Forgiveness Is For Everyone, Including The Person That Hurt You
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Will you ever have a healthy relationship?
Being hurt and betrayed in past relationships can make it difficult to move beyond the pain in order to begin a new, healthy partnership. The key to processing pain is to refuse to remain a victim, and instead to become a survivor.
Luckily, there’s one key way to do this: forgiveness.
Forgiveness is giving. It’s letting go of anger and resentment and dissolving any desire for revenge or payback. It’s a release and a relief—but it’s not a memory eraser, nor should it be. “Forgive and forget” is actually an unhealthy attitude, because it’s impossible to forget trauma or betrayal, nor should we try. “Forgetting” in this way is merely burying things rather than healing from them.
Forgiveness is about the release: the release of toxic attachment to a situation or person, the release of having to dwell on what the person said or did, the release to create the space to focus on ourselves—on our own God-given strengths and talents, healthy hobbies, and pursuits, and the development of close ties with supportive friends and family.
Why forgive?
Robert D. Enright is one of the leading psychologists in the field of forgiveness. In his book The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love he speaks of the necessity of forgiveness and the dangers of harboring resentment by refusing to forgive.
When we’ve been betrayed, heartbroken, and lied to, we naturally recognize either that a love we once had has been taken from us, or that it never truly existed in the way we thought it had.
That hurts. A lot.
After the shock has begun to wear off, feelings of resentment may naturally follow.
Dr. Enright describes resentment as something that “sits down in our hearts, takes off its stinky shoes, and makes itself too much at home. After a while, we do not know how to ask it to leave.” It causes us to obsess over negative situations and possibilities and keeps us tied to those who have hurt us in unhealthy ways.
Resentment tends to spill over onto additional areas of our lives, spreading its toxicity into our healthy relationships. We become irritable, impatient, and angry—or exhausted, depressed, and anxious.
This creates a ripple effect of isolation and disconnection from others, which makes it difficult to trust anyone, not just the one who actually betrayed us. When love is broken by betrayal, it has a tendency of breaking everything else, like a terrible tornado directly inside the home.
The cure is forgiveness.
We have to open ourselves to forgiveness, which is the path of love that will show us how to trust again.
At this point, many people feel stuck. They want to forgive past pain, but they still feel resentful and angry with their ex. They’re not sure how to move forward, even though they know a new relationship will be impossible until they do.
The way forward is to recognize those feelings. Embrace them. Love them, even. They’re valid.
Anger isn’t a bad thing.
In fact, it can be healthy—as long as it’s admitted and processed. A target's betrayal tends to deny anger, believing they’re hurt and heartbroken (which they are) but not necessarily angry (which they most often are, and rightfully so). We need to admit this. It’s good, as long as it’s kept in a healthy balance.
Anger is part of the glorious scenery on the path to healing. The Catechism of the Catholic Church mentions anger as one of the “passions” which “are natural components of the human psyche … Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action; evil in the opposite case” (CCC 1764, 1768).
What is the role of anger in forgiveness? How do we use this emotion to propel us toward self-growth while avoiding the fatal trap of falling into toxic resentment?
It’s all about obsession.
Those who feel toxic resentment obsess over past hurts and luxuriate in being a victim. Those who wish to heal acknowledge their anger, face it, and make the conscious choice to release all need for retaliation through the power of forgiveness.
Lastly, it’s important to remember that forgiveness and reconciliation two are completely separate issues, and to confuse them would be detrimental and damaging.
Forgiveness also doesn’t mean toleration of harmful behavior. What forgiveness does do is free us completely from the hurt of past relationships, giving us the opportunity to heal and finally move forward.
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