Can We Just DECIDE to Forgive Someone – Or Is Forgiveness Something That Must Happen by Itself?

I wrote my thoughts after discussing forgiveness with a friend, and I ponder what you think about it too!

Me and tea

Last weekend I sat with a friend for tea ceremony, and in between two cups of Bliss Gaba Cha she asked me: What are your thoughts about forgiveness?

My friend had moved out of a relationship just a couple of days before, and was concerned with forgiving her ex-partner for painful things that had happened during the last phases of their relationship. And… my friend preferred that forgiveness to happen as quickly as possible. 

I think she has a point: bearing grudges hurts and depletes us. So YES, finding forgiveness is a beautiful gift to ourselves; A letting go of the past and a permission to move on. 

But, I also told her, I don’t think we benefit from focusing on forgiving too early. Because before forgiveness comes feeling: anger, fury, sadness, pain. Before forgiveness comes our surrender to our most primal impulses of being hurt. And if we forgive before we have explored those waves, we risk bypassing the lessons these primal feelings come with!

Forgiveness by willpower vs. forgiveness that arises naturally?

Maybe I'm biased by my years in the spiritual environment, where I often observed what I’d call a form of toxic positivity; a bypass of feelings in a desperate need to return to peacefulness and easiness as quickly as possible.

As I saw it, this positivity oftentimes happened on behalf of acknowledging and getting to know our primal, raw, painful and demanding feelings. 

Parts of the spiritual and self-help environment seem to carry this idea that if we just can forgive quickly and without struggle, we´ve resolved the situation and won’t have to take into consideration painful and hurt feelings of ours. In a hunt to return to inner peace, forgiveness becomes some sort of a highway allowing us to let go of the (recent) past and move on with our life. 

But is it really that easy? 

My hesitation is that if we force the process of forgiveness too early, we attempt to improve a situation before we have really… accepted it. Our eagerness to move on somehow forces us out of the present moment, and into an illusionary and hopeful state, a state that seems less painful - but is also less real. 

I couldn’t resist the inclination to poke at my friend’s reason for wanting to forgive so quickly after the break-up. Was she trying to forgive in order to feel on top the situation? Was it to let go of her partner as quickly as possible (which I can understand of course – why prolong the heartbreak if we can just forgive and let go?). Or was there one part of her who was deceiving herself – and potentially bypassing her feelings of anger and hurt?

I'm a feeling preacher. I belive growth and healing requires feeling. And I belive its through facing painful feelings arising in us, that we build resilience to face similar situations in the future. Without facing those feelings first, forgiveness to me seems pretty worthless – more of a mind game really; a way to feel that we are in control when we are not.  

Personally, I sort of believe that forgiveness is something that should arise naturally as a consequence of having befriended our pain, rather than a thing that our clever mind tells us we “should” do. I perceive forgiveness less as a TOOL, and more as an organic happening; A desire that arises in us when we have come to own our part of a situation, and are ready to relieve the other from that situation. 

What does it take to forgive? 

Okay, you’ve got my point now: I'm sceptical of any attempts to forgive that comes before we have felt the depth of our feelings. Maybe it’s just me that has this well of feelings and know I will NEVER EVER be able to forgive before I've tapped the bottom of at least some of those? I don’t know. And I cannot really speak for anybody else than myself.

As we poured another cup of tea, I noticed that my friend DID seem convincing in her readiness to forgive. Besides, as we expanded on the topic, we could agree that there was probably LAYERS of forgiveness, and that her opening to forgiveness didn’t mean the process was complete. Maybe she will face new layers of feelings later - in order to forgive deeper? 

I'm looking forward to check in with her on this topic in a couple of months’ time, to see if new insights have unravelled. It might also be, I'm thinking as I'm writing this now, that we just have different approaches to the art of forgiveness? 

What are YOUR thoughts about what it takes to forgive? Can we just choose to forgive, and then do it? Or do you think there are steps that needs to proceed a true forgiveness? Does it resonate that there are layers to the forgiveness process? And are there things that shouldn’t – or couldn’t – ever be forgiven? Write me a comment and share your opinion! Maybe I’ll even write a follow-up on this one, if you feed me some inputs.