How Do I Forgive the Unforgivable
Recently I came across a free documentary called “Beyond Right and Wrong”. It addresses situations of unspeakable acts that are considered by anyone to be unforgivable. Do you have someone in your life you cannot forgive yet you’re still considering to forgive the unforgivable.
The title immediately struck me because it’s how I began understanding what it means to judge someone – needing to be right where someone becomes wrong. I discovered holding this energy against someone will block your ability to forgive.
Breaking the Myths
1) Forgiveness can feel impossible because it seems like we’re allowing someone to get away with something, and not take responsibility. Forgiveness does not condone destructive behaviour.
2) Learning to forgive stops the resentment of holding a grudge, but doesn’t mean you necessarily stop feeling the hurt from the ‘wrong-doing’.
3) Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting because we remember the emotional hurts we feel in our lives, just as we remember the emotional joys.
Forgiveness moves your pain into a safe place where you can let go of blaming, and set yourself free so you can move on.
Understanding how to forgive requires that you see beyond right and wrong to a place of consciousness where we are all connected, and allows you to make the distinction between the choice someone makes from their awareness versus who someone IS. Every person is a soul with a body, and a mind with their own free will.
It’s the one right you don’t want to ever let go of: the freedom to choose what to say, think, believe, and how to act.
Some will choose unwisely in ways that won’t make sense to you, but this is their learning for their life based on their level of consciousness. We all make mistakes that reflect our level of awareness. How others choose is out of your control. When we hold a grudge, we mistakenly think we should have control over what other people choose.
What Prevents Forgiveness
The main belief that prevents forgiveness is: “it’s your fault I feel this way, and you should have ________ my right way.” We believe it so strongly that it blinds us into feeling someone “did this to me”. You give away your power, and become the victim of what someone else chose.
We are each born with a given set up capabilities, and are socialized to believe what is right and wrong. No one thinks “I am wrong” before they do anything. Some may think “this is wrong, and I don’t care”, but even these people think “I am right” in ways they will justify.
When We Believe People are Wrong
When we believe people ARE wrong, (as opposed to the choices are wrong for you), we blame them for how we feel. Our soul is whole, and when we are connected to our highest consciousness we act from pure LOVE to make loving choices.
It’s when we move away from this place towards fear, and insecurity that we can no longer see each other’s human frailty to realize we all make mistakes, but we’re only responsible for the ones we make, not the ones other people make! Those are their lessons to learn.
Whoever you need to forgive — try to see them as a child trying to find their way. Imagine them in a different world from the one you experience. Do you notice how their upbringing, understanding, and experiences have created the realities in their life?
Can you see the patterns of any fear in the form of pride, competitiveness, jealousy, judgment, unworthiness, and insecurity?
It’s difficult to see the angle of someone’s inner world to understand why they make certain choices that are not working for you.
Whatever someone has ‘done to you’ is coming from a place within them that is separate from who you know yourself to be. That’s why you are upset, perhaps feeling betrayed, and hanging onto ‘they should have..’, and ‘how could they?’
Their ‘wrongdoing’ provides a valuable contrast of who they are choosing to be in your world. They cannot see from their perspective what you are seeing from yours otherwise they would have chosen your way!
To Steps to Finding Forgive the Unforgivable
1) You are a soul that has been given free will to choose what matters, and works for you.
2) Any pain you feel belongs to you, and is coming from what you value.
3) Take 100% responsibility for how you are responding from who you know, and trust yourself to be by letting go of the lie “you did this to me”, which makes you the victim of someone else’s choices.
4) Understand that everyone chooses from the place of their own sense of ‘right and wrong’ that works for them even if it ends up hurting you.
5) You have no control over how other people choose, just as you would not want anyone to control how you choose.
6) Recognize that how anyone chooses reflects their upbringing, socialization, and experiences that you cannot ever fully see from their perspective, and why we often think “how could you think that or behave that way?”
7) If you could see what was inside their body, mind, and soul – you could probably understand, but not necessarily agree with their choices, and this allows you to shift towards compassion.
8) Look for the lesson in the pain you are feeling – what did you learn about this person? About yourself? What part of this (if any) was my responsibility where you need to forgive yourself for making a mistake?
9) Step into gratitude for this opportunity to grow yourself, and feel more connected to what matters to you.
10) Trust that something bigger is available when you can forgive that will open up something you least expect.
Conclusion
When you realize the faulty paradigm of making someone wrong – judging another person – is what blocks our ability to forgive, something inside of us shifts closer to our soul that holds unconditional love. It’s no one’s fault – everyone is doing their best (even if someone’s ‘best’ is destructive). You don’t have to agree with someone’s choices or the way they choose to think, but your anger, blame and finding fault to condemn anyone for their choices will keep you stuck.
Let go of the destructive energy you are holding against someone, and the freedom of forgiveness arrives.
Please post a comment, question, or share your experience on forgiveness below. Where are you not able to forgive?
