The True Power of Forgiveness and why You've Never Felt It

The True Power of Forgiveness, and why You've Never Felt It

I dedicate this…post to Charlee. 

I was thinking of making this a book but I can't really think of anything to add to this. 

Introduction

I am writing this book to help others with very big hearts. Who feel the pain and emotions of others, and habitually put other's needs before their own. 

If that sounds like you, keep reading, I won't have to explain a bunch of bullshit. If you don't get it, see ya later. 

You think you already forgive everyone. Because it feels like it. Somebody slaps you, and you've already forgiven. You already know you could hurt them back, perhaps very badly- and you're not wrong. They do deserve it. 

But after you hurt them, probably far worse than they hurt you (because an attacker needs to be taught a lesson- they are, by far, worse than someone defending themselves. You know this), you know you're going to feel bad afterward.

You know the attacker will cry, and ask for sympathy. Onlookers will probably give it to them, but perhaps give none to you. You know the drill. You know even though you shouldn't, you know you'll forgive anyway. 

So why not just cut the middle step out and forgive immediately, right?

You're not stupid. 

You're not naive.

You just don't see the point in participating in dumb things. 

But over time, your soul will be destroyed. Especially since “no one” knows why you're acting this way. 

Most people around you just won't be like you. Maybe people like us are just born far apart from each other. I don't know how or why. 

But here you are, forgiving everyone and everything reflexively. And instead of appreciating that, people actually like you less. They see it as a weakness.

They tell you their theories about you. Good, bad, weird as fuck. 

Over time, everything just seems hopeless. 

Because not standing up for yourself starts to weigh on you. Over the years. You forget who you are. You start to think, well shit, I guess I am weak.

Forgiving everyone for everything means you're strong, beyond most people's comprehension. 

Never forget that. 

Maybe only a small few will appreciate that. It might feel like no one even sees that in you. 

You might even resent yourself over time for it. Thinking of all the horrible things that have been done to you. 

“If only I had stood up for myself… XYZ wouldn't have happened.”

People will project all sorts of shit on you, as you hold back your anger. Because being instinctively committed to forgiveness, for years, you'll forget that's what you're even doing. Trying to protect yourself and others from what you could do, maybe even what you should do. 

It doesn't help that no one sees it that way. 

After a while, you can't help but hate yourself. Not fully. But you feel somehow incredibly disconnected from you. Almost like a stranger in your own body. 

Do I hate myself? Do I not love myself, like they say? Do I have low self esteem, like they say? Well, how do I raise it? What the hell do I do?

I had to learn the hard way that reflexive forgiveness is worthless if you forget who you are. 

It encompasses so much more than forgive or don't forgive. It encompasses so much more than what anyone's told you, because you're different, and they didn't know how to help you. 

So, forgive them for that. They didn't know. 

Maybe they did. Forgive them anyway. 

I had to learn to stop self abandoning first. I had to learn how to stand up for myself first. 

And with all the pent up pain and hurt from all the prior years, and totally forgetting that at my core my reflexive forgiveness was coming from a good place originally- standing up for myself came with rage. 

A rage from an incredibly powerful and totally justified fear, knowing what happens if I abandon myself, ever again. 

But learning to stand up for myself- remembering who I am, who we all are- that was just part of the remembering.

Every child stands up for themselves. Literally and figuratively. That's who we are. 

When we lose ourselves, forgiveness has no meaning. It has no weight. It actually doesn't help anyone. Not you. Not the other person. No one. 

What Made me Change

What made me change and actually make my forgiveness matter was being so wronged that I couldn't deny it– that was step 1– please understand this was a process, and that part, by itself, has happened a million times before, and it did nothing, so continue to read. 

I then actually needed people to tell me- hey, that was super messed up what that person did to you. They did it on purpose. Stop not feeling that. 

So for one of the first times ever. At 36 years old. I admitted they were right, that person was actually messed up to me.

That person did really hurt me, and it hurt. And they appear to be messing with me. 

So I said what was on my mind to the person. I finally allowed myself to be angry. 

It was like a whole new world of possibilities opened up.

Even the positive social support from people afterwards helped. 

