The Forgiveness Paradox (Why you should stop forgiving and focus on healing)

What does it mean to forgive?

Really, what is forgiveness?

Does anyone really know?


In a world that’s fraught with conflict and war that never seems to get completely resolved, is it really fair to throw the word 'forgiveness' around as if it's some common understanding what forgiveness really is?




Let's be real now. If forgiveness made everything easier like I've heard so many people preach, I'd say it's not too far-fetched to wonder why the world is still such a hostile place to live in for many of us. 

Maybe there are very few people who actually forgive at all... Or perhaps it is possible that we, as a society, have no idea what forgiveness actually looks like in practice.


There are some who swear by forgiveness, but on the other hand say that it’s okay to punish the offender even after they have supposedly forgiven them.

From this view, if a person still decides to punish another person as a result of the past (perhaps a past that the offender has even owned up to and apologized about) it still counts as forgiving them, despite the fact that it perpetuates cycles of abuse.


Others still insist on forgiving, but only if the offender apologizes for what they have done.

Forgiveness itself quickly becomes a sort of tug-of-war between egos, setting the stage for controlling dynamics to take place.


But beyond this, millions of abuse victims will never hear an apology on behalf of their abuser, simply because a genuine apology requires at least some level of self-awareness on behalf of the offender. It's likely that if this self-awareness had existed in the first place, the abuse would not have taken place at all, as the offender would eventually recognize the inherent futility in trying to control another living being as a means to getting what they want.


Operating by the principal that one can only really forgive, or move on, when someone is sorry, is one that prevents millions from ever finding closure.


My absolute least favorite approach to forgiveness is the saying, “forgive and forget”.

"Forgive and forget", to me, sounds more like “forgive and dissociate."


Hundreds of people who happen to live with an abuser subconsciously live by this, their brains helpfully 'glazing over' whenever another episode of abuse occurs as a protection mechanism. These people feel powerless to changing their own situation and instead hold onto the hope that their abuser will change despite mounting evidence that their abuser is going to continue hurting them.
Sure, this is an approach that works short term.  But I have witnessed hundreds of times that glazing over, crossing out, and erasing history can prevent people from recognizing patterns of behavior, leaving many stuck in a loop of abuse, apologize, repeat.

Bottom line...

Forgiveness is a complex issue.

Does forgiveness mean keeping toxic people and behaviors in your life?

Does it mean staying in a bad situation that hasn’t changed in the past and likely won’t change anytime soon?

Is forgiveness a verb at all, one that requires action on our part?

I want to believe forgiveness is more than a word people say—“I forgive them” to climb up on some moral high horse to seem better than the mere mortals who dare feel grief, anger, even hatred, at how easily some people can hurt others without any remorse.


Forgiveness is a huge thing to ask, quite frankly.


I am here to shed light on the fact that it can be more damaging to try and forgive before you are ready than to stop trying to forgive at all. I know it sounds backwards, but just bear with me here!



The paradox is impossible to ignore. 

I have heard hundreds of stories about those who have forgiven murderers, rapists, thieves, and bullies alike. I recall a particularly compelling tale of an amish family that forgave the family of a man who shot and killed their child, and eventually himself, both families becoming close friends later on. The story made news, being held up as a sort of ‘holy grail’ of what forgiveness really can be.


But instead of inspiring forgiveness, such stories further widen the gap between where most of us want to be in regards to forgiveness, and where we actually are (often resentful, hurt, and not ready to forgive). We begin to feel shame for not forgiving.


Many people can see that sort of story and think, "There must be something wrong with me, for not being able to forgive someone who didn't do something near as bad to me."


Interestingly enough, when I began to speak out about my own father’s abuse, I was amazed at the number of people who told me to do just that: Forgive!


Yes, forgive my abuser.


The most confusing ones would then try to sell me on the idea: “You’ll be happier because of it! You’ll feel so much better when you forgive!” Almost as a way to appeal to someone who must ultimately be super selfish for not being there quite yet.




Forgiveness: farm fresh and local!


But at the end of the day, selling people on the idea of forgiveness is still failing to acknowledge that for many of us, the concept of even happiness or love remains elusive and intangible; a sort of ideal we strive for but realistically decide to lower our standards for at some point in our lives.


