#5: Attempting to Forgive
By Sarah Wexler
Forgiveness feels like losing. Like letting someone get away with hurting me.
Whether it be an ex-partner, ex-friend, or an ex-boss, we have all been hurt by someone. It’s an unfortunate part of life. As I grow up and the hysterics of my interpersonal life subside, I’ve come to try something that once felt impossible for me—forgiveness.
Forgiveness is often perceived as a weak trait. A push-over forgives. A strong woman, on the other hand, holds a grudge. She feeds on anger to push herself forward, using resentment as fuel. I’ve come to realize that resentment isn’t a strength—it’s a weight that holds me back.
I have a great memory, which serves me well in many ways. I do pretty well on tests with minimal studying, I always know where I parked my car, I remember random facts that become useful later on. But it also works against me. I remember the hurtful things people have done to me. The harmful words people have said, the ways they misunderstood me, the lies they told. That pain that should only be felt once gets recycled, which can get exhausting.
So this memory I have, a great quality that can help me in my academic world, fails me when it comes to healing and forgiveness. Knowing the idiosyncrasies of my conflicts with people becomes mentally taxing, as I continuously relive the same situation, sometimes years after the fact.
So, at 22, I have finally realized the need for forgiveness. I used to believe that holding onto my anger somehow evened the score. That if I resented someone long enough, it would make things right.
But that logic is flawed. It’s ridiculous, really. The person I’m angry with isn’t suffering—only I am.
We often hear that feeling our emotions is a strength. That there is power in vulnerability. Personally, I find the sentiment a bit cringy. But unfortunately it’s true. Resentment takes less effort than forgiveness. It takes less effort to maintain someone’s bad image in your head, than to put effort in finding peace in the situation. But finding peace is self-love and self-care.
Not to mention, social media only amplifies the cycle. if you curate your algorithm correctly, Instagram and TikTok will feed you content that re-triggers you. There is a sense of validation in seeing your own pettiness and resentment reflected in strangers.
Personally I am tired and I need to give it up. Can we all just decide to make forgiveness cool?
But we are not going down the social media rabbit hole this week. I yapped enough about that last week.
Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it’s growth. Or maybe it’s just my frontal lobe finally doing its job. Regardless, I think the world would be a better and safer place for us if we started to forgive people a little more.
When I truly think about it, resentment is only hurting ME. The people who I hold this resentment towards, who make me literally clench my jaw at the thought of them, do not know I'm cursing them off in my head. It’s only making MY brain a less peaceful place to be.
All this to say, I am not willing to be a doormat. I have high standards for the way people treat me, because I have high self-worth. But I refuse to maintain resentment for the sake of self-righteousness.
And this can be on a smaller scale too, with the people that are still in our lives. If you choose to keep someone in your life that made a mistake towards you, or if a family member (hi guys <3) said something to you that was hurtful, you need to move on. Do yourself and the people in your life a favor and forgive them. It’s not doing anyone any good by maintaining that anger.
So, I’m working on it. I’m learning to forgive, not because people necessarily deserve it, but because I deserve peace. It’s a process, but one I’m willing to commit to.
Not everyone who has wronged you is a completely terrible person—it just feels that way through your experience with them. But some people really are just awful. They’re not losing sleep over it, so why should you? The key is to stop giving them space in your mind.
I am in no way a perfect person, immune for the need of forgiveness. I too have hurt people and said wrong things and made mistakes. I can only hope that the effort I put into forgiving myself and others would be reciprocated.
Pushing feelings down for the sake of forgiveness is not the goal here. The goal is to process, to feel, to work through what happened and what those feelings were. And to let it go.
I am writing this because I needed to hear it six months ago, I needed to hear it a year ago, and I need to hear it now. All of us hold some resentment that is keeping us from our inner peace and sanity.
So next time you start to curse someone out, whether it be to someone else or in your head, shift the conversation. You don’t have to beat a dead horse. Ranting about a situation that happened to you in the past may feel therapeutic. In reality, it may be keeping you in the past and in a place that you have outgrown.
Is there someone you’ve been holding resentment towards? What would it feel like to finally let it go?
To all the people who have wronged me, if you’re reading this, I’m on my way to forgiving you. And if I’m not there yet, I will be.
This week’s song: Happiness by Taylor Swift
May we all find peace. And our sparkle ;)
