Forgiving Someone Else Will Not Heal You

"Forgiving others for the pain they have caused you will set you free." "Forgiving people for their toxic behavior and mistreatment is what you NEED to do for yourself, to set you free." Here are only some of the pieces of advice I received growing up about forgiveness. This advice came from adults, at school, at home, in the church. When I got old enough to make sense of those words, I understood how wrong everyone was around me.

Forgiveness is a huge factor in the healing process, but forgiving someone else isn't it. Forgive yourself for allowing a toxic person in your life is what you need to do. Forgiving yourself and putting your feelings first helps you with your healing process. Doing what feels right to you with no obligations to the other party is key. The only way to fix that pain is to heal the guilt you have in yourself for allowing someone to speak words so toxic about or to you.

Think about it. We sit in pain from childhood, but the question is, why? Even when we think we're over the pain, we get triggered by the pain all over again. Being triggered happens because we haven't healed.

An apology from the person who caused the pain will validate the emotions and feelings that we have suppressed. But why do we need an apology to validate that pain when we feel it?

Validate yourself and give yourself the love you're looking for validation in. Think about it. Forgive yourself for not knowing what to do, not knowing how to manage it, for not having the tools to find love and support. Validate the child in you who felt discarded or the inner-child who felt trapped and lost. Know that you didn't know how to fix it and that it's ok; you were a child. Even as adults, we do not always understand what's happening and why it happened. It's ok, and you're still here to learn from it and to grow.

You don't need an apology from a toxic person to heal because healing starts with you. Forgive yourself for caring. Build a support team; someone like a therapist is an important person in your support team to help ground you. Build your consciousness, hear yourself when you speak, check your judgment of the people you see and be aware of your projections on others. This consciousness would help you stop gaslighting your own emotions and feelings. Since you lack judgment, it will help you recognize your pain and intolerance. Recognizing this would allow you to be more empathic, and becoming more empathic to yourself allows you to be less judgemental to others. Which helps you see how good of a person you are. Help you understand that your feelings matter, which creates a space in yourself that makes it hard to dismiss your pain and to grow from your pain.

Understand that people want you to forgive them or someone else for their validation, which translates to inner peace. Requesting someone to accept or be available for an apology only fix their discomfort, but it's not for you to heal. Your validation is a reaction to their discomfort, which may heal them, not for you. Heal for you!

Questions to ask yourself when you're triggered and hurt by someone else's words is why do this hurt me so bad? Why am I pained from the actions of someone else? Do this open a deep wound that I never healed? What am I feeling now that I'm thinking about this pain? Is it causing me anxiety to think about the process of healing?

If you take nothing else from what I write, please take this; you're worthy of healing.