I lay awake at night plagued by questions, wondering what the hell were people's expectations of forgiveness.


Did they expect me to stop opening up once I'd forgiven, because it would be 'in the past'?

Did they expect me to just go back to my abuser despite the fact that I'd done so for five years and he hadn't changed?

Was I doomed if I couldn't forgive?


Regardless of whether or not we actually have an understanding of forgiveness, most people seem to have it drilled in their heads that if you’re feeling angry, upset, or have unresolved feelings about something, you MUST forgive.


Because, you know, forgiveness gets rid of those uncomfortable feelings. Presto! For just 5 easy payments of $19.99... So call now at 1-800-FORGIVE!



See, forgiveness in and of itself can be a form of escapism. We can tell ourselves we forgive, feel that temporary ego boost we get from feeling "good" or even "better than" people who aren't in this 'enlightened' space of forgiveness, before it wears off and we find ourselves living the same patterns over and over again.


And this is why the worst thing possible for many who escape an abusive situation is to tell them to "forgive them" already (hurry up, we're tired of hearing you be sad about something that happened ____ ago) .



Most people who are abused are actually in the habit of chronically forgiving (the sort of egoic forgiveness like I'm talking about throughout this article, but forgiveness nonetheless), and it has not been changing their situation. 

The last thing the abused need to hear is to continue their old habits; like the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.





What the abused hears when you tell them to forgive as they express anger or hurt is: Your anger/hurt is not valid. Let the abuse continue. Keep toxic people in your lives. Keep abusive people in your lives, and like it. Learn to love being abused, or you are a bad person and not worthy of my love/respect/etc.


Feeling pissed off yet?

We idolize people who forgive their abusers, but let’s face it, forgiveness is in most cases just people saying the words, “I forgave them”...

But at the same time, we have an expectation that we the abused should forgive a person who may have tried bullying us to suicide, physically or verbally abused us, raped us or our loved ones.

Herein lies the paradox...

Are you fucking kidding me right now?!


This dichotomy is clearly unsustainable.

Idolizing people who forgive while on the other hand demonizing people who don’t, is actually corroding our ability to forgive.


By driving a further rift between where we are currently and where we genuinely want to be, the task of forgiveness begins to feel an impossible one.


We settle. We tell ourselves that we must be wrong for not being able to forgive our abusers, and we say the words before we actually feel forgiveness in our hearts. We tell ourselves that forgiveness is painful when we get stuck in the patterns of abuse again. All the while, we send our subconscious the message that we cannot be trusted.

But that's of no concern to the human ego...

“Yess, I, mueh, forgave them, mueh mueh, because, it’s the right thing to do!” We say to the outside world, as we climb on our high horse, adjusting our mustaches.

Because unlike you, I CAN forgive!

This kind of forgiveness is the ego saying, “I’m the good guy here!” And the unspoken, "they are the bad guy!" Thus leading to black-and-white distorted perception as opposed to seeing reality with full-spectrum-of-colors clarity that comes with seeing how both sides contributed to unhealthy relationship dynamics.



We are ALL guilty of showcasing our best qualities at the expense of showing genuine emotion, because being authentic, if it consists of anything but positive emotion, is usually punished in a socialized society.


We forget that people who understand forgiveness must also understand what it means not to forgive.





Interestingly enough, one of the factors that determines if the abused become abusers themselves is denial of their own abuse.


Knowing this, it concerns me more to hear people talk about their own abusive past with an attitude of faint acceptance, or even deny their past completely, than I am to hear people getting pissed off at how shitty people treated them (to be completely blunt about it).


And herein lies the biggest problem I have with forgiveness: We are not living in a forgiving world. And sometimes, the pressure of forgiveness is much more damaging to us than to just say, “Fuck that,” and focus on tending our wounds.


Because at the end of the day, forgiveness tends to be more of a product used to groom our own fragile egos than the transformative process it was meant to be. Yes, we, the ones stroking that warm, fluffy ball of ego on our laps, are using forgiveness as a way to feel better about ourselves. We subconsciously think that if we are around people who are jerks, we will not need to prove our goodness to other people.


We tolerate being abused so we can be the ones who are pure and saintly; because it builds our ego up in an indirect way.



