Unpopular opinion: You don’t have to forgive others to heal and move on.

This topic came up in a discussion with a friend, we talked about how society, religion, and culture has taught us that we cannot heal without forgiving others. I have been a culprit in this too. 

Sometimes the hurt and harm is too painful to be forgiven, but we try over and over again to forgive and we get stuck in “I need to forgive or I can’t heal, I can’t move on with my life”. 

Then there’s the guilt, the shame, “how come I can’t forgive? I must be a bad person”. The reality is we are hurting, and have suppressed that pain for so long. 

The forgiveness that would be beneficial for us to focus on is forgiving ourselves, giving ourselves grace as well as compassion. That is when the healing starts. 

Forgiving others comes with time and honestly sometimes it might not happen at all. And that’s okay, healing is not a cookie cutter approach, it is a process we each go through in our own way.

We all have free will here and if we decide to take this journey of healing, we get to choose how to go about it. 

If there is something to take out of this, it’s to have more self-compassion and take the pressure off of needing to do the work in a certain order or way. Choose the path that works for you.💛