"I know I should forgive her, but I can’t."
Chrystal sits across from me, arms folded, her jaw tight. She’s spent years wrestling with what she’s been told about forgiveness—what her family, her church, and even self-help books insist she must do.
"She’s my mother. I get it. But every time I try to let it go, it feels like I’m betraying myself.”
I nod. “What if forgiveness isn’t actually the goal?”
She tilts her head. "Then what is?"
"Understanding."
A long pause.
She expected me to tell her to push through, to find the strength to forgive, to be the bigger person. But forgiveness as a forced act rarely leads to true healing.
For the first time, she’s considering that maybe the pressure to forgive is what’s been keeping her stuck.
Somewhere along the way, forgiveness promised to be the golden ticket to healing.
It sounds like:
“She’s your mother. You have to forgive her.”
“In this family—we always forgive.”
“Your father was struggling then, he’s different now.”
“Your mother didn’t mean it.”
It’s packaged as the "right" thing to do, taking the high road, or we're told its the way out of pain.
But here’s what nobody tells you:
👉 Forced forgiveness creates an imbalance. It asks you to override your own boundaries, pretend the hurt didn’t matter, and move on—without actually healing.
👉 It makes the person who was harmed responsible for making things right. You’ve been hurt, but you are the one who has to do the emotional heavy lifting of forgiving?
👉 It keeps you stuck in the loop. Because instead of resolving the wound, you’re pushing it down, covering it up, calling it something else.
And let me be clear: Forgiveness isn’t wrong—but when it’s forced, it becomes another way we abandon ourselves.
From Forced Forgiveness to True Understanding
Chrystal exhales.
"So… if I don’t have to force forgiveness, what do I do?"
"You shift your perspective. You move from ‘I have to forgive’ to ‘I want to understand.’"
Not to excuse the behavior. Not to justify the pain. But because understanding frees you in a way forced forgiveness never will.
Understanding sounds like:
✔ “I see that my father grew up in a chaotic home and never truly learned how to love, and that has impacted me.”
✔ “I understand that my mother was emotionally unavailable because she was still carrying the wounds of her own childhood. It doesn’t make my pain disappear, but it helps me stop personalizing her distance.”
✔ “I can see that my partner’s anger isn’t actually about me—it’s about years of feeling unseen in his own family. That doesn’t mean I accept mistreatment, but it helps me respond with clarity instead of reactivity.”
✔ “I understand now that my spouse shutting down emotionally isn’t because I’m not lovable—it’s because, for them, vulnerability once meant danger.”
Understanding does something forgiveness never will—it allows you to hold two truths at once:
🔹 What happened was not okay.
🔹 I don’t have to let it keep running my life.
And that is the real shift.
"Okay," Chrystal says, “But why does it still feel so fresh?”
Because your nervous system doesn’t know time.
You’re not just remembering what happened—you’re reliving it.
Your ex-husband cheated, and now every time your new partner is late, your body prepares for betrayal.
Your mother was cold and dismissive, and now every time a friend cancels plans, your chest tightens as if you’re 10 years old again.
The body holds everything. The grief, the betrayal, the anger—it doesn’t just sit in your mind, it sits in your cells, your nervous system, your reactions.
This is why “just let it go” is the single worst advice on the planet.
How to Actually Release the Past (Without the Pressure to Forgive)
"So if I don’t have to forgive, how do I stop carrying it?"
You release it at the level it lives.
Not with words. Not with a forced “I forgive you.” But with a process that shifts it in your body, your patterns, your perception.
Try this:
🔹 Find It – Where does the pain live? In your chest? Your gut? Your throat?
🔹 Feel It – Instead of shutting it down, breathe into that space. Feel it fully.
🔹 Free It – Imagine opening a door. Let it move through you instead of getting stuck.
You don’t have to forgive to move forward.
How much energy have we wasted on resentment, withdrawal, or trying to “forgive” when what we really needed was clarity?
The goal is not to force forgiveness. The goal is to understand why it happened, how it shaped you, and how you can step forward without carrying it anymore.
Healing is Not About Them. It’s About You.
Chrystal looks at me, softer now.
"So I don’t have to force forgiveness?"
"No," I say. "You just have to understand it enough to free yourself from it."
What many call forgiveness is really a shift in perception—one that allows love to flow freely again.
And that shift starts with understanding.
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