Forgiveness Is About Setting Your Own Self Free

Forgiveness does not mean that you condone what was done to you.  It does not mean that what was done was justified or correct.  It does not mean you were guilty or deserved what happened.  It does not imply that the act or the person you have forgiven is/was virtuous.    

Forgiveness means that you no longer hold any resentment in your own heart against people or life.  It means you are tired of the burden and the pain that resentment causes in your own self and in your life. It means that you choose not to be vindictive to deliberately harm others in reaction to their having deliberately harmed you. 

It means you choose to let go of what has already gone, what is over.

Forgiveness means that you may have seen the benefit or lesson or growth you received despite the pain and the suffering that was inflicted on you.  And transmuted your resentment to gratitude.

It means that even if you choose not to work with or associate with the people who hurt or damaged you deliberately – because they demonstrated that they cannot be trusted – you may still choose to serve them unconditionally if required.

Forgiveness is about freedom.  Freedom from resentment.  Freedom to act consciously in the unconditional service of others, no matter who they are and what they did, and therefore, in your own highest interest.

Forgiveness is about setting your own self free.

photo credit: Naz Gul Qasim