How To Learn To Forgive And Really Forget

Forgive and Forget.

Three little words, alike many 3 word phrases that are a lot easier said than done.

To forgive, you have to acknowledge and accept the pain. Peel off the band aids and let your wounds breathe, tend to the beliefs, trace the lies to truth, and surround yourself in healing. Give yourself time to heal, just like you would a physical abrasion your heart needs care too.

To forgive, you have to set yourself apart from the ones who hurt you. Say to yourself, ‘they hurt me and it’s not my fault’. To forgive, you have to accept that everyone is human and perhaps they hurt you out of their own wounding. Stand in the gap of your own pain & the cause of your pain and say, “I forgive you, but I will not let it happen again.”

To forgive, you must also give yourself grace. Add a little teaspoon of grace to your morning coffee; every day until you have enough capacity to also forgive YOURSELF. To forgive, means to accept that you are also human and you make mistakes. You will make choices that will cause yourself to compromise your value that you may or may not see yet. But you will learn, because the first person who deserves to see that value, is you. Above all.

Forgiving is a process, you can learn to be able to forgive in heartbeat and take care of yourself when you know you need to. That becomes a skill. But what no one really talks about, is how to forget.

We’ve all heard, even said:

“Just forget about it.”
“Just let it go already.”
“Forget it even happened, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Such an easy text to send. No so easy to follow through.

To forget; is like taking this incredible pain that you’ve so tediously waved at the face of God saying, “THIS RIGHT HERE HURT ME AND I DESERVE THE CARE FOR WHAT IVE BEEN THROUGH” and taking each page, each tear and throwing it all that out the window.

Or so it feels like. Or so you fear. Or so I felt I was doing.

But once again, that is a belief. On the other side of fear is the truth.

To forget is to no longer keep checking your rear-view mirror. To forget is to instead give that pain to God and say, “here is my pain and here are the negatives of my memories. I don’t need them anymore, these records only remind me of the scars. I like my scars, but I no longer need the pain to remind me how much I’ve grown.” To forget to stop looking into your rea-view for guidance on how to move forward. To forget, is to know in your entire being that you will not let yourself be compromised anymore. You now know you can learn from the pain, let go of the pain, and trust yourself to take each step necessary to move forward with grace. No more grudges, no more spirals of negative memories, no more dwelling on the sequence of those memories.

To forgive and forget is to love yourself enough to let go and move forward.

You can forgive. And you can forget. You can do this. There’s so much freedom waiting for you on the other side of this battle. It’s only a few steps away.