As we walk through this life, we encounter so many things, people, and experiences. Often, we look outward and separate ourselves from others through our feelings. What we like, what we don’t. Sometimes – just sometimes – a situation comes to us where we must choose whether to forgive an action or to hate the person who did it.
What I’ve come to understand is that when we choose to hold onto hate, for anything, it’s an act of self-violence. Hating another person damages no one but the person who is hanging onto the hate. It eats away at us, we become more angry and bitter – at least I know I do. When I begin internalizing hate I begin trying to find ways to enact revenge on a world, person, or event that I thought had wronged me.
But who is that really hurting? Revenge never eases the feeling of being hurt. It never gives any satisfaction. For me, I just feel more and more empty when I sink to that kind of a low. There is no good that comes from it and because of that, it becomes another act of self-violence. It’s like we think that by beating ourselves over and over with the wrongs that we perceive have been done to us we will eventually feel better.
As with everything in life though, we have a choice. We have the choice to choose a different path and a different action, because what is life if not a learning experience? When something terrible happens to us we can choose to let go of the hate and forgive the person for acting in some form of ignorance.
What do I mean by ignorance? I mean that people are doing the best they can at the level they are at. I’ve been emotionally and verbally abused. I’ve had family members and friends murdered in horrific ways. One of my siblings was a drug addict who missed out on what I considered some of the most important events in my life. I truly believe that all of these people were doing their very best with the knowledge that they had and how they understood the world at the time. I don’t believe that people set out to hurt people. No one gets up in the morning saying, “How many people can I fuck over today?”
We have all done terrible things, saw what we did, learned from the situation, and changed our lives because of it. We were all doing the very best we can in those moments.
When we chose forgiveness in our lives it becomes an act of self-love. We are letting go of the guilt and pain that things should have been different. We are letting go of the idea that we had any control over the actions of others. We are letting go of the need for our lives to be a certain way for us to be happy. We will never be happy if we are always waiting for someone to get their comeuppance.
I want to stress that none of this means that people shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions. If you’re in an abusive relationship you need to get someplace safe and the abuser needs to be held accountable. If someone is a murderer, they still need to face punishment. These are the natural consequences of their actions; we just don’t need to carry the energy of those actions with us for the rest of our lives.
We don’t forgive others and let them keep hurting us. That too is an act of self-violence. We need to create boundaries in our lives that will keep us safe and allow us to create our own happiness. We need to learn the lessons that come to us in our lives so we can become more caring and compassionate beings for ourselves and others. When we work on supporting each other in healthy ways we make the world a much brighter and happier place for everyone.
If you are experiencing abuse or domestic violence in your life, I encourage you to seek help and get safe. Here is a link to the National Domestic Abuse Hotline.
Comments