Be Selfish...Forgive

Forgiveness is a challenge for many...ok it’s a challenge for me. I have this uncanny ability to hold onto the feelings of rejection, disappointment, and distrust like they were a multimillion lottery ticket. I have been known to hold a grudge until it disintegrates in my hand. But...why? What purpose does it serve?

I personally have used it to simulate some sense of power over a situation. When I feel wounded, feeling self-righteous about how I was wronged becomes my armor. But, as I have learned in the past, this un-forgivingness will eat away at you.

For years I held my father’s absence over his head. I relived the years of abuse I endured in his absence and I took every opportunity to remind him. But one day I found that all the torture I was trying to get him to feel, all the pain I wanted him to see in me, came crashing down on my head. I found myself in the living room of my Aunts house in wrapped in a towel, curled up in a ball, crying hysterically, my hair had begun to fall out over the stress I insisted on living every day, in the name of not forgiving my father.

He didn't deserve to be forgiven! What he did (or didn't do) hurt me. But what I didn’t realize was that I wasn't hurting anyone more than myself by not forgiving my father.

Often we look at forgiveness as something we do for others, when really we forgive for ourselves. When we let go of whatever hurt has been caused, when we choose to be free of that pain, we are helping ourselves. Forgiveness is one of the most selfish and justified acts that one can commit.

People tried to tell me to let go, "just let go" they would say. But to me it wasn't that easy. I felt that if i "let go" that would mean that I had lost, I would be saying that I deserved all that I endured. Forgiving meant to me that I wouldn't get to heal, I wouldn't get to be validated, but the truth is forgiveness is the beginning of the healing process. To forgive does not mean erasing whatever has happened from your memory, it doesn’t mean ignoring it, it simply means to take the power of that situation back for yourself. It means neutralizing the pain, rejection, disappointment and moving past it.

Forgiveness is also a process. As easy as it seems to just let go, there is also a process to it. If someone has wronged you, you have the right to be mad, its dwelling and wallowing in it that is the problem. So be mad, yell, scream, and cry but do that with the understanding that this is not the end. Again, forgiveness is just the beginning.

So what happened between me and my Dad?  I cut my hair off, got a protein treatment, held onto my anger all the way to Nicaragua, didn't speak to him until I got back to the states. I screamed, and cried, he hugged me, I forgave him, and we began to get over it. Do I want to slide back into the familiar feeling of holding a grudge against him? Do I feel like a victim? Do I hold the occasional pity party? Yea. But then I realize that I don’t like the way that feels, so I do the work, I identify why I am back in that space and I pull myself out of it. I forgive, every day I need to and it’s hard but it’s worth it. Forgiveness looks better on me anyway.