Difficulty Forgiving
Forgiveness can be one of the hardest things we are asked to practice as humans. When someone hurts us, the instinct is to protect ourselves by holding on to resentment. It feels safer to keep the pain close, replaying the story as a reminder not to get hurt again. But over time, that resentment doesn’t just protect us it weighs us down, keeping us tied to the very wound we long to heal.
One step in the process of forgiveness is learning to separate the person from the pain.
When we’re in the middle of hurt, it’s easy to define someone by what they’ve done. Their betrayal, their words, their actions become the lens through which we see them. Yet what someone did is not the entirety of who they are.
Just as your own worst mistakes don’t define the whole of you, theirs don’t either. People are complex. They carry their own wounds, conditioning, and blind spots that shape their choices. Recognising this doesn’t excuse harmful behaviour but it does help you see beyond it.
Holding on to resentment is like tying yourself to the wound. Each time you replay the hurt, you re-open it, keeping yourself connected to the pain long after the moment has passed. It becomes less about the original action and more about the ongoing weight you carry.
When you choose to separate the person from the pain, you’re really saying:
“I don’t accept or excuse what happened, but I also choose not to let it control my peace any longer.”
Forgiveness doesn’t mean welcoming someone back into your life. Boundaries are still essential. Choosing forgiveness simply means releasing the grip their actions have on your inner world. It’s about softening the hold of anger and allowing space for your own freedom.
Forgiveness is for you. It’s about reclaiming your energy from the past so you can live more fully in the present.
When you stop identifying someone only as the source of your suffering, you begin to see them as what they are an imperfect, flawed human, just like the rest of us. This doesn’t erase the hurt, but it creates a shift. And in that shift, the doorway to forgiveness opens.
Forgiveness doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a process a series of small choices to let go, moment by moment. But each time you choose it, you step closer to freedom, peace, and the lightness your heart deserves.
If you’d like a practical way to begin releasing old hurt and reclaiming your peace, here’s a simple technique called cutting the ties. It can be one step in the direction of forgiveness:
On a piece of paper, draw a figure of eight.
Write your name in one side of the eight and the other person’s name in the opposite side.
As you trace over the eight again and again, repeat the following affirmations:
I love you
I forgive you
I let you go
Please love me
Please forgive me
Please let me go
Switch to your other hand and trace the eight again while repeating the affirmations.
When you feel complete, cut the figure of eight in half.
Visualise each of you standing in your own circle of energy, separate, sovereign, and surrounded by love and forgiveness.
Sometimes the simple act of writing, speaking, and symbolically releasing can create a powerful shift within. If you need added support with forgiveness, reach out to book a session.
Lots of love xx
