It starts with you…
By Kristina Botelho
I used to think that forgiveness required something. An apology, accountability or even a conversation with the person you need to forgive.
But what I have personally had to really digest was that you may not always get the opportunity for that… to sit across from the person who is taking accountability for something that has negatively affected you. From someone who can own how their actions may have hurt you. Life may not always give you that opportunity.
So, your left holding it all. Alone, and still bothered.
And that can feel unsettling and can be something that you carry around with you for days, if not months. This constant “need” of yours to feel validated in why you feel the way you do, and this “need” you have for that person to show up, so that you can forgive them and move on.
I am currently walking through one of the hardest financial seasons of my life, and for something that was completely out of my control. A financial decision that my daughter made that affected me in more ways than she even understands. And in addition to this, my daughter has become estranged over the past year leaving me with no resolution for a path forward.
It’s left me feeling all the emotions as you can imagine. The deep depression, the anger, the confusion, and so on…
There’s massive pain here. Real pain.
The kind that sits in your chest and doesn’t leave when the day ends. It plays out in my dreams almost every night and I wake up with the heaviness of going through another day of experiencing it.
Some days I get by, while other days, I crumble. And through this experience, I do my best to let it go for I know better. I know that allowing the same thoughts to ruminate over and over in my mind does nothing for myself moving forward.
Holding onto the pain felt like it made sense for awhile. I felt strange feeling otherwise. It’s as if the pain was protecting me because it felt justified. It felt validated. It’s comforted me in feeling my many emotions.
But what I’m learning is this:
Holding onto anger doesn’t protect you… it binds you to the very thing you’re trying to move through.
Forgiveness, in this season/situation, isn’t about saying “what happened is okay.” And it’s not about bypassing the impact, and it’s certainly not about pretending I don’t feel hurt.
It’s about releasing myself from carrying it day after day.
Because the truth is…I don’t want to build a life from resentment and certainly not towards my child, my first daughter, and my once best friend.
I don’t want my nervous system living in this constant state of defense, and I don’t want my future shaped by what broke me. I want it shaped by the experience, and how I was able to let it go… to forgive and move forward.
So, I choose forgiveness.
Not because it’s easy.
Not because it’s deserved.
But because I deserve peace.
And maybe that’s what forgiveness really is. It’s the quiet decision to stop waiting for someone else to give you the closure you need to move on.
We were created with free will, and what a beautiful gift that is. The free will to choose to either stay stuck or move forward. To TRULY move forward. The decision becomes yours and no one else’s.
There’s something so powerful and freeing in that recognition.
The pain and resentment you walk around with, affects only you. More times than not is the other person suffering from your choice to hang onto it. So, the question then becomes, “am I willing to conflict pain on myself over and over again in the way of hanging on?”
If you are choosing you, you will make the decision to forgive and move on, and that might be one of the greatest acts of self love.
Love, kb.
xoxo
