I have come to realize that a lot of people actually misunderstood the concept of what forgiveness entails. Like, for instance, when I say I forgive someone, the mind of the person that has been forgiven simply goes to “you can come back.” That thinking is where everything goes wrong.
To me, when I say I forgive someone, it means I am letting go of something someone did to me instead because I need that space for something else. It's definitely not a reinstatement. It doesn't mean I'm giving that person the same access they had in the past.
It doesn't mean everything is back to the way it was before. Because they are different things, and a lot of people have now turned them into just one, people now use “you have forgiven me now” as a technique to find an entry space again. And not a real and deep question about healing.
Those sets of people who are always too prompt to forgive and suffer for it are mostly not misunderstanding forgiveness itself. There are just those sets of people who will never wait until this full restoration is done and they see detailed and vivid evidence of changes having been done. They never set boundaries for themselves, and now they blame it on forgiveness again. And that is not the problem.
Forgiveness is a big strength, absolutely. Because it is so exhausting to be going around with resentment. But forgiving someone doesn't now mean we should allow them to do what they did to us the second time. Of course, we can let go of the anger and still keep our door shut.
Thank you for reading.
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