When Forgiveness Feels Impossible

Hi, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. And today we're talking about how to forgive when forgiveness feels impossible. I don't know about you, but I don't like it when people shove things down my throat or try to convince me to feel something that I'm not ready to feel or experience something that I'm just, I'm not ready for, ready to consume it. And forgiveness has been one of those things for me. I talked about the difficulties I had forgiving myself and forgiving other people in Stronger in the Difficult Places. That's my book that I wrote. And so today I wanna talk about what do you do when you feel the same way? Now, lots of experts say that, including myself, because I talk about forgiveness all the time, and this is true, that forgiveness isn't necessarily for you, that it's hurting you to hold on to resentment, right? It hurts you more than it hurts the other person. We all know about this. Forgiveness is not giving a gift to somebody else. But I have to say, it doesn't feel like that when you want to forgive somebody. It feels like you are giving something to somebody else. And because of that, I've had a really complicated relationship with forgiveness for decades. And I've come to a place where I think I feel good about it, where I have been able to forgive, because as much as I don't necessarily believe the mantra that forgiveness isn't for somebody else, And let me tell you why. Because when I've done something to hurt someone, when I've done something that I feel bad about, especially to somebody that I really care about, you know what I want? Forgiveness. And do you know why I want forgiveness? Because it makes me feel better. Because it does feel like they're giving something to me. They're giving me some type of acceptance. So I know that the truth is that when we hold on to forgiveness, we're not helping. We're not hurting somebody else, right? When we give forgiveness to somebody else, it's not really a gift to them. It is a gift for us, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like that. And sometimes it feels impossible. And so I wanna talk about that today. And so what if you don't wanna give that gift? What if it does feel like you're offering acceptance? What if it does feel like you're saying it's okay? What if it does feel like you're giving a gift, right? And even worse, I have to say, is when we don't wanna forgive ourselves because in the world we have 3 people that we need to forgive. Mm-hmm. When something happens to us, we have to forgive somebody else. We have to forgive ourselves, and sometimes we have to forgive God. And I'm gonna say the things that a lot of people don't say, and that is I've had to forgive all 3. And a lot of people will be like, God doesn't need forgiveness. No, he doesn't need forgiveness. But when I'm angry at him, when I feel like he has wronged me, when I don't understand why in the world crazy things happen in the world and to me, I feel like I've gotta forgive him if I'm gonna move on. And we're gonna talk about what forgiveness means. But before that, I just wanna be clear. If you don't wanna forgive, if you wanna hold onto your anger and your bitterness, it doesn't mean you're a terrible person. It doesn't mean you have some kind of spiritual deficit. It doesn't even necessarily mean you're cold. It just means you're feeling pain and you don't know what to do with it, and you don't feel like giving it up. It's gonna make it better. It will over time, but that's not how it feels. And so first, let's talk about what does forgiveness even mean? What does, what does that mean? For me, what helped me in my decade search of trying to figure out how to forgive people was this quote by John Polanski, and that is, forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past. I love that quote because it's not about somebody else. It's not about reconciling with somebody else. It's not about accepting with somebody else. Else did. It's not saying it's okay. It's just saying, I'm gonna give up any hope that the past could have been different. That's an acceptance. And really, forgiveness is a type of acceptance, right? But it's an acceptance of the event instead of acceptance of a person or even acceptance of your, your choice. It's just accepting it happened. Can't change it. Can't go back. I'm not gonna try to go repair it because it's not possible. And when I say repair, it's That means undo, right? Now we can go back and try to repair, meaning repair a relationship that was broken because of something that happened, but that's a whole nother— that's a whole nother episode. So when we can give up all hope of a better past, now we're on the road to forgiveness. It's the moment that you stop trying to rewrite history. And that is exactly why forgiveness is so hard, because when you give something up, Guess what you have to do? Grieve. Giving something up is a loss, and now you've got to grieve. You've got to grieve who you were before it happened. You've got to grieve what you didn't get that you wanted, and you've got to grieve a future that now looks a little bit different than you imagined. You have to grieve the reality of the past that isn't what you hoped it would be, but that's not weakness. That's Loss, and plenty of strong people—the strongest people actually that I know—have dealt with a lot of loss. And some losses are small, and some losses are big. And then there's those really big ones. There's the intentional breaches. There's the devastating betrayals. Those are hard, and those are real. And it's easier sometimes to forgive the unintentional. Right? The things we unintentionally did to other people, the things other people, other people have unintentionally done to us. But when it comes to those big things that we've done to somebody else or somebody else has done to us, it's hard to forgive that because those kind of breaches change how you see the world. It changes how you see yourself. It changes how your ability to trust. It kind of like pulls the rug out from under you. And sometimes, to be honest with you, what blocks forgiveness is not resentment. It's fear. It's fear of, okay, so I forgive and then what? What happens next? Do I reconcile? Do I stay? Do I open myself up to being hurt again? So for a lot of people, forgiveness feels impossible because it feels like a demand to do something that