A Story About Forgiving And Forgetting
Emotionally healing is a complex and confusing journey. It does not have a linear process, and it is definitely not a one-fits-all approach. There are times when you think you made it to the other side, only to get dragged right back into the tangled web of your own consciousness. A lot of this back and forth behavior says a lot about where one stands in an emotional healing process.
Once you start to heal, you will travel back into your past, seeing past fragments playing out before you, especially those that have been traumatizing and haunting you until this day. Those fragments you still remember vividly, including everything that was said (or not said) that have partially led you to today’s state of mind.
What we deem to do—what seems logical to heal from those experiences—is to erase those fragments forever from our system. However, that’s not and will never be an approach that will help you heal from your wounds.
Because we have lived in the past. We have been in those moments, microseconds away from the permanent damage. It has intertwined with our lives and connected to us at some point. We cannot deny that it never happened to us. You cannot possibly live a life erasing memories when things or people don’t go your way. Our bodies remember every fiber of fear that has ever been triggered. Healing starts when you allow space to lay out all the fragments of your life and learn to be okay with it. Yes, even the bad ones.
Healing goes further into another layer that requires the act of forgiving.
It is not the first thing that comes to mind. Why would you ever be so kind and forgiving to someone who once was so hurtful to you? Because forgiving is not an act towards others, per se, it’s an act of kindness towards yourself. You owe it to yourself to forgive and to let go. The emotions that keep us from healing are those that keep interfering with us if we don’t forgive those who still have a say in distressing us at the most random moments in our day-to-day life.
It is anger that keeps us from healing. It is the sadness that keeps us from healing. It is the feeling of disappointment that keeps us from healing.
Most importantly, it is the sense of wrath that keeps us from healing and keeps us from living in the present.
It goes without saying that this also implies forgiving yourself. We are always the hardest on ourselves, beating ourselves up for even the most mundane mistakes.
If we try to forgive, we allow ourselves to enter into a space of inner peace. Within that space, we can see the days ahead of us as an opportunity to heal and evolve, rather than to get stuck in the past and relive the moments that have crushed us.
Forgive, but never forget.
