Your Personal Journey – The Forgiveness Process

There can be a lot of reasons why someone is not a part of the forgiveness process; they could be unreachable or unwilling to hear how they hurt you. Forgiving is not necessarily about vocalizing to someone else that you have healed from what they did to you, although that is just fine, if it is part of your process. Forgiveness can also focus on providing yourself the support you craved while you were in hurtful situations. Let’s take a deeper look.

1. Identify what caused you pain.
   How do you feel about what happened to you? How did these actions influence your life? What people in your life support or even encourage these painful ideas? How did these stories become your truths today?
2. Discover places in your body where you might be holding painful thoughts.
   With a trained professional’s help, and when it feels safe to do so, you can identify the non-verbal ways you respond to situations based on your past experiences.
   
   When you give a speech in front of strangers, do you suddenly feel fear like a pit in your stomach? “They will all know I am really a fraud!” “I am going to look like a fool!”Does connecting physically with a partner make you feel numb or detached? “They are going to think I am not attractive, ugly, not good enough.”During a performance review at work do you notice shame like a heat, flushing across your face and body? “There must be something wrong with me, I knew I was no good, they are going to fire me any day.”   

3. Shift the focus – and the power.
   Understanding the past from your point-of-view shifts the focus from what you were told, to how YOU felt. This can powerful. You are in charge – today and in the future. The journey of listening to yourself, creates powerful space. You get to decide how you want to feel about yourself! 

Remembering how it felt to be bullied on the school bus, see in your mind the image of your six year old self feeling helpless, embarassed, and scared. Feel those feelings coursing through your body. Imagine your adult self showing up to the scene. Imagine taking that six-year-old by the hand and giving them a loving hug, telling them that you understand. You know what they’ve been through and you are here now, to listen and to protect. Imagine telling that child what they needed to know back then: “This was never your fault, you deserved better, this wasn’t right.” The child looks up at you and recognizes, they aren’t alone now..

You have started a relationship with yourself that has nothing to do (ironically) with how anyone else feels.

The most beautiful part about this process is that no one can influence it, change it or stop it, without your permission. You are in control of your healing story, what will your chapters look like?

Be well,

Some concepts are adopted from “Communicating Forgiveness” by Waldron & Kelley, 2008.