The Importance of Forgiveness
I think the first step is to understand that forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. Forgiveness liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself. – T.D. Jakes
When it comes to recovering after breakup or divorce, one of the important things one must do is practice forgiveness. It’s necessary to understand that you are not doing this for another person, you are actually doing yourself a favor and giving yourself a gift of freedom and pursuit of happiness. It is not about getting the other person off the hook however they wronged you or however they made you feel it is all actually about you.
And of course, it can be difficult to forgive, especially if you've been married for a long time or have been in a long-term relationship. And you dedicated your life, your attention, your love, all your good qualities to the other person. And you may have put them on a pedestal and have forgotten about yourself. Forgiving them may be very hard and it will take some time. But if you want to restart your life, if you ever want to be content, then you need to forgive because if you don't, you're carrying all the emotional baggage and it becomes difficult to live your life and be happy and be present because you're always in the past, always rethinking, I should have done this, or I could have done this, or I should have said that.
So it's important to forgive the other person. Forgive the situation that you were in and forgive yourself who you are, because you always operate from the best of your ability, from the best of your knowledge at the time. You cannot go back and change the past. By you constantly repeating thoughts, feelings and emotions of the past, you are living in the past, what happens is you are sending a message, a signal to your brain that this is important. You are putting a spotlight on that particular thing. And for your mind it does not matter whether something happened a while ago, or if it's happening now, the same parts of your brain light up, the same parts become activated. Then you experience the past of negative events all over again.
If you want to change your life, if you want to become happy again, if you want to have that realization, then you need to forgive and it can take some time, but it's important to start on the journey so that you can become a better human and become happier by letting go of the past. And whenever you forgive someone, you're not letting them off the hook, you are not saying that whatever they did is justified. All you're doing in that sense is forgiving who you are, who you are in the situation and how you showed up and what happened. You only doing it for yourself, which would allow you to step forward into the present and actually change your future. Once you forgive your past because the more you hold onto your past, the more of that you will create in your life again.
So how do you do that? You can start with meditations. You can start with doing small baby steps by forgiving today. You can change your life too. When you are living in the past, when you are constantly rethinking what I should have done, what I could have said, you're not being present. You're missing out that important moment of life, where you are today. You are missing out on that. And it's important to be present because life consists of those beautiful moments when we are present, whether it is seeing a smile on your child's face or walking along the beach and absorbing the nature being in that sense allows you to be present. And that you can experience life instead of letting your life pass you by. Because when you're in that grudge moment, when you are holding onto those things you are not living your life. You're somewhere else. It's like, imagine when you're going to work. And you're thinking about all the other things, while your car just drives, that's what happens in your life? You just go without being present without experiencing what your life is about. How is it going? How are you feeling? Because you are constantly rethinking all those things that went wrong.
And although those things that you could have changed, but you cannot change it because you don't have a time machine, but you can change your future by concentrating on the present and practicing forgiveness.