Harmful patterns imprint and tend to repeat. Attending to the attenuation of such tendencies can help harmony be restored.
“Forgiveness” is the release of past harm’s control over the self. It operates and empowers only within and cannot replace justice or accountability.
It’s easy to get things backwards when it comes to forgiveness. I think that’s on purpose. Not on purpose for an individual, though, it’s backwards because those compulsory forms of forgiveness and surface-level accountability uphold the status quo of power. They don’t want you to know that forgiveness is a profoundly radical act.
They also don’t want you to know that it’s a purely internalized phenomenon, and has little to do with absolving guilt, attaining justice, or seeking restitution or accountability for harm. It is an intention that has no external impact. Then how important could it be, as just an inner shift? Clearly it must be coaxed out, ritualized, refined, almost commodified to build and reinforce our social bonds.
And worse, once extracted it’s held up as viable substitute for those other components of handling harm, molded like plastic to fit the situation. But if a victim has forgiven in an effort to reclaim their psyche, is that enough, especially when the offender has proximity to power? Of course not. We must dismantle this expectation and the exploitation of the vulnerable it upholds.
Once you forget all that, when you truly find yourself able to forgive, the lightness of being and strength of will that rises up can be profound. Whether that’s from seeing the big picture and your self beyond it, or reclaiming the control the harm had over you, it is an important step in becoming whole again. And forgiving yourself is an ongoing part of finding that wholeness in the first place.