I sat in the quiet of my therapist’s office and wondered if I finally had the strength to let it go. As for forgiveness, that was a pipe dream. I’d been hanging on to the same pain for over a decade, but I couldn’t allow myself to feel the hurt. It was so much easier to be smugly, self-righteously angry.
“Do you think your anger is a way of punishing your family for hurting you all those years ago?” Helen asked quietly.
I didn’t say anything for a moment and then let out a slow breath. “That’s it,” I said finally. “That’s what I’ve been doing all these years. I’ve been trying to punish my parents by being angry at them all the time.” I smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, since they didn’t know about it, I just ended up punishing myself and everyone around me.”
My therapist let me sit with this for a moment. Her voice was gentle when she said, “It happened a long time ago. Do you think you might be able to let it go at some point?”
And that’s how it started. That was the day I began jettisoning the hurt I’d been carrying around for so long and making room in my head for forgiveness—something I never thought I’d be capable of. It hasn’t been easy or linear, and it’ll take a while.
Holding on to old hurts and the resulting anger isn’t good for anyone. Allowing these emotions to fester in the pressure cooker of our psyche can lead to any number of unhealthy outcomes, including feelings of depression and anxiety.
Furthermore, when we’ve experienced such a deep hurt, it makes perfect sense that we’d want to ease the anguish we’re feeling. Many of us do this by self-medicating—a practice that can include self-destructive behaviors such as recreational drug use, unhealthy eating habits, excessive shopping, or out-of-control gambling.
Fortunately, healthy options are available to help us move on with our lives. Here are some ways we can begin to let go of past hurts and allow forgiveness in:
- Write your way through. Journaling about your pain or writing a letter (mailed or not) to those who hurt you is a healthy way of processing your feelings.
- Think about what you’ll gain by forgiving vs. the emotional cost of hanging onto the pain. Don’t just forgive because of what it will allow you to feel for others; forgive for you.
- Stop blaming others for how you feel. Take control of your life by taking responsibility for your emotions and how you respond to the negative circumstances life throws at you.
- Try to understand where those who’ve harmed you are coming from. None of us are perfect when it comes to loving one another.
- Don’t judge. Things get a lot simpler when it comes to forgiveness if we learn to let go of judging others and ourselves.
- Apply the same principles of forgiveness to yourself as you do to others. Just as you learn to respect and accept their imperfect humanity, you can learn to respect and accept these qualities in yourself.
- Try something new as a way of releasing the past. This could be anything from starting a hobby or doing something nurturing for yourself every week.
- Move on. Becoming mired in past hurts can prevent you from reaching out to the future.
Letting go of old hurts and making room for forgiveness is never simple, but it’s easier when we allow ourselves to feel the pain and begin focusing less on what others did to hurt us and a little more on their humanity. When we start to think about the life experiences of the people who’ve hurt us and how these things shaped their behavior, we can focus a bit more on understanding and a little less on blame. And when we look past the negative labels, we’ve assigned to the people who’ve wronged us and find the person behind them, we’ll discover not only their fallibility but their fragility.
Seeing those who’ve hurt us through the lens of innate human imperfection opens the door to forgiveness. And when we begin to recognize our own faults in their reflection, it allows us to forgive ourselves.
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If you’re feeling stuck when it comes to freeing past hurts and learning how to forgive, the staff at Healing Connections Counseling can help.
References
McGee. Michael, MD (2022, April 14). Forgiveness: How to Let Go of Hurt So You Can Feel Better in 11 Steps. Psycom. https://www.psycom.net/self-care-101/forgiveness-let-go-of-the-hurt
Sylvia, Sylva Casabianca, (2022, August 29). How to Let Go of Past Hurts: 8 Ways to Move On. Psychcentral. https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-to-let-go-of-the-past-and-hurt
About the Author
Charles Davis, MSW, has written for several academic publications and was a semifinalist for the 2023 Mason Jar Press 1729 Book Prize in Prose. He lectures on a variety of disability issues, including legal rights and sexuality. Mr. Davis also writes a blog on navigating loss and building a new life at: https://gayandgrieving.blog.