Today, I received a note from a friend who, several years ago, suffered terribly because of the actions and incompetence of another person. He said, “I could never forgive him,” but his wife is encouraging him to let it go and move on.
That’s what forgiveness is really about — moving on. When you hold onto a past wrong and spend time in resentment, it keeps you anchored to the past suffering, re-living it in your mind over and over. It prevents or waters down your happiness, because it is always simmering.
Forgiveness is NOT about forgetting. You cannot forget, it happened, that other person did what they did. But forgiveness is not about the other person — it is about YOU. When you carry resentment about a past event, it is like taking the poison and hoping the other person dies. Resentment eats away at YOU, and has no impact on the other person.
The gift of Forgiveness is that it allows you to let go of the resentment and the hold that it has on you. It is about saying something like, “It happened, it is past. I let go of the hold <that event> has on me — I declare that from this day forward, it will no longer weigh on me or cloud my experience of life. I declare myself free of it and of them.”
Spit out the poison of resentment — and take the antidote of forgiveness.
After my divorce, a friend sent me a saying about forgiveness that says it’s allowing yourself to
turn sideways so you can move forward through the crowd. That picture appealed to me, as well
as the understanding that it’s not forgetting, it’s letting go and often forgiving myself of what
happened. And yes, I’ve hunted online for that quote,haven’t found it yet.