R20

Forgiveness it’s a tough one isn’t it, we all have our anger and it’s something I’ve not really thought about until recently. It is one of those words people throw around as if it’s a moral duty, a box you’re supposed to tick to prove you’re healed and that you’re okay. But the more I sit with Buddhist teachings and the more I sit with myself, the more I realise forgiveness isn’t about the other person at all. It’s not about excusing what happened, or pretending it didn’t hurt you, or welcoming someone back into your life. It’s not even about being “the bigger person.” That never works, forgiveness has to come truly from the heart. It’s something quieter, slower, and far more personal it’s an inner peace that you reach sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once.

When I started to read and explore Buddhism again I remembered that it teaches us that suffering comes from clinging, holding on to stories, to expectations, to the idea that the past could have been different if we’d done a,b or c. But when someone harms you, especially in ways that cut deep, the mind clings to that pain like a survival instinct. It loops, it tightens, it replays over and over and before you know it you’re not living, you’re just existing. You’re dead behind the eyes. I look back on pictures of me and I see this in real time.

Forgiveness, in the Buddhist sense, isn’t about letting the person off the hook. It’s about loosening your own hook, the hook inside your own chest. It’s like saying that you won’t let this weigh you down anymore. It’s saying, you won’t let their actions live rent-free in your mind a day longer.

That’s it. There’s no forced compassion and forgiveness. Just a quiet decision to stop carrying what was never yours to hold and letting it go.

Yoga and movement are helping me unravel so much of the weight I didn’t know I was still holding. The body remembers everything, even when the mind tries to move on, and most of us have no idea how to release that stored energy. I’ll explore this more in my writing soon.

I know I’ve arrived back here for a reason, it’s to give up expectations of anything, to learn the true meaning of acceptance whatever the outcomes of life and to know and honour my own truth regardless of anything or anyone.

When we think of forgiveness we often assume it means developing a softness toward the person who caused the harm. To be honest, I never lost that softness especially with people I soul loved, because I constantly felt the pain that those people were carrying sadly to my own detriment, I absorbed it. But Buddhism is very clear, you can forgive without ever speaking to them again which is the first step to healing. You can forgive without wishing them well. You can forgive without calling it forgiveness. Sometimes it’s simply choosing not to let the past dictate the shape of your future.

And sometimes for people you don’t forgive at all and that’s okay too, maybe you forgive but not in the way people expect. Some wounds are too deep, too defining, too woven into the fabric of who you’ve become.

Buddhism doesn’t demand forgiveness from you, which is part of what draws me to it, even though I personally feel like I can forgive. There’s no pressure to perform or adhere, it’s about doing your best and holding compassion for yourself. It doesn’t shame you for not reaching forgiveness.

We are all different, I sometimes understand why people behave the way they do, even when it’s at the cost of another. Even when the pain is so excruciating, because if they can make me feel like that, then how on earth must they really feel inside?

We all project and I’ve learnt to witness this in my everyday life. I try to take things less personally these days and I’m trying to meet people with more compassion. It isn’t easy sometimes but I know by mastering my breath, I can step back quicker and assess what is really going on.

Take yesterday for example, I suffered some online abuse by someone who had already targeted me months ago, I blocked them, reported them and here they were again with a new profile and more abuse. Immediately the anxiety kicked in, it knocked me sick. But I took some deep breaths as I reported it to the police. I sat and thought about why someone would do that, what must that person feel like to take some kind of joy in being verbally abusive to another to take limited information and be so nasty. To not be happy to do it once, but to return and do it again.

Buddhism teaches that a person who comes back to harm you is not well. They’re caught in their own cycle of anger, craving, and delusion. They’re acting from a place of deep inner turmoil, not strength. Their behaviour is a reflection of their mind, not you.

And what Buddhism invites you to do in moments like this is to notice what you’re holding inside the fear, the tension, the instinct to replay it and to ask whether any of it is helping you or hurting you. Because forgiveness, in this sense, becomes less about the person who harmed you and more about the space you want to create within yourself. It’s about how you feel, not them. It’s about creating a space that isn’t crowded with resentment, fear, or the constant replay of the fear. A space where you can breathe again.

Acceptance ties into this too, but that’s something I’ll explore another time.

I think that’s why Buddhist forgiveness feels so different to me. It’s not a performance or a moral badge. It’s not a spiritual bypass, it’s a slow, private internal shift, a softening of the grip, not a rewriting of the story.

You don’t have to rush it. You don’t have to force it. You don’t have to reach some enlightened state chanting or humming (although, that’s great) where everything suddenly makes sense and you’re dancing on rainbows. I used to think healing was easy (LOL) but forgiveness isn’t a finish line for many people, although I think it might be for me. Forgiveness is just one of many tools you can pick up or put down depending on what your heart can hold.

This is the compassion in Buddhism that forgiveness is optional. The only requirement is honesty with yourself, with your pain, and with the pace at which you’re willing to move.

Some days letting go feels possible and on others it doesn’t. Both are valid, human and are part of the path.

Today I choose to let go.