You Deserve The Right To Forgive — at Your Own Time.
There’s no rule that states you ‘must’ forgive and at a particular time too.
Forgiveness is the act of sincerely letting go of any hurtful feelings you have or any ill feelings that you may harbor against someone who has offended you.
It’s one of the most powerful gifts you can possess as a person and the hardest to execute as well.
To forgive isn’t necessarily to forget but it always goes a long way to achieving the latter. When both are attained, it’s even better than either of them.
Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily equate to reverting back to ‘old ways’. It could mean that you’re willing to truly feel peace of mind whenever you’re around the person that may have hurt you but not be as close. It may also mean you’re willing to move forward regardless.
However, forgiveness has a time frame through which it can be given and be efficacious too.
This is the time you’d need to process things and heal from them in such a way it doesn’t have much influence over you anymore, before actually letting the other party know. The reason for this is that it’s the only way forgiving will actually be derived and sincerely so.
When someone, a parent, friend, or spouse or any other person for that matter, attempts to force you to seek for forgiveness or to forgive, i.e. peacemaking, it usually spells doom for the people involved and that’s because you can’t force a feeling although you can force the action. The feeling to forgive is paramount and shouldn’t be done in accordance with someone else’s time frame but yours.
The holy bible, Qur’an, and other biblical studies and moral educators preach forgiveness but never is it said anywhere that it’s a must, nor allotted a time frame for it. There’s no rule that states you ‘must’ forgive and at a particular time too.
Forgiveness should be done out of your own will.
It’s always preferable to forgive as soon as you can in order to loose the mental and emotional, if possible, physical shackles that come alongside, however, let it be when you’re ready.
If you aren’t ready yet, don’t be pissed off at yourself about it. Don’t berate yourself for your lack of forgiveness because it’s not happening yet. In this case, self-awareness is an important tool to utilize which will help you ascertain what’s drawing you back from doing so and how you can help yourself to process and heal, or whatever thing else you’d like to deal with first, before acceptance to forgive.
We all were born with different minds and modes of behavior. Our idiosyncrasies do not completely tally, although there may be similarities here and there. A sensitive person may find it harder to forgive ugly, harsh words that were uttered during a fight, compared to a non-sensitive person. And that’s why it’s advisable that such a person be given enough room to process their feelings well before being bombarded with the principles and preachings of the importance of forgiveness because odds are, they already know. They just need to take their time. Self-awareness will also help you beforehand, in determining what category of person you fall into so that it helps with absorbing the truth about what may have hurt you, why, and how to deal with it too.
When you’re forced to make up with someone you aren’t ready to make up with, it can breed resentment. It can further exacerbate the ugly situation during the process of hashing things out and it can escalate the hurt further.
The pressure to do so normally comes from parents who always take it upon themselves to seal up loopholes and bring everyone together — and while this may not be preposterous, what otherwise becomes one is when you tell them you aren’t ready to make up with your spouse, friend or other loved one. At least my parents are guilty of this.
I’ve come to the realization that the word ‘ready’ is for a reason. It is used to qualify a stance in any situation. It means you’re in the process of achieving a goal or something else.
So when someone utters such a sentence like “I’m not ready”, give them time. When your colleague isn’t ready to make amends, give them time. When your spouse isn’t ready to talk or forgive, give them time.
Time heals all wounds.
Forgiveness takes time, therefore, it deserves a time frame too and when that time elapses, you’ll see that they’ll come around, more ready, refreshed in mind as to what to say and respond back to you with— and most importantly, you’ll get the forgiveness you so seek for.
Because to err is human, but to forgive, divine.
