What If Forgiveness Isn’t About Being The Bigger Person?
Forgiveness has been a big year-end theme for me.
In my younger years, especially with a strong religious underpinning, I thought forgiveness meant having to love them again. If I couldn’t, I assumed I hadn’t truly forgiven.
As I age, I’m learning you can’t fight your own humanity.
Forgiveness isn’t “What you did was okay.”
It’s “I’m no longer willing to let what you did run my life.”
Oprah once described forgiveness as giving up the hope that the past could be different. Plot twist. Because so much turmoil came from replaying old scenes, wishing for new endings.
Now, I see resentment like this:
You think you’re feeding them poison with your words and rage… but each time, you take a spoonful yourself. Over time, it seeps into your body, your sleep, your breath.
In grief work, I saw a client who said he could never forgive a family member he lost.Two lives taken: the one who died, and the one still here, carrying the weight like a second illness.
I said, “What if forgiveness isn’t pardon… but eviction? He doesn’t deserve free rent in your mind or body.”
So perhaps forgiveness also means disconnect.
Not reconciliation. Not pretending it never hurt.
Just loosening the grip so your nervous system and future aren’t organised around an old wound.
I don’t have this figured out.
I still get hooked. Still argue with people who aren’t even in the room.
Still swallow the occasional spoonful (or ladle-full) of poison.
But I’m learning to choose peace over being right.
To choose my life over the version of me stuck in that moment.
That’s the space I hold in my therapy work –
not forcing a neat ending,
but walking with people as they loosen their grip on what’s been done to them,
and turn, gently, towards what’s still possible.
渡这回事，说来简单，做到难。
年轻时总以为原谅就是要重新去爱、重新接纳对方。成年后才慢慢明白，原谅从来不是说“没事了”，也不是替对方开脱，而是不要再让自己被过去牵着走。心里的那股怨气，看起来像是在“投毒”给别人，但每一次真正吞下的，其实都是自己那一口毒。久了，身体、睡眠、呼吸都受影响。
做心理咨询时，我见过有人因为无法原谅而像长期疼痛般绷着——肩膀塌下、呼吸卡住，像背着一个看不见的病。原谅很多时候不是和好，而是把那个人从你心里请出去，不让他继续免费住在你的身上、你的心里。到最后，所谓原谅，或许就是放下那份“希望过去还能被改写”的执念，让自己轻一点。
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Warmly,
George Chan
This Is How We Heal
George Chan, MCOU, is a Counsellor, Grief Educator and Breathwork Coach who specialises in helping individuals navigate grief and loss through his private practice, This Is How We Heal. With a rich background in theatre and entertainment, George brings creativity and empathy to his work. When he's not in the therapy room, you might find him performing, choreographing, or working on a new production—or spending time with Luna, his Jack Russell Terrier, who doubles as his unofficial co-therapist and production critic.