At the heart of the issue, the abusers were once the abused.


Shaming us the abused for not forgiving, is a great way to make us feel like shit about ourselves. And when we feel like shit about ourselves, we don’t mind treating other people like shit, because on some level we just want others to understand how shitty we feel...

Thus, the cycle of abuse continues; and with it, the whole point of forgiving in the first place is lost.

"JOHNNY! YOU NEED TO FORGIVE YOURSELF FOR FALLING JOHNNY! FORGIVE THE GROUND FOR MAKING YOU FALL JOHNYEY! JOHEQNY FORGIVE ME FOR NOT CATCHING YOU PLZ"

Johnny : "I think I should get up first"

We must be willing to admit that the pressure to forgive is too much.


For now, I’m making the conscious choice to not forgive my abuser, as many more have chosen to do. This doesn’t mean we're ruminating on the past, becoming more and more bitter. This does not mean that we're going to live at the whim of our emotions, plotting a revenge scheme in the meantime. 

No... We're not going to be pissed off forever.


We choose not to forgive, because we know ourselves, and we know if we were to say those words, “I forgive them” it would be a damned lie. We would be skipping the other five stages of grieving in order to get to the "good" phase, of acceptance.


For now, we choose not to forgive, but we do choose to focus on healing (or, like in the above photo, at least standing up).


By moving on, we learn to accept the memories we had with our abusers might be as good as it gets with them, but that life itself has better things to offer us. We put our energy into creating a better life for ourselves.



We understand that peace will arrive in due time, when we least expect it.



But even if it never arrives in the way we expect, we will continue to move forward, not grasping the past nor holding firm to a future...



All will become clear in due time. We hope to witness that clarity as we keep our eyes wide open.

* * *

I built this prison.

A new year, a page turned.

Everything that was, behind me.

I walk ahead, I built this prison.

I open the door, I built this prison.

Memories flash; they are thoughts now.

A thought can have so much power, why is that?

I built this prison.

I want things to be different, a better world.

Yet I am afraid,

Why?

I built this prison.

How can I be certain? Am I on my path, or am I a burden?

The walls arise, and I realize

I built this prison.

Create, and change. Breathe. Transmute.

This is what life is; I am built to utilize the pain.

I am made to transform the pain because I am strong.

What am I doing wrong?

Everything? Nothing?

I will never know,

I am within a prison.

After walking, I turn around

And realize the prison bars

Were columns, a temple

I built this sacred space in my mind.

Creators, transmuters, exhale, sigh

I want so much, that is outside.

What am I doing right?

Everything? Nothing?

How can I be sure that I am worthless?

Who am I? Am I thought, and thought alone?

Or am I an architect of my own mind?
All I know is this one thing:
Architect or not, I built this.

Truth is in the Intent

My dad told me to kill myself six months ago, in June.

When I talked to him after six months of no contact, he made a point to apologize for my faulty perception of things.

The apology of an abusive person frequently looks like, “I’m sorry you…”

“I’m sorry you thought I said that.”

“I’m sorry you’re mentally unstable.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you when you were sad.”

He never once apologized for hurting me, though. He isn't sorry about that.

The problem wasn’t that I thought he told me to kill myself. The problem was that he actually told me to kill myself. And I feel in my heart that he meant what he said, when he said it.

The problem wasn’t that I was mentally unstable.  It was that anyone who had a person in their life that dead set on hurting them would be mentally unstable.

The problem wasn’t that he wasn’t there when I was low... The problem was that he was the one dragging me down. From that time when he punched my arm till there were bruises when I told him to stop calling me names, to the time when he called me a slut for saying I was attracted to girls, and leading up to the day six months ago when I almost took my life.

It took five years of the cycles of abuse spinning faster and faster for me to realize that real love doesn’t ever look like that, and that he isn’t going to change. In fact, it took being in an authentic, real, loving relationship myself to see that love and pain are not unanimous; not even a little.

The dysfunction between my father and I goes back a long time, back to when I was sixteen years old. Arguably it could go back even further if you consider the extreme neglect that took place during most of my childhood.

At 16, my father used finding out that I smoked marijuana as an excuse to start physically and verbally abusing me. Ironically, I started smoking because I was depressed.

