Forgiving is not an easy challenge. In fact, it is usually more complicated the closer is the person who caused us the damage and the deeper it is. Today we want to dig a little deeper and try to answer a question: is it necessary to forgive to heal?
Actually, for many strategies or ideas we can raise, there is no universal manual for wound repair. Neither those that we cause nor those that cause us. On the other hand, and in the same context, there is pain: sometimes of such intensity that prevents progress towards forgiveness or the construction of a story that allows us to rebuild the skin.
Forgive, what is it about?
If we go to the most accurate meaning of the word forgive, we can quote the Royal Spanish Academy that defines it as ‘saying of who has been harmed by it: remit the debt, offense, fault, crime or something else’.
On the other hand, beyond the semantics, in each culture, one lives and conceives in different ways forgiveness, even the same person, at different stages of his life, can work with different meanings of the term.
On the other hand, this action is associated with a form of relief for both parties; It has even been considered therapeutic. Many of the people who manage to reach the milestone relate to forgiveness have achieved the release of a great burden.
Forgive to heal as an obligation
In certain societies or groups, the idea has projected that forgiveness as a virtue that even, by its qualities, becomes a kind of duty. Thus, the fact that in some contexts drag the character of obligation makes many people appear to grant it or achieve it, cutting off the natural process itself. Thus, the false projection of forgiveness ends up becoming an obstacle to grant it, reach it or receive it.
If we think of situations that most would find complex to assume, for example, a violation, perhaps it is easier to understand why it can cost so much to forgive. Now, if a person who has suffered from this fact feels obligated to forgive, he may even feel guilty for not doing so.
Thus, forgiveness would not always be healing if what it does is to prolong suffering in time. Therefore, we could reconsider when forgiveness is appropriate.
Some times, forgiveness is associated with forgetting for a foul. When we force it, we can also cause ourselves great harm. Therefore, there are those who think that forgiveness goes beyond oblivion, they propose that it is about releasing the load so as not to harm us, although we can remember it, only that when we released we would do it without rancor.
Forgive to heal as a choice
On the other hand, if forgiveness is more aimed at a sincere election, it does allow us to heal, even in those situations that we believe unimaginable to achieve forgiveness.
How would it be possible? If we see forgiveness as an act of letting go, not exclusively of reconciliation. For we can let go of resentment and anger, or express it, feeling that we forgive what happened and visualizing it as learning. But if we see it as an act of reconciliation, it is more complex to apply it to all situations.
In addition, we are entitled to take the time to forgive and not to do so, and even heal without this action. Not all healing implies forgiveness. For example, resilience helps us overcome situations that caused us great pain.
In addition, if we find it difficult to do so, we can resignify the experiences. That is, endow them with a sense that is healthier for us. Thus, we enhance learning and go in tune with who we are, without having to force it.
In short, forgiving to heal is a matter that depends on each one of us, on the perception, we have about forgiveness, on the beliefs associated with it with which we have, on the society in which we live, on what we have learned, etc. If you add steps to our wellbeing, go ahead!