Forgiveness

This is a really hard one to do. Forgiving someone for their actions or their words can be one of the most difficult things we do in our lives. It asks us to soften when everything in us wants to stay guarded. It asks us to release pain that once felt justified. It asks us to trust that letting go will not erase what happened, but will change how it lives inside us.

When you feel you have been wronged by another, it can bring some comfort to hold on to it. Anger can feel protective. Resentment can feel like strength. It can feel like proof that what happened mattered. That you mattered. But in the long run, these feelings do not protect us. They weigh us down. They sit quietly in our bodies and minds, shaping how we see ourselves and the world. There is the saying, paraphrased, that holding on to a grudge is like trying to poison another person while drinking the poison yourself. No matter how justified the hurt is, we are the ones who suffer most when we carry it for too long.

Forgiveness isn’t always about the other person. You don’t have to confront them. You don’t have to reopen old wounds. You don’t even have to let them know you have forgiven them. Sometimes forgiveness is a private, internal decision. A moment where you choose peace over bitterness. Where you choose your own healing over replaying the past. It is about releasing the hatred, the resentment, and the constant mental revisiting of what went wrong. Holding on only hurts you in the end, even when the pain feels deserved.

I can admit that there are people in my life that I have been angry at for years. People whose words cut deeply. People whose actions changed me. For a long time, I believed that staying angry meant I was standing up for myself. That letting go meant minimising what happened. But over time, I learned that forgiveness does not excuse behaviour. It does not rewrite history. It simply frees me from living inside it. Letting go of those things and forgiving them has allowed me to move on and live a better life. Letting go of that person and what they did has improved my life in ways I didn’t expect. It created space for peace, for growth, and for emotional freedom.

What is even better, and often much harder, is forgiving myself for my own actions. There are times when I have said or done things that I regret. Most of them were born from fear, pain, or emotional overwhelm. From not knowing better at the time. From trying to survive in the only way I knew how. For a long time, I punished myself for those moments. I replayed them in my head. I judged myself harshly. I told myself stories about who I was because of them.

But self-forgiveness is just as important as forgiving others.

It means recognising that you were doing the best you could with what you knew then. It means allowing yourself to grow without dragging old versions of yourself behind you. It means offering yourself the same compassion you so easily give to others. When I began to forgive myself, I felt lighter. Kinder. More at peace. I stopped defining myself by my mistakes and started seeing them as part of my learning.

Forgiveness, in all its forms, is not weakness. It is strength. It is emotional courage. It is choosing not to let the past control your present. It is choosing healing over bitterness. It is choosing yourself.

It doesn’t happen overnight. It comes in layers. In moments. In small decisions to loosen your grip on old pain. Some days it is easy. Some days it feels impossible. But each time you choose forgiveness, for others or for yourself, you are choosing freedom.

And that is something you deserve.

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” – Alexander Pope