Forgive or Forget?

Guest Opinion

Sadly, everyone has been hurt by the actions (or inaction) of others at some point in their lives. At times, this infliction of pain and trauma is intentional, but more often than not it is not meant to harm, yet the consequences are nonetheless hurtful.

One complication that makes the hurtful actions of others very difficult is that the painful memories of a traumatic event are often long lasting. The primary reason for this is that we haven’t fully dealt with, or come to a resolution about, what happened to us and why.

The memories of trauma are painful to recollect, yet we continue to do so in a search for some form of exoneration or resolution. Not only are we concerned with what happened to us, but an often more complicated question that can bother us incessantly is, “What did I do to deserve this?”

Some (unfortunately, at times, including therapists) suggest that to feel better we need to “get over” the hurtful things that have happened to us. Easier said than done!

The primary reason that we can remain mired in our difficult past is that we have not fully forgiven others and/or ourselves for what has happened. Complete forgiveness is impossible without the assistance of the person or people that hurt us in the first place, yet there are still things that can be done in their absence.

An important step toward forgiveness is to try to understand the intention of the person or group that has hurt you. Our goal here is not to excuse someone for hurting us, but to understand the reason for their behavior. Sadly, in this process we may indeed find out that for whatever reason, they actually did want to hurt us. On the other hand, perhaps their anger and/or other mental health issues got the best of them and they temporarily lost control.

Three steps are necessary in order to achieve true or complete forgiveness of either yourself or others. The first and most difficult step is an honest acknowledgment of how you have hurt someone or how they have hurt you. During this step, it is important to accept responsibility for your behavior and not blame someone else.

This is very hard for most of us as we have lived in a culture and world where playing the “blame game” is the order of the day. However, without honesty, complete forgiveness is impossible.

The second step toward forgiveness is to apologize for what we have done. Again this is done without blaming others and without self-recrimination. Here we ask for both understanding and forgiveness, while at the same time showing our interest in changing our behavior. It is important to note here that this step is impossible if even the smallest part of us is still hanging on to the belief that we did nothing “wrong.”

Once we have asked ourselves or someone else to forgive us, the next step for forgiveness to be complete is for us or the other person to change the offensive behavior. This will be the most challenging step in the process as by definition it involves looking deeply into the reason that led to the behavior, agreeing that the behavior was wrong, and pledging to take action to change.

The biggest issue here is dealing with our ego or the ego of another person. In general, people hate to be wrong or admit to wrongdoing. That is one reason why you rarely see a politician admit that they made a mistake, apologize, and ask for forgiveness. An excellent example of this is one of Trump’s red hats: It simply claims: “Trump was right about everything”. No wonder he has never apologized for anything!

True forgiveness is difficult to achieve and many people choose to simply “forget” the offensive behavior of others in an effort to move on and get on with the show.

Consider the case of Graham Platner, who was running as a Democrat in the 2026 U.S. Senate election in Maine. Serious allegations have been made about his past behavior, including getting a tattoo similar to a Nazi image. (He has since had the tattoo covered up.) In addition, there have been reports of mistreatment of women in his past. Maine Democrats by and large continued to support Platner, regardless of his checkered past, until the call for the suspension of his campaign became too loud to ignore.

Think for a moment about your past, in particular any regrets you may have. Have you forgiven yourself? Have you made any changes because of what you learned? Perhaps you, like most people, would prefer not to think about such things and “get on with the show.” However, being able to live peacefully in the present often means making peace with one’s past.

Greg Holmes lives and writes in Traverse City.

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