How to Forgive People Who Aren't Sorry

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections



“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
― Mother Teresa



“Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince



“To err is human, to forgive, divine.”

― Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism



“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
― Mark Twain



“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice



“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat......Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.........Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation.........Forgiveness does not excuse anything.........You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness......”
― W. Paul Young, The Shack



“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.



“Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim--letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.”
― C.R. Strahan



Firstly, let me say that forgiving people does not necessarily mean letting them back into your life.  In the case of abusive people who have little or no respect for your feelings and well being, finding a way to forgive them is essential to healing yourself (even and especially if they are not sorry for hurting you), but do not confuse this forgiveness with allowing people who hurt you continually to be a part of your existence.  Forgive them....and free yourself of them.  That is the only way to honor yourself and your well being.

This blog is dedicated to helping those who have gone through or are experiencing something difficult and having a lot of trouble forgiving someone.  Maybe because that person is not sorry, or even seems to be happy about what they did.  I will be detailing here my recent experience in dealing with something particularly hard to forgive with the intention of helping others who may be in similar situations.  At the end of this blog are some great resources for finding ways to forgive, even when it seems almost impossible.  Remember above all else that forgiveness is for YOU, and your own well being.  It is so you can be free of resentment and live your life to its fullest potential, so you can find your own happiness and be free of their sludge.  Forgiveness has very little to do with the person or people you are forgiving at all.

So I have been going through some things lately.  In addition to my Grandpa dying, I was also incredibly sick physically.  The kind of illness that includes a massively sore throat, pounding headache, nose issues I won't even begin to describe, and being up most of the night along with everyone else in your house since you can't seem to stop coughing loudly.  After all that was over I thought I was home free, but no.  I found myself with not one, but 2 styes in...yup, one in each eye.  One of them went away after a few days but the other one was relentless, puffing my right eye up until I thought it would swell shut.  Painful to touch, practically to even look at.  I considered investing in a stylish pirate eye patch to cover it, honing the style of sexy character Elle (Daryl Hannah) in Kill Bill.  Surely it would have been an improvement.

Elle (Daryl Hannah) in Kill Bill

Luckily the stye is beginning to decrease in size and pain a little bit every day.  It will hopefully soon be completely gone.  But I have been left with questions.  Why have I been plagued with so much pain lately?  For one.  I looked up the metaphysical causes of styes on a lark and found this site:  http://www.speedyremedies.com/metaphysical-causes-of-disease.html where it specifies that the spiritual meaning of an eye stye is suppressed anger and anxiety.  On another site it said styes are caused by looking at someone with angry eyes.

Now I'm pretty much in a zenlike calm state most of the time these days and I'm not sure how much I believe in the validity of those types of definitions but I said "what the heck?" and really asked myself...am I angry with someone about something?

The truth is, yes I am.  It is something I thought I let go of a while ago because it is petty, immature, and all around beneath me.  When it happened I said "wow, that is incredibly lame", and thought I had put it behind me.  But it has been gnawing at me like a hungry little gremlin from behind the scenes.  Gnawing at my self esteem, my faith in humanity, and my ability to trust others.  I have learned that just because something is lame, juvenile, and completely undeserved and you are aware of all of these things, it doesn't mean you are immune from the situation and it's immediate/lasting effects on you.

Here is the lowdown on what happened:  I learned recently that a book was published by someone I was very close to for the better part of 10 years (we'll call him 'T') and his wife.  At first I was genuinely excited for her in publishing a book ("Wow!  You don't hear about that happening every day.") and I was curious about what the subject was, interested possibly even in reading it myself.  

See I had a fairly good opinion of her.  She had messaged me a short while back and said she found some pictures of my parents in 'T's things and would I like them?  I said sure and thanked her for being so kind.  I was really impressed that she selflessly thought of my feelings and thought to give me pictures of my family before they cleaned things out.  I found her to be a uniquely kind person and was happy that T had found himself a companion with such great integrity.  That event even made me feel better about humanity in some small way, and I mentioned to her that I was sure they made great parents to their kids since they seemed to have good values.  I soon discovered what a sucker I had been...

