Written by contributing blogger, Daniela Forte.
As I sit here writing this post, I am anxiously waiting to get to the nearest bookstore and purchase the book, “Girl, Stop Apologizing” by Rachel Hollis. It’s been on my to-read list for months and the day has finally arrived.
But apologizing to people isn’t what this post is about. This is about accepting apologies you never received. This is hard, pretty damn hard. Because there are people walking the world right now who have hurt you down to your core and are walking around like it never happened.
You’re probably seeing these people and it makes you damn angry. These people caused so much damage to your life and never (at the very least … the very least) apologized for it.
How do these people live with themselves? How do they look at themselves in the mirror everyday knowing the horrible things they’ve done to people who were good to them? The answer: They just do.
Not everyone will own up to their wrongdoings, not everyone will care. Not everyone will have compassion and empathy for others, it’s just not in their nature.
I am not a huge forgiver (I guess it’s one of my flaws) in fact, apologies make me mad sometimes because my thought is, “Well, you should have acted appropriately to begin with, you wouldn’t have to apologize.”
Let me say though, I understand people make mistakes and not everyone deserves to be crucified for their wrongdoings. Those who are genuinely sorry, deserve forgiveness.
I take things super personally and when I am hurt, the hurt is hard. So fully forgiving someone is not easy. I can sadly say, I’ve probably fully forgiven about five people in my life. Others I have just let go of what they’ve done (with some sour feelings lingering) and accepted them again.
A lot of people in my life lately have told me I need to forgive someone because if I don’t, the pain and anger they have caused will stay with me for the rest of my life. I can see that and it concerns me. But my stubbornness prevents me from forgiving this person. Because this person hasn’t apologized, nor will this person ever apologize. It’s not in their DNA.
To me forgiving a person who isn’t even sorry is unfathomable. How does one do this? How do you say, “I accept your apology you never gave me?” How do you let it go? Forgiving someone who isn’t even sorry for their actions feels like you’re giving them more opportunity to hurt you, even more power than they may already have over you.
It feels like you’re saying, “It’s okay, that you caused this damage.” But it’s not okay. None of what this person did to me was okay. It was terrible. But this person continues to smile like nothing ever happened.
People have told me forgiving someone isn’t about the other person, it is about yourself. It is about releasing the pain they have caused, it doesn’t mean you need to have them in your life ever again, but it’s releasing all of the garbage in your heart and mind.
Still can’t grasp this concept. I cannot forgive this person because this person caused me pain once before and I forgave them. I allowed them into my life a second time and for a second time they showed me who they were. This time is much more severe, different and ridiculous.
This post wasn’t meant to tell you how to accept an apology you never got because honestly, I don’t know how to do that, not yet anyway.
#radiatedaily
image source – pixabay
