What is Forgivness? ; A Strong Emotion For Many Of Us To Handle
April 24, 2025•531 words
Forgiveness, as I’ve come to understand, is not a singular act, but a series of silent conversations with ourselves. It is reliving the pain, not to dwell in it, but to understand its roots. It is choosing, day by day, to loosen the grip that memory holds around our hearts. But that choice does not come easy. In fact, it rarely comes without a battle — a war between the desire for peace and the instinct for protection.
We are often told that forgiveness is strength, that it shows maturity, and maybe that’s true. But we’re not always taught that forgiveness is also grief — grieving the version of a person we once believed in, grieving the version of ourselves that felt safe in their presence. It is mourning what we thought would be, and learning to accept what is. It is shedding expectations and sitting with the bitter truth: sometimes people will never be who we needed them to be.
Still, we ask: how do we begin?
We begin with honesty — not for others, but for ourselves. To say, yes, I am hurt. To admit that something within us broke, even if the world kept spinning. Forgiveness starts with that simple, quiet truth. It is not weakness to feel. In fact, it is one of the most courageous things we can do — to face the hurt we buried and give it a name.
Many times, we bottle it up. We wear smiles as masks. We laugh while our hearts ache. Not because we are liars, but because it feels safer. Vulnerability, after all, is not always welcomed in a world that expects resilience without asking what that resilience has cost.
And the cost is heavy.
It weighs in our silence. It echoes in the way we distance ourselves from those who try to get close. It bleeds into our self-perception, telling us that maybe we’re the problem. That maybe if we were stronger, we wouldn’t still feel this. But emotions do not work that way. They are not items to be discarded or silenced. They demand to be acknowledged — not judged.
So we return, again and again, to the same truth: to forgive others, we must first understand ourselves. Our boundaries. Our triggers. Our needs. Only then can we begin to release the hold that pain has over us. Only then can we begin to separate the wound from the identity — to say, this hurt me, but this is not who I am.
Forgiveness, then, becomes an act of liberation.
Not for them.
For us.
Because no matter how much we wish they could understand — they won’t. And it is not our job to make them. Healing is not found in their apology, or their realization. It is found in our decision to no longer carry what was never ours to bear.
As I once heard, and will never forget — when a snake bites you, you do not waste time chasing it. You focus on the wound, before the venom consumes you.
That is forgiveness. Not letting them get away with it — but letting ourselves walk away from it.
And that… is enough.