Forgiveness Cannot Be Forced

Waiting for him to say sorry? That isn't going to happen

Episode 73 · October 10, 2024

Anger and forgiveness

The Truth Hurts · Episode 73 · audio in Hebrew

Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Listen on YouTube Share on WhatsApp

The conversation

There's someone you're still angry at, even if years have gone by. Maybe you've even said out loud that you forgave him, but inside, something is still bleeding. Gili says that isn't really forgiveness, it's only a performance, and that as long as you're waiting for him to apologize or to understand how much he hurt you, you stay stuck. Forgiveness isn't for him at all. It's for you.

The truth

  • Real forgiveness can't be forced. It arrives on its own as a by-product of a healing process, and there's no way to hurry it along.

  • The person who hurt you doesn't have to apologize or acknowledge the pain they caused. You don't need anyone's permission in order to know that you were hurt.

  • Forgiveness doesn't change the person who hurt you. It changes you, and that's the whole story.

  • "Forgive and forget" is a problematic idea. Every time the injury comes back to mind, that's another chance to forgive again, and that's completely fine.

  • There's a list of people to forgive no matter what: parents, children, partners, and above all ourselves.

  • Forgiving is hard because you can never know exactly how much another person was hurt. Everyone's sensitivity is different.

Questions and answers

Why do I have to forgive someone who never even apologized?

In the episode Gili says that you don't need his apology. You don't need the person who hurt you to give you permission in order to know how much it hurt. Forgiveness is a selfish process in the good sense of the word. It's entirely for you, not for the person who hurt you.

I'm waiting for him to say sorry and it isn't happening. Why don't I just forget and forgive as though nothing had happened?

Gili says that idea is a problem. We have no control over memory, and there's no guarantee that we really will forget. But every time it comes back to mind, that isn't a failure. It's an opportunity to forgive again, with compassion toward ourselves.

I'm waiting for him to say sorry, but it probably isn't going to happen. Do we have to force ourselves to forgive in order to be grown up and mature?

No. Forgiveness can't be forced, and there's no point in pretending that you forgave while inside you're still in pain and still furious. Forgiveness is supposed to arrive as a by-product of a real healing process, and not as a performance for the outside world.

What happens when you don't forgive someone?

Someone who doesn't forgive stays stuck and thinks that they're being punished, but what they're feeling is a natural response to the laws of life, not a punishment. The suffering comes from ignoring how those laws work and from negative thinking, not from some outside force handing out punishments. In the episode, refusing to forgive is described as putting yourself in hell, because you're enslaved to the hatred and you're limiting yourself.

Gili's original episode description

Forgiveness isn't a choice, and it isn't the main goal either. Real forgiveness is the result of a healing process. Forgiveness can't be forced. Certainly not on myself. There's nothing clever about playing the open, understanding, mature, accepting one and saying I forgave, while in your heart you're bleeding and you feel like torching somebody.

Forgiveness is a by-product of recovery. Concentrate on your own healing, and the forgiveness will arrive spontaneously as part of the healing process.

Forgiveness begins when you manage to look at the people who hurt you with compassion, no matter how much they hurt you. When you look at those people with a compassionate eye and stop being a victim. It happens when you kick the habit of self-pitying thoughts like: poor me! Why did they do this to me? Why do I deserve this?

And you start saying instead: thank you for the lesson you brought me! Thank you. I'm nobody's victim, I'm not angry and I'm not in pain. I got the lesson, thank you.

We don't want to be those people who find it hard to forgive. We want to be the forgiving kind, people who forgive fast, who refuse to be hurt by everything, who don't take offense at every word. That's the character and that's the lifestyle we're after.