Relieving Personal Emotional Burdens Through Forgiveness
Forgiveness is not simply forgetting or ignoring a bad situation. In fact, forgiveness is acknowledging a past injustice or heartbreak, but not allowing it to dominate our future emotional world. It is a decision to stop the traces of the past from controlling our present self.
When we forgive, we do not approve of the wrong that was done to us, but we realize that it is no longer necessary to carry the impact of that wrong on us.
Forgiveness is a process that leads to a person becoming both mentally and emotionally free. Because when we do not forgive, we remain attached to that event or person; this attachment can return to us as anger, sadness and restlessness.
Living with these feelings constantly has a negative impact on other areas of our lives. Forgiveness offers the opportunity to break this emotional chain and bring more peace and balance to our lives.
However, forgiveness is often misunderstood and seen as a weakness. However, forgiveness is a behavior that shows a person’s emotional strength and maturity.
Being able to forgive someone else’s mistake breaks the power that mistake has over us and liberates us. This is not just about freeing another person’s mistake, it is also an act of compassion that we offer to ourselves.
The most important point in this section is that forgiveness does not mean ignoring or forgetting the situation. Feelings such as disappointment, sadness, and frustration are heavy emotions and forgetting or overlooking them can cause greater distress.
Forgiveness means accepting that we experienced these feelings and that this event happened to us. This acceptance is not only normalizing the event that happened to us, but also accepting that we are upset about it.
The event has happened and is over, dreams have been broken or postponed. The important thing is that we must stop carrying this heavy burden on our back throughout our journey.
Forgiving someone does not only mean leaving a negative situation behind, but also being free from clinging to that situation. Forgiveness is an inner journey that a person embarks on for their own good.
No matter how challenging the experience, the act of forgiveness allows a person to be free from the weight of negative emotions and live a lighter life 1 .
Forgiveness does not grant any kind of approval or justification to the other party. On the contrary, it is a process of preserving one’s own peace and gaining emotional freedom. In this process, the person you forgive does not change, but your perspective on him/her does.
This means letting go of a mental burden and moving on for your own good 2 . The process of forgiveness is a complete inner change and spiritual maturation.
Forgiving someone also allows a person to be kinder and more compassionate toward themselves, because it means accepting their own limitations and not letting past hurts shape them. This is an important step toward emotional growth and personal empowerment.