Forgiving and ego

Anyone who has ever done anything to better themselves, has given a thought to the act of forgiveness and how it frees us from the burden of past hurts. What troubles me about it – and probably a lot of people who have trouble asking for forgiveness – are the underlying motivations in the act. Healthy forgiveness is no more asked for than it’s demanded. It occurs on it’s own, when the time is ripe for it and the hurt has been healed. It’s a natural process of those who do work through these issues, forcing forgiveness is not something that solves a problem – it stops the process of healing in an arbitrary solution and buries the hurts under a rug poisoning the relationship without allowing it to heal properly. If we ask for forgiveness before the hurt person has had time to heal, we deny them the right to be angry at us, and to vent their emotions fully. We stop that process in it’s tracks, because you are not socially allowed to deny forgiveness from someone who asks for it, so you forgive out of guilt, not out of genuine wish to forgive. This is the reason we ask for it – we are no longer the target of their anger, and if we are, you can always deflect their anger by saying “I already said I’m sorry what else do you want?!” This is not a true apology, this is a cop out from your responsibility as the person who hurt another person, and adding an insult to injury. Should you listen to requests of apology? No you shouldn’t. If someone hurt you, you have the right to tell them to fuck off. You’ll forgive them when you’re good and ready. It happens when you’re no  longer angry. This is why you feel humiliation at the thought of forgiving when someone begs for your apology when they’ve hurt you, they’re applying salt onto your wounds and expect you to be happy about it… That’s not what a friend does.

When you demand an apology after being hurt, you are nurturing your hurt ego trying to elevate yourself above the person who hurt you – so that you would disvalidate what ever they said or did to hurt you. Most likely, they hit a sore spot that has to do with the truth, and you want that truth to go away by asking for an apology. This ends your need to self-reflect, because you’ve now diverted the hurt back towards the person who hurt you. This is making them look bad and feel bad, so you wouldn’t have to – and no matter what is said, them apologising also means that they were wrong. You are pointing out that you have been hurt, and depending on your feelings and assessment of the situation, you must know that you will have to deal with this situation regardless and that an apology will not make you feel better but it may open the eyes of the other party to see what they are doing to you. At any rate, apology will not suffice in making things better, but it may open the communication lines – it means literally that you are picking up a fight.

Sometimes an apology is in order but only when your ways are to part or you are willing to step back until the hurt has been healed. You agree to disagree and give each other the required time and space to heal because you’re not going to be in each other’s faces anymore. A public apology works like this, it’s just admitting to have done the wrong thing and giving the other person the respect that they will not attempt to interfere in their lives again. That should be your plan of action if you want to ask for an apology – you will accept that you need to take a step back – not claim a right to cling to your “victim” tighter because you just “did the right thing” and apologised.

No apology should ever be needed – to give or receive – forgiveness washes things away, and you’ll just notice when all the hurt is gone… And you go on as if nothing had ever happened… 🙂

That is not to say you shouldn’t voice it when you’ve been hurt or to not apologise when you realise you did hurt someone, but it is to say that it can be used as a method of manipulation and should not be used in such a way.

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