Often when I coach people, the real challenges they face are usually because of difficult or toxic relationships. If one considers that we are social creatures and that our whole life and wellbeing is dependent on how we connect and interact with our fellow man, I think it is safe to say that communication and social skills should be truly a sought after mastery.
The reality is however, that even with the necessary emotional and social intelligence skills, we are still not exempt from getting hurt or from being victimized by people in our lives. The other side of the coin is that we can be certain that throughout our lives we will also be hurting others in our spheres of influence be it consciously or sub-consciously.
I have come to accept this as part of the reality we call life. Sometimes the greatest growth I experienced was coming out of a hurtful experience. Some people mirror who we want to become and others mirror who we don’t want to become. Either way, they are contributing to our experience and learning journeys.
Often times people feel that they have to forgive someone who hurt them intentionally, over and over again. When you know that someone meant to damage you, it feels too much to bear to simply forgive them. And yet, people feel guilty when they are not able to “forgive” someone else. That is why you often find people staying in abusive relationships for years. They feel that they should keep on forgiving their abuser and if they don’t they are not a good person. The abuser obviously also capitalizes on this misconception.
So what is forgiveness all about? Forgiveness is not saying that what the other person did to you is right. It is actually just letting go of their influence and power over your life. It is releasing them to face their own consequences and letting go of the emotional pain that you carry with you because of their transgression.