When the pain is so great can you forgive and forget?

Forgive and Forget you are told. Forgiveness. A word so mainstream today that you would think there is no other way to turn the page on pain, anger and resentment.

James Baldwin

Ten years ago, on June 19, my life came crashing down. Marriage was no longer the fairy tale story I imagined as a young girl; it had already turned into a nightmare several years back, with little to no hope for a brighter and happier future. That Saturday morning, I finally called 9-1-1. It may have been the end of violence behind closed doors but it was also the beginning of a different type of hell.

Left alone with two young children overnight, with more debt than I could handle given my junior office manager’s salary, added to the crushing judgment I endured from others who did not understand why I would “mistreat” my husband that way, I felt the extreme heaviness of the burden I seemed to have imposed upon myself and I certainly was in no mood to forgive and forget!

I was free at last, yet at the same time I never felt so bound by the chains of pain and confusion, of anger and resentment, of loss and despair. I was supposedly the victim, yet I felt like I was the one being punished. The word of the moment was SURVIVAL, a far cry from forgiveness.

Today, it hurts me to see others going through the same ordeal. I know how it feels. How can you forgive and forget when you have nothing but emptiness within you?

Too angry to forgive and forget

It wasn’t fair. I didn’t deserve this turn of events. I had done nothing wrong all my life Click to tweet and here I was, not only had my marriage been destroyed, so had I. I felt completely depleted of all energy. The only emotions I carried were anger and resentment. I was angry with everyone and everything yet at the same time, I couldn’t do anything about it. I banned the word forgiveness from my vocabulary. It just didn’t make sense to me.

Since I couldn’t forgive and forget, I couldn’t exactly turn the page according to the experts. What were my other options now? I didn’t know for sure, but since I wasn’t dead yet, I would just have to keep moving forward, somehow.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I know now that I had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was within ME. I had to take care of that emptiness first. As the mother of two young children, my instinct was to take care of them, shoving my needs to the side, however it soon became clear to me that in order to be a better mom, I had to start by feeling better about myself.

It all started with making sure my children and I were comfortable physically. Moving into a nice apartment, getting a promotion and a raise at work, purchasing a car to get around, eating well and exercising, these were all part of meeting our basic needs. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with the emotions yet, but that was fine. Pain and anger would occasionally surface as I worked through divorce negotiations; I would explode crying or cursing, but nothing else. I was not ready yet. I could not forgive and forget I was too busy surviving.

As I filled my life with “things”, I thought I would also be filling the void I always felt. My heart was still this black hole sucking my energy and leaving me feeling so alone. My kids and I looked happy on the outside, but we were crumbling beneath. No material belonging, no week long Caribbean vacation, no new car, new home or new puppy could fill our void.

Identify the pain and move past forgive and forget

It takes digging into the depths of our being to realize that the true culprit for this emptiness is PAIN.

It took me a decade to realize this. The anger and the resentment closer to the surface are simply a vacuum trying, but never succeeding, to fill that void. So what is this pain?

If you think back to childhood, of your expectations for life, of your image of what happiness looked like from where you stood back then, and when you take a good look at your experience since then to compare the two, you will notice a discrepancy. This is the source of your pain.

Life was not supposed to be this way. You wanted so much more out of life. You imagined yourself happy, lively and fulfilled… what happened? The thought may bring you to tears. Let them flow.

With so much hurt in our heart, anger offers a bit of relief, casting responsibility on something or someone else. This is too heavy to carry alone. We draw energy through blame yet the black hole is never satiated.

Only light can drive out the darkness in your heart. True relief from the pain comes from LOVE.

• Loving yourself today, no matter what paths you have traveled.
• Loving the journey, bringing you to where you need to be all the time.
• Loving those around you, as gifts and lessons on this adventure.

It is easier said than done. I hear you. You cannot forgive and forget because the black hole in your heart, the PAIN, it’s all very REAL. Anger has been a suitable release for some time, offering temporary relief as needed, yet you know it is limited, restrictive and unhealthy. It’s time to heal. It’s time to fill the void with light. It isn’t an easy feat… but it can be done… with LOVE.

I am still on this journey today, I have learned a lot from it and I have come a long way. The adventure of digging deep within to uncover hidden pain is the road less traveled; it is a very challenging path at times, but it is also highly rewarding. Today, I have moved past the need to forgive and forget into the peaceful zone of a love-filled heart, I am leading my children onto a similar path as they learn through my experiences, and almost magically, this journey of happiness has fully aligned me with my purpose, to inspire you to LOVE too. I hope you will accept my invitation.

I have published a book on the topic of not being able to forgive..

You can purchase the Kindle edition of the book on Amazon at www.thenewhappyme.com/iwillnotforgive.

For more on TheNewHappyMe journey, visit www.thenewhappyme.com.