Finding Forgiveness

When you consider mental toughness or psychological strength, forgiveness probably isn’t the first thing that pops into your head. And it may not be that being a forgiving person makes you mentally tough, but the lack of it certainly erodes any mental fortitude. Failing to forgive corrupts a proper mindset.

A lack of forgiveness is often marked by bitterness and resentment. Bitterness and resentment steal joy, add stress, cloud judgement and destroy optimism. These emotions quickly wear down emotional and psychological resolve while hindering your ability to pursue opportunities ahead because you are still chained to the past. It has been said forgiveness is giving up your right for revenge. It is also exercising your right to heal and move on. It’s exhausting and debilitating to drag the past with you.

When you forgive, you don’t just free the person who hurt you, you also free yourself from the bondage of that experience. On the other hand, a lack of forgiveness shackles you to your pain and gives the keys to your tormentor. If you are waiting for that other person to be remorseful or apologize, you give him or her all the power, leaving yourself in a prison walled in by bitterness, waiting for an event completely out of your control and that may very well never happen.

Make a decision to forgive. This isn’t even about the people in your life who have hurt you and deserve your wrath, it’s about you and preserving your own clarity and hope for the future. You are bound to take many wrong turn while staring in the rear view mirror. Also, that person (or people) may actually be a complete jerk, a piece of trash and deserve bad things to happen to him, but that isn’t the point. Your job isn’t to bring vengeance or ensure that person “pays” for their deeds. Your duty is to be released from that bondage. Find it in yourself to forgive and in that, you will discover freedom.

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