You see at first I was interested in reading the book and perhaps supporting her with a good review (she had been kind to me, after all), so I checked out some existing reviews of the book with hopes of maybe finding out what it was about a little and seeing if I wanted to read it.  Then I saw that an ever so slightly changed version of my nickname was the name of a main character in the book.  Now I was kind of confused.  As I read further reviews I learned with horror that this work of 'fiction' was actually based almost entirely on actual non-fiction events.  Most of them involving me down to every last detail, but of course painted in a horrible light.  My first reaction was one of jaw dropping shock, followed immediately by the out loud question I asked myself..."Really?  Who seriously does that?"  It boggles the mind.

This book, which was coincidentally published around the time of my birthday (hmmmm, drama anyone?) attacked my character, beliefs, passion for art and entrepreneurship, physical appearance, and my mentor in great detail.  Basically every tiny piece of my being from appearance to joys in life to spiritual beliefs was cell scraped onto a slide and placed under a microscope with a few drops of 'negative' dye to convince the world to survey me negatively.  The book also strangely attacked T's own family, who I later learned don't have much to do with him these days.  The only parts of the book that appeared to actually be fictional in nature were the monstrous exaggerations of my character who apparently throws things a lot in anger.  Lol.  Since this has not happened once in the almost 4 years since he has known me, my husband and I have at least had some good laughs about this.  We enjoy play fighting and pretending I'm some psychotic being who is suddenly very angry at him and I say something like "I'm so mad at you now...I think I might have to THROW something!"  Then I pretend to eye the room in a mad fit, looking around the room desperately for something to chuck at him.  Haha.  At least we find amusement in it somehow.

And it all does seem laughable by definition.  Like something you would see happening in a movie, not in reality.  And honestly, I wanted very much to find it hilarious and just laugh it off.  I even thought I had at one point.  But there again was that gremlin gnawing at me.  I was hurt, angry, and above all else confused.  It wasn't going away.  

This was a relationship that had ended amicably, I believed.  I was actually even proud of how we finished things.  There was no yelling, no squabbling over who would get which possessions.  There was just agreement and fair division of the items.  I had even helped him pack up his things and helped bring them over to his new place.  I had carefully folded clothes and packed glassware so it would hopefully be protected and wouldn't break in transit.  I had sent him off with a drawing of an eagle he had asked me to do, which said on the back "Love Always", and my name.  I had meant it too because to me the end of a relationship that lasted so long hadn't meant I was angry with the other person or didn't care about them anymore.  It sure didn't mean I hated him.  It meant we were giving each other the space to move on with our lives and hopefully forward to new places where we could grow as people.  It just meant this was for the best as we tried for a good long time and it just wasn't working.  Sure I might have had reasons to be angry.  It felt like he never particularly tried or gave our relationship much effort.  But I had chalked it up to something like "we both made mistakes, it's time for us both to move on and find our new life chapters, this is an opportunity."

But somehow, after years of respectfully not talking to each other and finding new lives for ourselves by all accounts, after years of silence and me finding happiness in my life and genuinely wishing him the same, here I found myself.  Confused, wounded, and questioning what I initially thought about them being good parents, because good parents wouldn't sit for the time it takes to write a book, rehashing their past and villainizing people they used to know in front of their children.  What kind of model does that set for kids, hearing all that negativity, put downs, and laughter at the expense of others.  I'm not exactly sure but probably not a positive one.  I wondered what happened to T as he never struck me as a person capable of doing something so inhuman.  I thought he was in good hands all this time.  Surely someone who is truly happy with their life wouldn't feel the need to write a book like that, right?  When you are happy you don't generally feel the need to justify it in a book by alienating all the people you have ever known in some way who you feel wronged you somehow and talking about how great your present life is.  If your present life is so great, living it should be enough for you, enjoying it, free of serving up a revenge sandwich.