It felt like being punished for feeling bad, and those were some of the darkest times in my life.

Though he painted a pristine image to the outside world and had leadership roles in the church I was going to, the people closest to me knew of the horrors that would take place between closed doors. Horrors of my privacy being violated, of my sense of self being diminished, and of being put through immense fear, repeatedly.

Many of the people who would hear what I spoke of, wouldn’t be able to handle the dissonance that would take place within themselves, and would in turn question my honesty. After all, it’s easier to tell ourselves that the teenage girl just wants attention, instead of scrutinizing that there might be a more sinister issue at hand.

The abuse in and of itself was bad enough, but the hypocrisy and lies really destroyed. Gaslighting, rewriting the past, and denial were the closest I got to a meeting of minds with my father. Lies upon more lies.

Abusive relationships are akin to acid rain. You can’t tell just by looking at the rain how damaging it really is. But with time, you notice the statues it touches are corroded and rotting. The trees it touches wither. The fish around it begin to surface, belly up...

But it takes time to make the connection.

Some days, I don’t know why I didn’t kill myself.

Perhaps  I didn’t because of my closest friends and family.

Perhaps I want to believe that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But many days, the phrase “What doesn’t kill you makes you wish that it did” resonates much more.

On good days, I’m a survivor that never has to look back. On bad days, I can feel like it’s happening to me all over again.

I’m writing because if I don’t talk about this experience, it’s going to continue to control me. I’m doing this for my own sense of release, and I’m doing this for other people who have gone through the same.

You are not alone. And the fact that you’re not alone, is really fucked up. Nobody deserves to be told the absolute lie that their life is worthless. No one.

I know it’s a struggle. I know what it’s like to battle inner demons every single day, to wrestle internally with things that are small to other people, such as, “should I leave the house today?” In fact, it's my goal to be as open as possible about my own struggles.

Like many abuse victims, I have a hard time seeing how any positive self-focus or self-care is not selfish. I beat myself up for setting the smallest of boundaries (as pointed out by my therapist this week), and wonder if deep down I really am a narcissist like my father. If you have gone through abuse yourself, you know what I’m talking about… Even long after the abuse is over, the abuser still lives in your mind, criticizing your every move.

How do we know what's real? This is a question I've been asking myself for a while.

The truth is in the intention.

Sometimes the people close to us accidentally hurt us. They do things carelessly that trigger our pasts, or tease us about something that we’re sensitive about, or overwhelm us with their problems. Relationships are messy like that, and we’re all destined to witness the limitations of language at least some point in our lives.

But sometimes, people set out with the intention to harm us.

Dr. Emoto's water experiments reveal the power that intention has on water molecules.

You can tell a lot about a person's real intentions by seeing how they respond when you tell them you feel hurt by their actions.

A person who truly loves and cares about you will feel bad about hurting you, especially since if someone loves you it is not their intent to hurt you. They will seek to find a solution, either by changing their actions completely, or by meeting you halfway; by getting on the same page.

A person with sinister intents does not care if they are hurting you. They will shame you for feeling hurt in the first place. They will refuse to take accountability for the part they played in causing the hurt, or in extreme cases, their behavior will worsen. Pyschopaths and sociopaths especially like being worse to their victims at this point, because they like to get a reaction out of you.

As I was sitting there crying that night, imagining the ways I would take my life, my dad towered above me, yelling that I was pathetic, worthless, and that he was embarrassed by me, until I became angry enough to ward him off physically. I’ll own up to the fact that I didn’t care much about hurting him after that point. It took a lot to bring me that low. The illusion that he cared about me was shattered.

Love has pure intent. Love is flexible, patient, kind… And is not self seeking, but symbiotic. Love has a spaciousness to it that leaves room for growth, for mystery.

Ill intent shows through its inflexibility, impatience, unkindness, and hatred. It is only concerned with the self; not the highest self, but the ego-self, which is concerned with hierarchy and survival.

Though it can be difficult to know the difference, in due time intent reveals itself. It is then up to us to move past the ego, towards love.

I am not so close minded to say that I would never accept an apology from my father. I love to wishfully think that some day he’ll call me up and say, “Gee, I am sorry I’ve been such an asshole to you and everyone else in the family. I’m sorry I was so blind to how hurtful I’ve actually been. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be the father that you all needed me to be.”

