menu_open Columnists
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Do You Say to Yourself “They Hurt Me?” Read This First

11 0
latest

The Importance of Forgiveness

Take our Empathy Test

Find a therapist near me

You forgive people for “wronging” you when, in the long term, they are often “righting” you.

“Things happen. You can’t change that. It is up to you to see if you can find a reason.

Being grateful, doesn’t mean things happen for a reason. It means things happen. Whether we like it or not.

Some of the people you perceive to have hurt you may actually be playing an unexpected role in your growth.

Whether it’s political divisions, the threat of AI to future jobs, economic inequality, or even World Cup referee calls, our culture encourages us to make constant decisions around who was right, who was wrong, and whom we should blame. Has judgment-laden cancel culture fomented an instinct within us that has gradually constructed the walls of the invisible prison cells in which so many of us live?

I will now offer a different possibility: Some of the people and changing conditions you may perceive as hurting you may actually be playing an unexpected role in your growth and, further, that forgiveness is not about rewriting what has happened to you, but about reconsidering and infusing it with new meaning.

Perhaps You Haven’t........

© Psychology Today