How Can I Possibly Forgive? Moving Past Our Pain Without Giving Up Accountability
“The mind remembers to protect us; the heart forgives to free us.”
The phrase "forgive and forget" implies that both forgiving and forgetting are simple, mechanical tasks. As though letting go of a painful memory is as easy as closing a book and placing it back on the shelf. But the human mind is not built that way. We are built not only to remember, but to retain emotionally significant events, especially when those events involve physical or psychological harm. This isn't a flaw in evolution's design (though it might feel that way sometimes!) it is a safeguard - to remember danger is to avoid it, and to recall betrayal is to protect oneself against it.
Even if the pain serves a purpose, it is still painful - and becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate the longer it continues. We might find ourselves having a harder time trusting others, experiencing increased stress in similar circumstances, and oscillating between externally focused rage and self-criticism. Over time, if these emotions aren't processed, or given room to shift, they can start shaping our worldview, our relationships, and even our sense of self. This is where forgiveness comes in.
What Forgiveness Really Means
Forgiveness has been defined in different ways, but the general consensus is that it is the act or process of consciously letting go of anger or resentment toward someone for a perceived wrong that was committed. This means shifting our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours in relation to the "offender" from negative, to more neutral or positive. Forgiveness is a cognitive and emotional reappraisal - it is a reframing of the meaning of what happened in order to change it's emotional impact on us. We still remember the pain, but we are choosing to move forward without actively carrying or maintaining negative feelings towards the other person.
While there are moral and religious arguments for forgiving others, which may necessitate the unburdening of responsibility from the "offender" so that they can move on in peace, we are talking about forgiveness as a psychological process that does not require that anything changes in the external world. We can forgive, without excusing wrongdoing or freeing anyone from consequences. When we forgive, in the psychological sense, we are liberating ourself by transforming our own pain and our internal relationship with the person who has hurt us. This could lead to a transformed relationship with the actual person who hurt us or it could not. If the person remains harmful, or has given us good reasons to doubt our safety with them, we can and arguably should maintain some distance, even while letting go of our pain.
So how do we we actually transform our pain and fixation on having been wronged?
The Power of Acceptance
The precursor to forgiveness is acceptance. To accept means coming to terms with what happened and acknowledging that it cannot be changed. Acceptance isn't about pretending that our hurt is okay or that someone's betrayal was "meant to be" - it is simply facing the reality that it did actually happen. Acceptance allows us to start where we actually are, not where we feel like we should have been in some hypothetical reality where we were not hurt. While it may seem obvious that what happened, happened, it is incredibly common to encounter parts of us in times of great distress that fight against acceptance, as if accepting makes it real. When we can accept that what happened, happened, we can start to move forward, step-by step, with the power to both make our own meaning from what happened and make healthy choices for our future.
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Empathy as a Gateway
The pain we feel when we are hurt by someone is a product of the choices that the "offender" has made along with the meaning that we assign to their choices. For one-person, a sexual affair (for example) is a colossal betrayal and an indication that their partner has no respect for them. For another it is a painful but understandable outcome of problematic relationship dynamics and temptation. This difference in meaning making can be the difference between devastation and pain that feels possible to recover from. While it is not our place to tell you what to believe, it is important to recognize that our beliefs have tremendous power to shape our experience of emotional pain.
Many of our beliefs are unconsciously inherited from our environments and may be unexamined. We often take for granted that our thoughts are an accurate reflection of reality, when they are limited and partial reflections at best. It can be a very helpful exercise to consciously try on different ways of looking at a situation, and we can also read or solicit alternative perspectives from people we know and trust.
If our beliefs are not set in stone, are not true reflections of reality, and have a tremendous impact on how we experience our pain, how should we look at relational pain and betrayal? Beyond acceptance, what will help us let go of our pain and move into forgiveness? This is where empathy comes in.
Empathy allows us to answer our unanswered questions about the other person's motivations and choices, without condoning their bad behaviour or dehumanizing them through our judgements and rage. Empathy is the process of attempting to step into another person's shoes and try to understand what they might have been feeling and what fundamental human needs and values they were attempting to fulfill through their behaviours, even if their behaviours sucked for us.
When we can see others as flawed human beings trying to meet basic human needs, we can judge their strategies for meeting their needs, without judging the person. We might even be able to imagine how such a situation would be possible if we were in their shoes. This does not excuse hurtful choices, but it can help us understand them. It can also serve as a powerful tool in constructing alternative narratives to ones that keep us stuck in our pain, such as: "Because they never loved me"; "Because they don't respect me", "Because I deserve to be treated this way". It is all to easy to fall into these desperately painful narratives in times of distress that fail to consider the many and often more complex reasons that people make poor and painful choices.
Finding Your Own Path to Healing
Healing won't look the same for each person. The goal of forgiveness and acceptance is emotional freedom, in whatever form that may take. There is no right way to heal, and no timeline or checklist that will work for everybody. Sometimes authentic healing may mean refusing reconciliation or choosing not to forgive, and that's also valid.
What is universal is that we all get hurt in our lives and that we are not alone in this struggle. This is the same struggle that so much amazing art, writing, philosophy and music has arisen from. It is the struggle that allows us to chart new paths toward a life that is more fulfilling and relationships that are more rewarding. When we feel stuck in our pain, we need support. Not necessarily from a therapist, but from someone with the capacity to really hold us with compassion and not just feed our self-defeating narratives.
Nat Roman | Founder & Clinical Director of Couple Therapy Toronto, MSc RP RMFT
Nat has a long background in meditation, Buddhist psychology and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practices. He has taught and mentored others within the context of traditional Buddhist retreats, workshops on mindfulness and compassionate communication practices, and individual, couple and family therapy sessions.
In an earlier stage of life Nat worked as musician and strongly believes that creativity is an essential part of life, whether one is engaged in a formal creative discipline, problem solving, or attempting to get kids off to school in the morning.
Emily Taylor is the Marketing and Intake Coordinator at Couple Therapy Toronto. She holds a BBA with a concentration in Marketing Psychology and Communications, alongside a minor in Global Studies focusing on religion, intersectionality, and sociology. She has also pursued studies in Behavioural Science, where she studied Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) and psychology. Her unique background grounds her work in a nuanced understanding of human motivation, emotion, and social context. With a deep appreciation for the courage it takes to seek support, Emily writes from a place of curiosity, empathy, and respect for the full spectrum of the human experience, and strongly believes in the power of therapy to facilitate healing and growth.