you don't know how to do, especially the after part. It feels like a demand to move on without clarity, without boundaries, in a way that doesn't feel safe. And to be honest with you, that's not forgiveness. That's self-abandonment, is to say it's okay and I'm gonna trust you again and I'm gonna move on. Yeah, that's self-abandonment. That's not forgiveness. So we can think of a lot of reasons not to forgive, but I'm gonna offer you something more than not forgiving. I'm gonna offer you a way to forgive in a way that feels possible. And the first thing is you have to stop using forgiveness as the first step, because before forgiveness, there's truth. Before forgiveness, there's grief. Before forgiveness, there's got to be anger that is reckoned with and felt because it's valid, even if it's anger at yourself. If you're trying to forgive while you're still trying to minimize what happened, your body knows the difference and it's not going to work. It's not going to accept it. It's not going to be able to move forward. So you have to first go with all the current, right, of the thing that happened. You've got to first acknowledge the truth. You've got to acknowledge the grief. You've got to acknowledge the anger. That's what comes first. Otherwise, your nervous system is just going to resist. Next, you've got to separate forgiveness from reconciliation. They are not the same thing. You can forgive without reconciling. I'm sure you've heard this before. And you can reconcile without forgiving. I just don't suggest it. But Forgiveness doesn't require access. It doesn't require proximity, and it doesn't require you saying it's okay. You can forgive and you can choose distance. You can forgive and you can choose boundaries. You can forgive and not have communicated with the other person at all, unless it's yourself. You've got to keep communicating with yourself. So it's this internal release. It's not a relational contract with anyone. I don't know if I'm convincing you yet or not, but forgiveness can feel impossible, but it is possible. And finally, you've got to allow your forgiveness to be incremental. And what that means is it doesn't happen in a day. It might not happen in a week. It may not happen in a year. Because, you know, when people immediately, quickly forgive people, I'm always a little skeptical because how did you do that so fast? There was so much that had to happen to get to this place where you're giving up the hope of a better past. You've got to do some things. And part of that is feeling and acknowledging the thing, because if you haven't allowed yourself to feel it, then what you're forgiving is something else. And you're forgiving because you're trying to not feel it. You're forgiving because you want to move on instead of walking through. So forgiveness is not a moment. It's a small relinquishment of, of that hope over time and grieving and getting to a place of acceptance. It's not a quick thing. So you might have to just give up hope of a better conversation before you give up hope of a better outcome. You might have to forgive the impact of what was done on you before you forgive the intention. You might have to forgive yourself before you forgive anybody else, or maybe you have to forgive somebody else before you can forgive yourself. It's steps, and all of that still counts. And so last is self-forgiveness. And I say last because it's really the most important, so you would think it would be first, but you still have to go through all these steps first. And then self-forgiveness, in my opinion, is the most important. Forgiving yourself doesn't mean you didn't make mistakes. Forgiving yourself doesn't mean you're saying the mistakes you made are okay. It's saying, I can't have done anything differently in my past. It also is saying, I'm not who I was 5 minutes ago. It's saying, I accept and I understand Because all behavior makes sense in its context. That's another thing I believe so, so strongly is that all behavior makes sense in its context. And so I accept and I understand why I did something, even if it wasn't okay, even if I'm not okay with it. And I accept what's happened as a result. When you forgive yourself, you stop demanding a better past from you too. And that changes everything. So if forgiveness still feels impossible, It's okay. Don't force it. It needs to happen eventually, to be honest with you. And my hope for you and my prayer for you is that you watch this over and over again until you can begin to take those steps and do it. But if it feels impossible right now, that's okay. You're not a bad person. You're not broken. You're not stone cold. You're hurt and you're trying to process it. And so what you might want to ask yourself is, what am I still holding on to? And so what you might want to ask yourself is, what am I hoping that the past will give me if I stay here in this place? What am I not ready to grieve yet? And what would it mean if I loosen my grip just a little? Ask yourself, what's the story you're telling yourself? If I give just a little, if I give up all hope of a better past, if I stop changing my past in my mind every day, what do I think that's going to give me? Eventually, if you work through this, forgiveness is going to come. It's not as an obligation, but it will actually come as a relief because I can smile and say to you after walking through complex shame, after learning to forgive others and myself, that the freedom— oh my goodness, the freedom is worth all of the steps and all of the fear and all the things that you have to go through to get there. It's okay if it takes time. It took me longer than I wish it should have, and I'm doing these kinds of videos and talking to you and podcasting because I hope that it doesn't take as long for you as it did for me, because the freedom I wish I had experienced decades ago. So if you want to dive a little bit deeper into the steps and the how-tos of self-forgiveness, I offer that to my paid subscribers. It will be in the next episode, and if you're part of my Stronger Woman Collective, you get to have those for free. If this resonates with you and possibly someone you know, share this episode with somebody who you know is struggling with forgiveness. You never know how it might change their life. I would love for you to join me in the Stronger Woman Collective. If not, I will see you next time. Stay strong, my friend.