While catching up over coffee one day, my long time friend shared how her first love had betrayed her and how that experience had completely shattered her young self. Today, she told me, she is happily married to a wonderful man and lives in a beautiful home full of love and laughter. We joked about how her ex having left her was the best thing that ever happened to her. She said she had never been happier in her life yet she will carry the pain and hurt of her lost love to her grave. She will not be able to forgive him ever.
It made me think, what keeps us stuck in pain, shackled to past hurts? Why is it so hard to forgive?
From a young age, we are taught to forgive people because it’s “the right and noble thing to do.” We have heard things like forgive and forget, take the high road, to err is human and to forgive divine. While there is merit in each of these statements and we do want to forgive, I think the biggest reason we find it so difficult to forgive is that most of us don’t understand what forgiveness really means.
Forgiveness is a choice we make, a choice to love, accept and honor ourselves.