So what does a person do to deal with the unfairness and strangeness of it all.  Honestly, forgive, genuinely forgive.  You forgive for yourself because it is the only way you can truly let go of something like that and not have to deal with repressed anger in the future.  Thus began my research of how to forgive when it is difficult.  This video is the first thing I found.  It is kind of an extreme example as the person in the video actually forgives the other person for killing someone he loved.  But then again, the person who did the killing actually expresses genuine remorse for what he did too, which I always feel makes forgiveness easier:

When It's Hard to Forgive - Youtube

After that I decided I should specifically research "how to forgive people who aren't sorry", because that was my real hang up.  It wasn't so much that they did something awful to me.  That I could easily forgive.  People do unthoughtful things sometimes, even extreme ones.  It happens.  That wasn't the problem.  It was that they were trying to make money on that crap.  Hell they were doing speeches about it in schools and stuff.  Basically they seemed very proud of what they had written, and wanted to flaunt it all over the internet like no tomorrow.  *Scratches temple and shakes forehead*.   Really?

So I looked up how to forgive others when they're not sorry and I found some gems.  From Wikianswers.com:

Question:  How do you forgive someone who is not even sorry?

Answer:

Not equipped to apologize.  Understanding that the other person does not possess the tools to offer an apology can help you to forgive them. We all see things from our own perspective and respond based on our own past experiences. Some people are simply not capable of seeing that they have hurt another person. Forgive them for not learning this lesson earlier in their life, and wish them well.

Another problem with not forgiving someone is that it gives them power over you. Think about it. You're upset, maybe even raging about what they did. Probably spending much more time and effort on it than it's worth. Point in fact, you are giving them power over you because you are choosing to devote time and effort to the problem. But... if you forgive them for what they did it's over. Now, I did not say you're supposed to forget what happened, only fools forget. Just forgive them. After all, why should you let them ruin your day any more?

The bottom line to all this is that forgiveness really is a one-way street. Though it's hard to forgive someone who does not show remorse, and may not even feel remorse, it is a decision that we can make regardless. For your own health, '''decide''' to forgive them.


Answer:  Forgiving is unconditional. It nourishes the spirit.



And here is a link to how to Forgive Others: For Your Own Sake, that I found highly valuable: 

http://www.handelgroup.com/coaching/life-coaching/forgive-others-your-own-sake

And I requote again once more, because it's worth repeating:

“Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim--letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.”

― C.R. Strahan

And that is what I intend to do. In fact consider it done, now:


You know who you are, and you know what you have done. You may read this some day, or you may never read it. It doesn't matter to me either way. You seem to be happy about what you have 'accomplished', unaware of the ugliness of it, trying to profit from the pain you caused me and your own family with your so-called work of self-published 'fiction', and that's okay. Honestly, it doesn't matter one bit either way if you ever read this, if you're happy about what you've done, or if you like to drink Earl Grey tea on Sundays. It doesn't matter at all because this blog is mine, and this forgiveness is for me. So here it is:

I forgive you. You are both excused. I forgive you because I realize for whatever reason you aren't able to understand or care about how you hurt others with what you did and you also aren't able to genuinely apologize for it. I feel for you if you are in a place where you enjoy bringing pain to others who have genuinely wished you well, and I truly hope you can find a better, happier way of being.

I forgive you and in that forgiveness I choose to embrace happiness for myself. I am free of all resentment and anger. I forgive you. I forgive you because for whatever reason you appear to be hurting, or were when you wrote that book. I forgive you and in that forgiveness I set myself free. I forgive you, even though you didn't ask for or want my forgiveness. I choose letting go over drama. I forgive you, I forgive you with all my heart. Let's all just get on with our own lives, as the truth is we have no purpose in each other's anymore, and haven't for a very long time now.

Here I picture placing a carefully folded paper sailboat in a river and watching it drift away until I can no longer see it.


*exhales peacefully*