It was like, “Good job. You felt your feelings and expressed yourself. Yes, the other person didn't like it. But it's better than endlessly hoping they'll understand you if you just keep being nice.”

But then what happened?

Well. I kept doing that. 

I kept calling out bullshit. 

Which was good. I think. 

A lot of bridges got burned, but it was like, the fuck. Why are people being dicks to me in the first place?

You'll find that when you– you— stand up for yourself- these people get so much more angry with you then they do other people. Usually other people are doing so much worse. 

It makes no sense. 

The human body likes homeostasis.

People are the same with their relationships. 

In a cruel twist of fate, you, the overly nice person, have to deal with their emotional baggage as they appear flabbergasted that you “dare oppose them.” 

All those nice words about how you're so sweet, so kind, perfect, “never change”– they don't seem very fucking genuine anymore, do they?

Forgive them. 

To them, you're just like… a big loveable, fairly stupid dog. 

And can you blame them?

Unfortunately, you kinda can't. 

Because evidently you're so unique, there isn't like, a diagnosis for your problem. 

Because your “problem” doesn't really create problems for anyone else (not for a very long time, anyway). 

It's only a problem if it's fucking with other people's shit.

But you'll find the people who you allow closest to you- they know something’s off.

You know something’s off, but you've accepted that as normal after however many years, maybe even decades. It just all feels normal. 

You know you're a good person. Then why doesn't anyone seem to like you?

You know you're a good person. So why do you feel so shitty?

And why do all the things they recommend not really do shit?

Because you can't truly forgive if you don't remember how powerful you are. 

You can't really forgive, without knowing you could kill somebody for fucking with you. 

A forgiving heart is a strong heart. 

A strong heart is the kind that actually follows through with what it says. 

A strong hearted man or woman kills in defense of his or her family, no questions asked. 

A strong heart loves hard. A strong heart protects what it loves. 

So you may have somehow been brainwashed in forgetting half of what your strong heart even is. 

Because of bad teaching, not being raised, brainwashing about “being good,” there's a million reasons. 

Forgive everyone for however they may have misled you. 

The advice might have been great advice. 

But that core part of you- that unexpressed anger. The anger you may have been shamed to ever even feel. Your soul knows you aren't wrong for the anger. But that emotion is demonized by most people around you. 

Because no one likes angry assholes.

But they're not talking about you. 

You are tasked with some of the hardest realities anyone could be forced to accept. 

Anger is bad, but you have so many legitimate reasons to be angry, and since anger is bad, you never stood up for yourself. No human soul should ever be neglected like that. Abandoned like that. And that’s the worst part- that was you abandoning you, and not even knowing it.

So since you subconsciously were abandoning you- people can feel that- they act accordingly. 

It fuckin’ sucks, there's no other way to put it.  

The people you seek advice from are not like you. 

When they feel anger, they do stupid shit. 

They're terrified of themselves. 

But you'll watch them express anger at the drop of a hat. While telling you not to get angry. 

It's complete madness. 

Your real power comes from knowing they're wrong, knowing they hurt you, knowing they should know better and maybe do, and knowing you could humiliate them fairly easily. Knowing you could. 

And you're gonna have to do that sometimes, in the moment. You have to immediately hit back, in the moment, sometimes. Whatever it takes to de-escalate.

But until you're “you” again– the reflexive forgiveness is nothing. Because of the amount of “you” you've buried and forgotten over the years, even the person accepting your forgiveness will feel something is off. 

So again, who benefits?

No one. 

But I didn't make this switch in an instant. Not from one practice, one methodology, one teacher, one school of thought, one experience.

It took… a village, to be honest. 

It took a lot. 

It took things no one has ever talked about. That I've heard anyway.  

And I forgive everyone for not talking about these things. They probably didn't know. 

You go from this “safe place” of always being “good,” to a dangerous place. Now, you have to actually think on your feet. You have to be willing to be as angry as the threat requires, but not enough to lose yourself to that anger.

I'm using the word anger because it's going to feel like anger, to you. Standing up for yourself is going to feel like being consumed by rage, to you, especially at first. It might even look like that to anyone watching. 

Unfortunately, there just isn't another way. 

How else are you going to learn?

You learn that reflexive forgiveness is seen as lying by others. You can't really see this, especially if you've been lost for so long. 

