Who in their right mind would forgive someone who has altered their lives for the worse? Certainly there are exceptions to forgiveness. Certainly a victim is not expected to forgive these unthinkable injustices. Is this unforgiving bringing peace to your life?
This is a blog about chronic illness and trauma, so the assumption is that we all have had trauma in our lives from a person (or people) that have forced it on us. My assumption is that it has been extremely hard to forgive perpetrators.
For myself, those people have been the hardest to forgive, taken the most amount of time to forgive and had to repeat the process many times. There has been nothing easy about it.
Forgiveness is an incredibly hard thing to do when it involves perpetrators. It is black and white, they are wrong for their actions. As a human being, we have not deserved what has happened in these circumstances.
What is Best for Us, Not Them
The only way I have been able to forgive them was to first realize that the process of forgiveness was more for my benefit than theirs. I chose to go through the process only because it was going to benefit me, not them. That was enough motivation to explore the concept of doing something unthinkable after traumatic experiences forced upon me.
As I got better at forgiving, I found more peace in my life. It is one of the few guarantees in life. The more we forgive, the more we peel off the layers of baggage that hold us back from fully experiencing a vibrant life.
When we are tired of carrying around the heavy load of all the victimization, we can work through forgiveness. It is a process. One that usually starts with wanting more peace within ourselves.
It is a lifelong process. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Forgiveness has NOTHING to do with letting down our boundaries for protection. As we live our journey of life, we will have many experiences that provide opportunity to practice this skill.
Where are you in the journey of forgiveness?
Maribeth Baxter, MBEC (Certified Mind-Body Eating Coach)
Donations are accepted to serve others on their chronic illness journey. Maribeth Baxter, MBEC provides voluntary certified health coaching services to the financially limited during their time of crisis.
