F#ck Forgiveness
June 18, 2021
forgiveness is Christian concept that is peddled to the masses as necessary closure and a way to gain favor with God. It rarely works for the would-be forgiver.
I recently worked with a client; we will call her Anna, who was on a dating bender. She was averaging five or six dates a week, sometimes booking two dates on the same day. Some of the men she was going on dates with were nonstarters from the get-go. Many of them, though, seemed to be high-quality potential partners. However, it didn't appear to make any difference who Anna met. None of it went anywhere good.
Most of these men disappeared after the first date. A few of them stuck around for two or three weeks. There was an unusually high level of drama in her dating life, considering how little relationship progress there seemed to be. After more than six months of this pattern, Anna concluded it was happening because she hadn't fully forgiven her ex.
This gorgeous, intelligent, successful woman had started this dating bender about six weeks after her handsome, brilliant, successful former- fiance had slept with the sister of his best man. It happened less than a week before their would-have-been wedding. The break-up was painful and public. Someone pulled her aside at the rehearsal dinner and spilled the beans. Let your wildest imagination roll with what happened next, and you'd still probably be short-selling it.
Anna swore to me she didn't hate all men for what he'd done to her. After hearing a sermon at church one fine Sunday, she was one hundred percent convinced she had a forgiveness issue. The real problem was, Anna couldn't let it go. She couldn't force herself to wish him well and move on.
I hear this kind of thing a lot.
I know it is controversial to say; however, frankly, forgiveness isn't the ticket to getting your power back the way some people might hope it is.
As we know it culturally, forgiveness is a Christian concept that is peddled to the masses as necessary closure and a way to gain favor with God. The irony is not lost on me, that while yes, the Bible talks about forgiveness, the Bible also talks about an eye for an eye as an appropriate method for moving on when someone has wronged you. While that might land you in jail, it is also Bible-approved. So, there's that.
Most people who struggle to forgive feel like they are asked to give the other person a proverbial hall pass for the behavior that caused damage. Depending on the situation and the hurt inflicted, that can feel near impossible for many good reasons.
The good people who preach forgiveness will say forgiving is a thing you do for yourself. They will say forgiveness is about setting yourself free from the burden of anger.
That said, all too frequently, despite all the best attempts, the anger and resentment persist. The struggle to forgive feels like it is in some way a form of atonement for the person who caused harm. Even harder, often, atonement is supposed to be given without any acknowledgment from the harm doer of damage caused.
It is why forgiveness often fails, leaving the supposed forgiver even more traumatized by the process of trying to let it go and move on when they can't fully recover all the energy they left behind with the offender.
This brings us to the witch's way...
A witch will look at a situation that might traditionally call for forgiveness and consider the distribution of energy. By this formula, the only thing that matters is that you retrieve your power, in its totality, from whom you gave it.
It has nothing to do with atonement or absolution. It does not require any acknowledgment or declarative statements or gestures. It certainly wouldn't require you to in any way wipe the slate clean. Energy retrieval means very simply that you do not give that person any more of your precious thoughts or energy.
You are not entertaining thoughts about how you were wronged.
You are not allowing that person to take up space in your head.
You're not talking or asking about them.
You certainly aren't wishing them well, but you aren't hoping they pay for what they've done to you or wishing them suffering.
You take all of the power you invested in the relationship and the ending of the relationship and invest it back into yourself with such precision and clarity that the thought of the offender is entirely neutral.
Energy retrieval is healing, and it is definitive closure.
It is clean.
In most cases, it is simple but not easy.
On the other hand, it IS easy to lie to yourself about how far you've come.
If you still feel compelled to talk about the other person, they still hold some of your energy.
If you secretly hope they get what's coming to them for the harm they caused, they still hold some of your energy.
If you're on the down-low wishing you could rekindle or repair the relationship, they still hold some of your energy.
If you are still avoiding them or their people, you still have some energy to retrieve.
Energy reclamation takes time. However, once you firmly decide to repossess all of your power, the decision alone will get you about halfway there. When you have zero fucks to give about the person who hurt you, you are free to move on without any constraints, fully in control of the energy you once willingly gave to someone who didn't deserve it. Then you are ready to invest that energy in whatever you want to create next.
Remember, how you think about this person and how often you think about said person is nothing more than a habit. All it takes to break a pattern of thought is a lot of discipline. That discipline is worth it. When you decide, dig in, and reclaim what's yours, you will know, once and for all, you can stop your suffering in any relationship, at any point, by withdrawing your power and attention at will.
That, my friend, is way more powerful than forgiveness.
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Lisa Hayes, The Love Whisperer, is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the hit books, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan. Lisa also trains the worlds best coaches at www.thecoachingguild.com.
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