But for now, that is just a dream, and the words actually spoken still sting.

Is this release I’m feeling after putting words to it, what other people call ‘forgiveness’? Perhaps. But from my perspective, I am not quite to a place of acceptance, something that I’ve always felt was deeply intertwined with forgiveness. I will never accept that it’s okay to say that to someone, and I will never accept that things had to be this way. No… I won’t hold on to a past that I wish had happened. I won’t grasp an illusion that died many times in the past, over, and over again.

I do not welcome my father back into my life. Is it possible to forgive someone, and still condemn them from entering your life? For the time being, I’m going to say that it doesn’t, and I will be here, in a space of not-quite-forgiveness, with my eyes fixated forward, moving towards the hope that with time, I will become stronger, and more loving, than ever before.

Diversity Is Life

The conquest for sameness is at the root of all of the problems America is facing today.

I open my mind’s eye and see the resurgence of racism and white supremacy. I see the open persecution of native american, black, and gay, peoples. I see the mass extinction of animal species taking place now, and I cannot help but see that trying to enforce sameness is at the root of all of these.

Take it even further out, and I see institutionalized education systems and religions, cookie cutter beauty standards, and expensive, white marriage ceremonies before age 25.

We recognize our biological needs of having enough, and our emotional needs of being enough, if not met, manifest in feeling bad, either emotionally, or physically, or both. And yet, we go about addressing these needs in our own unique ways.

As much as we try, we will never be exactly the same as any other person that has been alive, ever.

Why is this?

Diversity is Life.

Where there is life, there is diversity.

Ecosystems exist with a vast array of different species living, interacting, and multiplying. Take away even a single species and the ecosystem is forever changed... Take away many species, and the ecosystem collapses.

Evolution itself happens as a result of differing concepts, ideas, and life forms interacting together.

It’s quite intriguing for me to observe as a medical intuitive that this quest for sameness has in fact led to a plethora of problems in our own gut microbiota; we are now scientifically finding that a healthy gut functions best with a diverse range of friendly bacteria. In the past this was obtained through bacteria naturally present in the soil that made its way onto our food, then into our guts… in our present, however, this intricate richness is mostly void, lost in the black hole of sterile, processed foods.

To end diversity is to end life itself.

We are living in a dying society, unable to hold space for differences.

We are all guilty of losing touch, and of forgetting. Let my words carry you towards remembrance, as I remember with you.

I am consistently amazed at how much of a fight it is, to enforce sameness. Sameness goes so against what life itself is, that you see a person must literally fight life itself to achieve sameness.

Sameness is a fight, one that eventually leads to death.

We fight weeds that grow between rows of commercial seeds. We irradiate the produce once it’s harvested, killing the bacteria that was thriving on its surface.

We fight the our natural tendency to be different. We have a critic living in our heads that tells us what to do, or not to do, in order to blend in and avoid being bullied.

We fight to pluck eyebrow hairs, we fight the urge to wear that one dress because it’s “weird”,  and we damn other people to hell if they don’t share our religious views.

We fight people who are not of our race. We attack and throw slurs and we get guns and hand grenades and tanks and...

Did it ever occur to us, that we could opt out?

What’s the worst thing that could happen, if we could cultivate within ourselves, a space for differences?

If instead of condemning the person who’s muslim, we just took a breath in?

If instead of restricting our diets, we allowed ourselves to eat what resonates?

If instead of graduating from high school then going to college then getting married then having 2.5 children… we just took a moment to reflect?

But beyond all this, if we allowed ourselves to be exactly as we are, without the need to act upon the whims of the “I”... Life itself, would change.

Life doesn't have to be a fight. Life itself is not war. Life is not unidimensional. Life is not closed. It doesn't have to be.

Life itself is peaceful, diverse, and expansive.

When we fight the diverse expansiveness that is life, life becomes a fight.

And ultimately, when we fight life, we fight ourselves.

It is time to stop running in the battlefield, and turn inwards.

It is time to see beyond the external circumstances to which we have no real control, and reclaim the only real power we have... that is, the power we have over our own minds, and the power our minds have to shape our own lives.