure most humans will grapple with many times throughout their lives. I grew up in the Christian church and was consistently taught an entirely different understanding of the word 'forgiveness' than what I know the experience of it to be today. I was taught forgiveness as something performed out of obligation, shamefulness, and a sense of morality. But there is a vast amount of contrast between inherited forgiveness and lived forgiveness. When we begin deconstructing our inherited ideas about forgiveness and learn to embody the wisdom available within it, a new level of freedom becomes possible.
I have been practicing yoga and meditation for over ten years now and through the subtle shifts that naturally occur when practicing, I've begun to fully embrace the truth of who I am. I've learned effort and ease, flow and resistance, acceptance and surrender, discipline and devotion. I've learned how to continually peel away the layers of identity I have built up over my life and become less of what I think I am to allow space for the unfolding to naturally occur. I've experienced what I feel is true forgiveness for others as I learn to accept and love myself more, seeing that we are all humans having our own journey through this lifetime and we are all here to better know ourselves and evolve. Through practice and awareness, forgiveness began feeling entirely differently.
Forgiveness is a concept that is often misinterpreted and misrepresented. In the Christian religion, and many others, there is a lot of shame and guilt around forgiveness because you are taught that your inherent nature is 'bad' and in need of a Holy savior to free you from the burden of this 'badness' in you. After many years of practicing yoga and embodying Eastern philosophical teachings, I have begun to align much more with the truth in our inherent goodness as humans. What resonates most with me is that we begin as loving beings, at one with Universe, Source, or God, but over time we are conditioned to forget this and begin believing the lies of the world's conditioning about who we are. We accumulate these wounds and sufferings and learn how to judge and confuse actions of ourselves and others as who we are instead of simply behaviors. When we are taught that love must be earned and goodness must be proven through behavior, we experience the world as an unending wheel of judgement – toward ourselves as well as others, expecting perfection but creating disappointment.
Children come into this world naturally embodying forms of unconditional presence that adults slowly condition out of them. They have an innate sense of curiosity, wonder, and awe for life. They seek to sense and explore the world around them in every facet. They have the ability to feel and express fully when the emotions arise. Of course, we are meant to guide and care for these dependent humans who don't know how to human yet. But we must learn to be mindful of the conditioned thoughts and beliefs we are teaching them. When we pass down our inherited ideas about earned love and forgiveness, we are missing out on the wisdom held in the mind of a child. Instead of teaching them how to gain favor and earn love, we could teach them how to understand themselves, their emotions, behaviors, and interactions with others. They know how to love and forgive effortlessly; we teach them how to judge and resent.
When we can begin to learn how to love more like this- free of expectation- we learn how to let go more freely. I've experienced a fair amount of betrayal in my life and have been guided to fully forgive others even when they have harmed me greatly. I am learning every experience and person I have had relationship with in my life, I attracted in. That’s not to say I blame myself for the betrayal I’ve encountered, but that I am aware that I’ve always had freedom of choice in the people I allow in. There are many lessons and patterns to learn how to move through and overcome, gaining wisdom and growth for the next parts of my life journey here. Today my perspective is that everyone I meet is an opportunity to get to know myself better and pursue objective awareness as to why they have shown up at any given moment in my life. Instead of asking "why did this happen to me?" I ask myself "what is this person/experience trying to teach me?" despite the pain or pleasure in the experience. I cannot gain wisdom from the experience unless I let go of the resentment of what happened to me and integrate it into who I am becoming.
We humans are very averse to discomfort of any kind, so we believe something is wrong or needs to be corrected or controlled when we do experience discomfort. Instead, we might practice sitting with discomfort daily in a variety of ways to train our bodies and minds how to let go of what the mind wants to tell us should or should not be so. Growth requires learning how to stay present with discomfort rather than immediately resisting it. In meditation, we train ourselves how to sit with the awareness of the content of the mind and allow it to fall away. Though this practice takes time and consistency, eventually we can learn to overcome the discomfort of sitting in focus. In exercise, we train our bodies how to build endurance, flexibility, and strength, even when the mind resists. In this way, we are watching ourselves expand beyond what we previously thought was possible, and become more familiar with discomfort, growth, and evolution. We learn that we are adaptable and that the mind does not have to control us. The mind is what creates the justification for resentment and unforgiveness. But if we can learn to sit with discomfort, we will notice that we become more resilient and expansive.
When we hold onto wounds or trespasses against us, we are accumulating the perceptions that we are justified in our negative emotions. We begin building a story in our minds about why it is necessary to carry these wounds, and our bodies respond as such. Through inflammation, tightness, stiffness, and dis-ease, our bodies are revealing what our minds are holding onto. Some people may notice tension in their neck or shoulders, while others may notice symptoms like anxiety in their chest or a knot in the stomach. There is no separation in the mind and body – they are one cohesive entity. With compassion, we can learn how to sit with the truth of the pain inflicted upon us by those who are not awake to their true nature, feel the emotions around it, and release the ideas and beliefs about whether it should or should not have happened to us. There are no 'shoulds' in this life - only what is.
Accepting what is and what was without trying to change anything is true freedom. This is what forgiveness really is. It is surrendering control over others, letting go of the hierarchy of 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' and simply observing without judgement. Over time, we begin noticing how deeply our inner state shapes the experiences and relationships we continue attracting into our lives. We are here to fully experience this human life in all its beauty, pain, and stillness. Forgiveness is not excusing another's behavior, but releasing what we are gripping onto that is keeping us from peace. Forgiveness is release for the mind and body and expansion for the soul. When we withhold forgiveness, we are also sending the message that we have places within us that we have not yet fully forgiven. If we cannot forgive and release other's behaviors, where are we still punishing our own?
Perhaps the question is not,
“How do I forgive the people who have hurt me?”
but:
“What am I still holding onto that is keeping me from peace?”
Relationships have a way of revealing what we cannot always see on our own. When we begin to approach these moments with awareness instead of reaction, curiosity instead of blame, the relationship itself becomes a place of growth, understanding, and transformation.
If this resonates with you and you feel drawn to explore this work more deeply, you can learn more about Relational Alchemy here: Relational Alchemy.
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