Forgiveness

You can tell someone you forgive them and still feel angry every time you think about them. You can also forgive someone and never speak to them again.

That sounds contradictory only if you think forgiveness is a conversation, an accepted apology, or an agreement to have someone back in your life.

Forgiveness is about how you feel. It means letting go of anger and resentment. And when you understand that distinction, you stop waiting for someone else to do something before you can feel better.

Who experiences your resentment?

When people ask me whether they should forgive someone, my answer is: only if they want to stop feeling angry and resentful.

Think about what those emotions feel like in your body. When you don't forgive someone, you are the one who continues to experience them.

We often hold on to resentment because we think it punishes the other person. But another person cannot experience your emotion. They experience their interpretation of your behavior.

You may yell, stop speaking to them, or give them the silent treatment. Their thoughts about those actions create their feelings. Your anger isn't something you can put inside them.

So when you hold on to anger to punish someone, you are the one feeling the effect of that punishment. Forgiveness is the opportunity to change your own emotional experience.

Your thoughts are between what happened and how you feel

This is where understanding the Self-Coaching Model matters. We have circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. What another person did goes in the circumstance line. Your thought about it goes in the thought line.

Between the circumstance and the feeling is your thought. Your thoughts create your feelings, those feelings drive your actions, and your actions create your results.

When I ask why you feel resentful, you may want to tell me everything the person did. But the question we're working on is what you're thinking about what they did.

That distinction gives you your power back. You can look at the thought creating the anger and decide whether you want to keep thinking it.

The other person doesn't have to apologize. They don't have to explain themselves, change, or agree with you. You can change how you think and therefore how you feel without requiring anything from them.

Forgiveness and contact are separate decisions

Being kind to someone while seething with resentment isn't forgiveness. Neither is telling them you've forgiven them while continuing to feel angry.

You know whether you've forgiven someone by the way you feel, not by how politely you behave.

And you can let go of the anger and still decide not to have that person in your life. If you ask why you wouldn't talk to someone you've forgiven, the answer can be that you don't want to. That's enough.

You don't have to keep resentment alive to justify that decision.

You can also choose to keep someone in your life and work on your thinking every time you see them. Sometimes you will keep practicing forgiveness because of how you keep thinking about them. That is an opportunity to get better at owning your emotional life.

None of this means you can't tell someone a behavior isn't okay, set boundaries, or ask them not to be in your life. It means you can make those choices without holding on to anger.

What changed when I forgave my dad

My dad was an alcoholic when I was young. He cheated on my mom, made plans with me, and didn't show up. I would wait on the porch for him, and he wouldn't come.

For a long time, I thought he was the cause of all my problems.

When I learned about forgiving for my own sake, I decided to forgive him. I didn't want him to die while I was still angry at him. That decision was a major defining moment in my life.

But I still carried a sense of superiority: he had done all these things wrong, and I was the good person who had forgiven him. From that position, the next disappointment brought back even more resentment. I had the whole history behind it.

After he passed away, I was introduced to Byron Katie's work and the idea that there had never been anything I needed to forgive.

At first, that sounded crazy to me. But the more I practiced judging less and making other people wrong less, the better I felt.

When I adopted the thought that everything had happened exactly the way it was supposed to happen for me, on purpose, I experienced a freedom from negative emotion I hadn't experienced before.

First, I forgave my dad. Then I decided there was nothing I needed to forgive. Those were two different shifts.

You get to decide what happens next

One of my best friends forgave her husband after he cheated on her. She changed her thinking, stopped feeling angry and resentful, and they worked on their relationship for three years. Then he cheated again.

The question became whether she wanted to forgive him again. Asked another way: did she want to stop feeling anger and resentment?

Thinking he had ruined her life and her children's lives created anger. From that emotion, she acted angry, became short-tempered, and hated herself for marrying him.

She could instead work toward thoughts that this had nothing to do with her, that she had done what she needed to do, and that she could open a new chapter in her life.

I'm not saying moving from one way of thinking to the other is easy. I'm saying it's worth it. She gets to decide what the experience means and how she wants to move forward, without continuing to give him her emotional life.

Practice forgiveness with yourself

The freedom I found in my thinking about my dad also helped me forgive myself for the things I had been loathing myself for.

You can stop feeling angry and resentful toward yourself. You can let go of guilt and regret without requiring other people to change their interpretation of what you did.

That doesn't mean you don't apologize, keep apologizing, or tell someone you won't do it again. You do what you can do for them. But you don't have to keep punishing yourself with your own feelings.

Start by identifying the thought creating your anger or resentment. Notice what you feel when you think it. Then work on a different way of thinking that changes your emotional experience.

Consider what it would be like to live without needing to forgive because you weren't continuing to create anger and resentment. You would still get to choose your boundaries and your relationships.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You are the one who feels it.