Like, if you truly forgave them, you'd just forget it happened and move on like nothing was wrong. That never made sense to me because something WAS wrong, and pretending otherwise felt like lying.

But I'm learning that real forgiveness is actually more complicated and more honest than that. It's possible to acknowledge that someone hurt you AND to let go of the anger you're carrying about it. Those two things can exist at the same time 💛

The thing is, when you hold onto anger at someone, you're kind of holding them in your life in a way that's painful for you. They're living their life, but you're still feeling the hurt they caused. That's not justice—that's just suffering that you're choosing to keep. And I've realized I don't want to do that anymore.

I've been practicing something different. When someone hurts me—and people do, because we're all imperfect and sometimes careless—I'm trying to get curious about it. Why did they do that? What was happening for them? That doesn't mean what they did was okay. It just means I'm trying to see the whole picture instead of just my own pain. And somehow, when you see the whole picture, the anger becomes smaller 🌊

Forgiveness has to be honest though. You can't forgive someone by pretending the hurt didn't happen. You have to actually feel it, actually acknowledge it, and then actually choose to let it go. That's the only way forgiveness is real. And it's harder than staying angry because it requires admitting that the person is human and flawed, not just a villain.

What I'm learning is that I have more power than I thought. I have the power to decide whether past hurt gets to keep hurting me, or whether I get to move forward. The person who hurt me doesn't get to make that choice for me anymore.

When you forgive someone, are you actually being kind to them, or are you being kind to yourself?