If You Want to Let Go, Forget About Forgiveness
Moving On Is About Something Else
“If someone breaks your heart, unburden yourself by seeking inner forgiveness. Then move ahead in life. Remember that each person who comes into your life serves a purpose.” ― Anoir Ou-Chad
“Forgive people who you believe have done you wrong. Let go. God will handle them.” ― Germany Kent
Inspirational quotes like the above are all over the internet. It’s psychological advice often given that you have to forgive others to let go. And thus the key to moving forward in love and life.
Why Forgiveness is overrated
While I do agree that letting go is crucial to peace of mind and self-growth, forgiveness is highly overrated.
In fact, the common conception that forgiveness is required to let things go is quite dangerous. Because forgiving someone for hurting us is incredibly hard. It’s also unrealistic.
Anyone who has been cheated on by a romantic partner or has been betrayed by their best friend knows that. Time does heal wounds and makes such experiences more bearable. But it’s hardly possible to completely forgive them for what they’ve done.
If forgiving someone was the only way to let go, nobody — except for the Dalai Lama, maybe — would ever be able to move forward in life.
We don’t have to forgive our ex for cheating on us. It’s okay to feel hate and anger when we think about them from time to time. It lies in human nature. Trying hard to suppress our strong emotions and “forgive” them leads to nothing. Yet we often feel obliged to do so. The result is that we fail and feel even more miserable. We’re neither able to move on, nor to stop clinging to the past.
Of course, it’s important to not get stuck up on the past. If we’re still crying every night two years after a messy breakup, it doesn’t help us at all. We need to let go.
Letting Go Means Accepting Change
Letting go of the past is a whole different process from forgiveness.
Letting go is less about forgiveness and more about acceptance (Tchiki, n.d.). We must accept the new, current version of ourselves. We must accept that the old version is gone. The one where we still had our partner and they never cheated on us.
What hurts so much is the unwanted change that came with the other person’s actions. The undesired change of our reality. That’s why we must accept the present. Even though it doesn’t feel fair that some things are no longer the way they were before.
If we ever want to move forward, we must accept change.
Letting go means being willing to allow life to carry you to a new place, even a deeper more true rendition of self (Mathews, 2016).
As soon as we accept that the present reality is what we have — and that what once was no longer is — we’ve successfully let go. Because ultimately, it comes down to accepting change.
That’s good news: It’s significantly easier to become aware that we are subject to ever-changing circumstances than it is to forgive someone for hurting you. By being mindful of change, we can let go of the past and avoid clinging to the present.
Maybe there is no such thing as forgiveness,
Maybe all we have is journey.
― Morgan Liphart, Barefoot and Running
References
Davis, Tchiki. (n.d.). Letting Go: How to Put The Past, Anger, & Fear Behind You. https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/letting-go.html
Mathews, Andrea. (2016, March 12). What Does It Mean to Let Go? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201603/what-does-it-mean-let-go