A Joyous Perspective on Finding a Way to End the Hurt: The truth about forgiveness

It's Friday, and time for another Friday Night Thought Tale Hour at the Henderson's. This week on my Joyous Perspective page and blog (click here for more) I have been taking a look at the subject of Hurt. While I can talk about hurt from places that border on severe soul pain, I realized this week that the most damaging of hurts are those that keep us hostage to them. Those that make us feel they will never leave, and those that make us think they are justified in remaining. I discovered an ugly one in my life this week, and I decided it was time to end it. Not only was it keeping me chained, but it was also bleeding over into the lives of other people who I dearly loved. I knew that the only real way to crush the hurt under the foot of my soul was to forgive. But then I had to ask myself:

Can You Trust Everything You Believe About Forgiveness?

I have forgiven many times, and many times quite

successfully. But in this case, would it matter? Did the other party even have to know? Well, the truth is, without my having direct knowledge that I had made an attempt to mend the relationship, I knew I would feel like I put together a cake and then left it out of the oven. So I had to take a solid look at the elements of forgiveness. 

There’s a whole lot of noise out there about forgiveness. And you know what noise does? It chats up your Inner Victim and distracts you. The louder the noise gets, the quicker you need to call in your Inner Skeptic. Because some of the sounds are nothing but big, fat lies. And I have bought into some of the myths. Maybe you have too.

Lying to yourself while you forgive someone is worse than not forgiving them at all. 

Hurt will still be there, lurking and waiting. You have to be real in your quest for unearthing hurt. So I came up with this list of lies and the balancing truths I collected about forgiveness this week. 



Lie: When I forgive, I have to forget what happened and move on.

Truth: Remembering how you got hurt empowers you to forgive and create the life you deserve.

In my case, the hurt happened during a time of

complete vulnerability on my part. It was at a time of the year that I am feeling an unbelievable deluge of emotions, and I was early in my walk of experiencing it. Words said that I would have usually chuckled off, but during this time, I felt stabbed deeply in being. Even now, I can't forget what happened, and I shouldn't.  Trying to ignore the words that were said would be like walking through a minefield with my eyes shut and a big high target on my back. When you forget, you don’t know how to navigate. When you can’t navigate, you fake it.

Faking it is not forgiveness. Pretending does not set you free and keep you safe.

That’s why it’s important to remember. Remembering what happened gives you a compass for where you want to be. It lets you go easy on yourself while you design how it’s going to be from now on. Honoring your reality allows you to build the life you deserve and empowers you to forgive.

Lie: Forgiveness wipes the slate clean and gives them another chance to hurt me.

Truth: Forgiveness doesn’t invite you to get hurt again. Forgiveness empowers you to teach others how to treat you differently.

Forgiving someone takes a lot of honesty. Honesty about yourself and how you deserve to be treated. And honesty about the one who hurt you and how they’re inclined to act around you. You don’t cause the way someone else acts, but you can invite them to work differently with you. If they don’t want to play nice, you get to change the way you show up around them.

When someone acts irrational toward you, it's most likely based on a large amount of insecurity from past experiences. When you trust people to be who they are, you can adjust your expectations of them accordingly.

I stopped to realize that this person had no real understanding of who I was. Most of what they had come to believe was based on second-hand information and my attempts at a controlled exterior. How fair was that to either of us?

Over the years, I've come to understand that only I am responsible for building relationships with those people who are in my life. I can't expect others to be my agents of good or bad references.  Suddenly, I wasn’t hoping them to rescue me. And I was able to forgive them.

Forgiveness lets you see your offender honestly and puts you in charge of how you’re treated.

Lie: I have to forgive someone, or they won’t heal and be forgiven.

Truth: When someone asks for forgiveness, they want their peace back. And that’s not even something you can give them.

One of the most important truths I learned is that forgiveness heals me. I can’t do someone else’s healing for them.

I sent my card yesterday to this person with an open invitation to contact me or just quietly move on together - releasing those we are joined with to be peaceful and free of worries. But I can't guarantee that it will ever be opened. It could be torn up unopened.

Setting people free to walk through their darkness is the most accurate test of your freedom.

Lie: I can’t forgive someone who doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.

Truth: Forgiveness doesn’t give others what they deserve. Forgiveness gives you the only chance of ever getting what you truly deserve - your freedom. Freedom means you let go of hurting and decide to grow in the areas this barrier has inhibited.

Letting yourself feel better takes a lot of trusts. Trust that there’s enough upright stuff out there for you. Trust that even if another person gets some, there’s still always plenty for you.

When someone has hurt you during your most vulnerable of times, you don't want to see them happy. It's shameful, but a human shortfalling that happens to us all. 
You have to accept that the other person may never ask for your forgiveness. They may be so wrapped up in their reality that they can't see why you are upset. Stop waiting for them to 'deserve it.' You deserve the freedom NOW.

Forgiveness isn’t about balancing the scales of justice. Forgiveness is about attaining your freedom along the way.

Lie: I can’t forgive until I know the reason this happened to me.

Truth: You may never know the reason anything happened. But you can create your motivation for everything that happens now.

What happened to you wasn’t fair. But why is a question you could be chasing to your grave? Or to the graves of those involved? Why torture yourself with making sense of what didn’t make sense? You already suffered through what happened to you. Why keep feeding the story with endless possibilities of great endings?

I wasted a lot of time, wondering why. I wanted it all to make sense somehow. If it wasn’t my fault, it had to belong to somebody. Every time I interacted with those people connected to the two of us; I wanted to scream, "It's not the way I want it to be!"

Finally, I gave myself my reason. I needed to stop wanting to shout. I don't like screaming. That was the day that I became free.

Freeing yourself from the burden of why sets you free from an endless blame game with no end in sight.

Can I get real with you for a second? I am not good at being a victim, but I've always wondered about how to be one...

We’ve all got an inner victim that we may or may not let out. Our personal champion of lies and entrapments. It needs us to believe it. The lies get more significant when you think them, but so does the truth.  I had to realize that this was not the place I was going to find out, and there may never be that place for me. That's okay. Today, I am strong, and I am free. 

And I want you to be too in your "Peyton Place" story. (for those too young to understand, it was the very first viral Soap Opera.)

There’s not a thing standing in your way.

So tonight, Chris and I will toast to this person and to their happiness with a drink I call, "The Hurt is Gone." It's a pretty simple shot. Nothing fancy or complicated. Ending hurt and navigating forgiveness is just that. Resist the urge to dress it up any other way and leave it all on the field. Cheers, Friends!

Joy's "The Hurt is Gone" Shooter**

1/2 oz Goldschlager
1/2 oz Dissarrono
1/2 oz Jack Daniels
One Moonshine Cherry


Mix and shoot, easy as that. Don't choke on the cherry ;)

**Always drink responsibly. Never drive after consuming alcohol.