So once you learn to stand up for yourself, it's like, holy shit. I can do this? I didn't know this was allowed. 

More and more, you'll realize how the words of others don't matter at all. You'll realize no matter how good you are, even the person you've shown the most love to, might accuse you of the most disgusting things. 

You'll have moments of horrific realization. Like, why have I been trying to be good this whole time? What has my entire life been for?

It's a sick thing. Deep down you're afraid or ashamed of your own anger- you're legitimately a good person- but that fear is there. And somehow, people feel that fear. So they wonder, well, what's he scared of? Should I be scared? 

After you show anger a few times to some people who really deserve it. You won't be afraid anymore. You'll realize this is literally what everyone else on Earth does, without thinking. 

But something happened with me. I wouldn't stop being what I felt was authentic.

So I kept looping over and over the wrongs people had done to me, a few family members and exes in particular, because it just seemed so unfair. 

Hardly anyone would say anything. 

I reasoned, if this was it, what am I even doing here?

I had no sadness. No indifference, at all. It was out of love that I decided I had to leave. Because I felt my anger rising more and more. I sort of knew I (probably) wouldn't snap on anyone. But I felt so violated by the indifference of others. 

In that way, my “authenticity” was working against me. 

I tried to channel my rage into various things. But carrying around that rage. I could hardly move. I could hardly think. I felt like I had serious brain damage. 

I'd never felt so helpless in my life. 

For a time, I tried just embracing it. Accepting that this was just my fate. 

That led to my calm decision to attempt to leave. Which I failed. 

And somehow after that, I was able to try forgiveness again.

And I said it outloud. I wrote it in my journal. I felt different, in my body. 

There's too many people to potentially be mad at. Too much confusion. Too much. I can't even think straight when thinking about it. 

So I forgave everything. And everyone. 

I used to hear forgiveness is really to benefit yourself. So I reasoned okay well then why bother. It's like a shortcut to feel good. “Yeah I forgive, phew, I'm all better.”

But now that I actually know I'm really willing to do… anything, to stand on my beliefs. Now that I know I really could do some actual damage. Now that I remembered I'm not to be fucked with. 

Now, forgiveness actually means something. 

To feel the full hurt of what others have inflicted on you. And to truly be able to say, “Hey, it's okay, I forgive you.”

Even with no apology.

I can finally think other thoughts and feel other things. 

I can finally move again. 

And that's what I need more than anything. 

To be able to move, to flow, to be like water. 

So it wasn't pure rage and it wasn't pure forgiveness. It took a lot to revitalize a lot of dead parts within me. 

It took a lot. 

And it's an ongoing process. I already know, this forgiveness shit isn't over. But maybe it's like anything else, like a muscle. Like a new habit. It's gotta be. 

True actual forgiveness takes real strength. 

It is not for the faint of heart. 

Different Advice Works at Different Stages for Different People

I've listened to just about everybody. On just about everything. 

When I would learn about different schools of thought, I would be hit with bizarre criticisms that had nothing to do with me, or what I was saying. 

I realized people were projecting their own meaning onto me, based on the “group” it “looked” like I was a part of. 

That's dumb as fuck. 

I never really “fit in” anywhere for this reason. I used to see it as a curse, but I sort of think. None of us are supposed to fit in. Maybe. I won't go that far, actually. I see people happy as part of different groups.

If none of us fit into a group. Then we're all just a part of the one group. One family, one people. 

But hey. That's probably just for me and the drifters. Maybe. The wanderers. I guess. 

These paragraphs have nothing to do with what I wanted to say. 

You don't tell a caterpillar to spread it’s wings and fly. It doesn't fuckin’ have wings. 

But “spread your wings and fly” could still be great advice. Just not for you, at this current time, because you don't have wings. Because you're a caterpillar.

But humans don't have these visual indicators like that. 

But that's how I feel. About everything. My dad, or this person, or this group, might say this or that. And I'll try some of this or that, and I’d get pissed. Like, I did what the fuck they said, and nothing cool happened. 

But I've found that same advice sorta kicked in a few months later. It made sense for where I was. 

I wish everything I've learned could be recorded and used for others. There's just so much to talk about. I really feel like there's a lot of useful information.