Forgiveness? Think Twice Before You Decide to Forgive

It was my prerequisite since the beginning of this site to bring education and knowledge to my readers. I don’t care about how many followers I have. I do care that those who are here reading my writing receive the best possible information, and with it, they will be able to choose better while enriching their lives.

As a teacher and woman, it is easy to understand that we face a moment in our lives that everything seems confusing, and almost everyone is throwing away words such as forgiveness. Or the typical sentence, “You have to forgive and love yourself to move on!”.

I admit that forgiveness possesses a powerful force of healing and reconciliation. But before deciding to forgive or not, I invite and challenge you to think about something very important.
Forgiveness has been treated as a panacea or key solution for moving on towards the happy ending. Suggesting that if we can’t forgive, there is something wrong with us, or it is vindictive self-protection and victimhood. These assumptions only dismiss people’s feelings, the pain and trauma they might feel, and to be honest, it is a shaming attitude.

There is nothing wrong with you if you can’t forgive. In reality, taking the time to process all the information is not only healthy. But also intelligent and empowering. Forgiveness isn’t the best remedy in some situations and can make you literally sick. Be wary of people, articles, and books who talk about forgiveness as the key to everything.

Here’s something to think about forgiveness: 

1. Urging forgiveness might ignore the fact that you were hurt, and for this reason, before thinking about it, let other emotions such as anger and sadness arise. You are a human being, not a machine. Keep this in your mind. 
   
   
2. Encouraging someone to let go or forgive before the natural process of processing human emotions is hurtful and can be damaging. Suppressing your feelings can lead to depression and physical disturbances long term. 
   
   
3. Advising people to forgive or “move on” when they experienced a recent injury. It is dismissive and minimizes the pain felt. Promoting forgiveness without understanding and shim the other person’s shoes is hurtful and harmful. 
   
   
4. Don’t advise forgiveness or letting go if someone has suffered any kind of injustice profoundly because it will be ignorant, suspect, and disrespectful. Forgiveness ignores some of the most profound injuries of our time and, in these specific cases, comes from people who don’t mirror their actions. Should we forgive an abuser or someone who destroyed through their actions an entire family? 
   
   
5. Did you know that advising forgiveness can ignore the power of confronting an offender? Calling someone out means that you will stop, in most cases, the perpetuation of injustices. And this is one of the biggest problems of our current social culture, the culture of harmful silence. 

Forgiveness is powerful but before advising it to anyone or even you decide to forgive someone, think about the diversity of injuries and how you or the other person you are counseling is feeling. We need to call people out and stop being a society of conniving where in the blink of a blind eye, people are hurt constantly. The only way development and social equality will happen by starting to call people out because of their bad actions. But also by stepping into the role of being an active citizen. And this can’t happen by silent your voice. 

With love,

Alexandra

DISCLAIMER: THIS INFORMATION IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A SUBSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL CARE. PLEASE CONSULT A HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR GUIDANCE SPECIFIC TO YOUR CASE.