Hi Elka!

I have personally noticed something about forgiving past things. I have also worked on myself a lot for the past couple of years and a lot of things have been resolved. I personally had accumulated a lot of stuff I didn’t want to deal with, but it was always at the back of my mind, weighing heavy on me. The more stuff I accumulated, the heavier my life got, until I couldn’t take it anymore and things started unraveling. During this unraveling, I all of a sudden remembered all kinds of things I had done in the past and I felt so ashamed and guilty. Just random flashbacks from different events where I behaved in a way I shouldn’t have. With some of those things I knew I had felt guilty on that occasion already, and with some other things, I knew that I was behaving in that way, because I didn’t know any better.

Looking back, I think it was easier to start forgiveness from the events where I didn’t know any better (self-destructive behavior, being really defensive when there was no need, etc.) I still wasn’t able to forgive myself for some other things, even when I tried. My mind was stuck with them. So I left them at that and just focused on all the new good stuff in my life: the fact that I was able to calm my brain and not think all the time, and that I was really starting to love myself and have healthy boundaries. Now, I have started noticing that I have forgiven myself for some of the things that were still really bothering me a while ago.

I don’t know why that is, but I have some thoughts on the matter:
-Perhaps I had accumulated so much stuff, that I couldn’t work on one specific case, but I just had to let the mountain of issues to unravel and wait until it was time for that one specific event to dissolve from the back of my mind. Kind of like having a mountain of clutter in your closet and you’re trying to get to the one at the back and remove that first. You can’t, so you have to give it time and first get through the stuff that’s in front of it.

-Perhaps my thoughts on forgiveness still revolved around wanting to change the past. That unconsciously, when thinking about the events, I went into this mode where I was trying to change it, now that I had gained so much power over myself. I foolishly thought that I was able to change who I was in the past as well. I really am not sure, as this would’ve been rather unconscious thinking, but it’s a possibility.

-Perhaps it just required time away from thinking about it. That I was ready to forgive myself, but I needed to let that sink in.

I also think that it’s good to see things in the big picture. You are thinking that you’re making things awkward for other people, but first of all, you are not responsible for the feelings of others, and secondly, even though this issue is taking a disproportionate amount of time in your thoughts, it might not be the same for others. So don’t be so hard on yourself. You did what you thought was the best at that time. I know I have at least one person I don’t want to be involved with, and while I would be ready to tell her why, if she hunt me down and asked me, I’m not willing to go out of my way to reach out to her to actually tell her why I don’t want her in my life. In my mind, it’s the lesser of two evils for both of us. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. I do know that for as long as I am still learning how to hold onto healthy boundaries, she is a bad person to have around, because not only does she have none, she rams through everyone else’s on a whim. But this post isn’t about me 🙂

So…be compassionate towards yourself about the whole thing. If you’re not ready to be able to forgive yourself yet, then forgive yourself for not being able to forgive yourself 🙂

You and I have a very different ideas about what tough love is 🙂 Tough love, in my opinion, is holding up the mirror without passing judgement. Was the original post triggering to you? She’s aware of handling the situation in a bad way, so guilt tripping isn’t really needed here. Or ever, really.