Forgiveness

I'm listening to this affirmation podcast on Spotify right now. The focus of the affirmations are forgiveness.

Forgiveness to me has seemingly always been this super easy thing, I figured - If I was able to be kind about what I was feeling instead of lashing out, I was at a space of forgiving them.

I know I'm not perfect and by all means, while writing this I'm reflecting on times when I know I wasn't at my best.

But that means really nothing here...

To be honest, I'm trying to call forth the energy of forgiveness because I know the weight not forgiving someone is holding over me.

2 years ago I was really deeply hurt by someone. I didn't know I could face such pain and in retrospect, I needed the lesson and blessings that came from it, but to be honest - in the moment of going through it, I was hurt, and now, 2 years later, here I am working on forgiving them still.

When I think of myself, even with my flaws, I try and have grace for other people, with this person - and the trauma that was created from our relationship - its been hard to simply let go of everything I was feeling and now, years later, its' rooted so deeply in my subconcious that even thinking about it brings up feelings of pain.

When I think of forgiveness, it looks to me like releasing what was. Now as I envision what I hope future relationships and love looks like, I want to be more conscious of the things I'm choosing.

To be honest, I've had to reflect on a lot of negative thoughts and patterns that were holding me in states of pain or accepting less than what I deserve.

I think for men, we're discouraged from really seeking in to our feelings. We might touch upon them but taking time to ourselves to really dive deep - at least in a larger cultural sense.

What I'm learning from looking inward is that there is time that can heal then there's actual literal healing that reflecting on my flaws, my insecurities, my ego - can reveal.

Self growth is extremely important to me and feeling still negative towards someone or an experience from the past, I know in many ways is holding me back.

I decided to look up the etymology of the word Forgiveness. Here's what I found.

"Old English forgiefan "give, grant, allow; remit (a debt), pardon (an offense)," also "give up" and "give in marriage" (past tense forgeaf, past participle forgifen); from for-, here probably "completely," + giefan "to give" (from PIE root *ghabh- "to give or receive").

The sense of "to give up desire or power to punish" (late Old English) is from use of such a compound as a Germanic loan-translation of Vulgar Latin *perdonare (Old Saxon fargeban, Dutch vergeven, German vergeben "to forgive," Gothic fragiban "to grant;" and see pardon (n.))."

What stuck out to me was "give up desire or power to punish". In the past, when I was hurt - A part of me wanted the person who hurt me to feel the same pain. I think that's what I'm learning to honestly, truly let go of. When I see the people who hurt me shining - I want to feel joy for them and know they aren't in totality a bad person or a bad thing and they perhaps deserve both lessons and blessings.

I understand that everything is equal and in the balance of life - the only thing I can offer them is forgiveness. Perhaps it means we don't talk anymore and for some people, I'm okay with that, but I'm letting them continue on and I'll continue on with as much grace and peace as I can offer moment to moment.