How to learn to forgive people and forget old grudges

psychologist, analytically oriented therapist, EMDR-practitioner, Psychedemia expert

“There is quite a lot of information on the Web and literature on how to learn to forgive. In this article we will look at this phenomenon from different angles. It is important to talk about all facets of forgiveness, because it has not only a positive side.”

Practicing psychologists are alarmed by client inquiries in which it sounds: “How to forgive parents?”. What are we talking about here? What is forgiveness in this case? Why does an adult need it? Can someone demand forgiveness for their actions?

In the context of psychological trauma, for example, it is more appropriate to talk about accepting the diversity of childhood experiences, grieving for all the hard things that happened and the good things that never happened. And also about building the ability to move on when that difficult personal history no longer controls us.

Table of Contents

Is it always necessary to forgive?

Near-psychological techniques that call forgiveness the way to solve all problems (usually there we are talking about parents), in general, carry a threat to the mental state of a person and are frankly dangerous. Why?

Because in order to “forgive and let go” of everything without analyzing, we must internally deny what happened, distort the situation in our imagination, downplay, confuse ourselves, deny the truth.

The consequences of this are sad, because we end up doubting the present all the time, we cannot trust our feelings and sensations. Our inner radar and security system, which should be guarding our well-being, start working to our detriment. Did I get it right? Or maybe I’m imagining things? Maybe I’m wrong? These are the frequent questions a person who has decided to forgive everyone asks themselves.

Demanding forgiveness of someone you can’t forgive entails guilt as well. “I should, but I can’t,” the person thinks.

Often we commit an internal betrayal by forgiving for the sake of continuing a relationship that is not the best fit, while denying our own experiences because we feel guilty, angry at ourselves, judgmental, and committing an act of self abuse.

The healthy option is recognizing and accepting everything that happened, integrating the experience, and only then do we decide whether to build a new relationship with that person.

There are situations where it is really necessary to do the inner work to forgive (integrate the negative experience). Thus, the key task is not forgiveness itself, but the possibility of continuing the relationship. But there are situations in which it is not quite appropriate to talk about forgiveness. The key criterion is whether there is someone to forgive?

Trying to forgive a person who does not ask for it and does not try to answer for his deed is quite strange, and why? What if it is an experience of severe physical or sexual abuse? Forgiveness in this case may amount to retraumatizing the person.

There is another danger in this topic – not to go into pride. There can be an illusion that we are generously granting forgiveness, when in fact we are simply deciding whether or not to continue the relationship with the person.

Recognizing the damage and attempting to make amends with the party at fault is an important part of forgiveness and acceptance of the situation. If this is not the case, the injured party will have to do the work on their own. It is necessary to recognize the incident and the damage and accept that the other party will not change.

If we do not do this and just forgive, then internally we join the aggressor who has harmed us, identify with him and turn the negative impulse against ourselves.

What is the right way to understand forgiveness?

It is important to distinguish forgiveness from forgetting. In the second case, it is primarily a matter of simply forgetting. But if something has happened, it is impossible to just take it out of your head. Any situation must be lived in order not to remain an internal unresolved conflict.

The more there are, the higher the expenditure of psychic energy we direct to maintain our inner integrity. Even if we don’t notice it.

A lot of such conflicts is simply a waste of energy and resources. Therefore, it is very important not to forget, but to analyze and live what happened:

to recognize your reactions;
to examine what was really relevant to the present situation and what was a past experience;
to grieve about what happened, to regret it, and thus to integrate the experience inside oneself.

Without these processes, which in psychology are called “grief work,” forgiveness is simply an internal splitting of the psyche.

If a person has not lived, has not grieved, but has “forgiven everyone,” at the expense of what has he done? He simply pushed all the bad things into the “attic of the unconscious”. And pretends that nothing happened.

The ability to integrate both the bad and the good is a skill of a healthy psyche. Excessive idealization or the state that “all is well” (there is a formulation “toxic positivity”), is fraught with repressed emotions, which will either break out at the wrong moment (and it will be quite difficult to figure out what their cause is), or go clamping and disease in the body. When we lack the ability to live through a situation mentally, we begin to do so physically.

In essence, forgetting is detrimental to a person’s physical and psychological well-being.

In the topic of forgiveness, one often also talks about mercy. This is a rather philosophical concept. Psychology is more focused on issues of the needs of the individual person, his resources at the moment and personal experience.

If, for example, I have been cheated by the people closest to me and I am going through something similar again, should I be merciful? Can I? And what would be the cost of that mercy to my inner integrity? In this case, it will have to do with me ignoring my pain points.

Quite often this is exactly what we do to ourselves. However, fooling ourselves completely will still not work. The psyche will signal a faint discomfort or bodily tension.

I would also like to note the importance of forgiving ourselves. Autoaggression (anger directed at oneself) is quite common. Very often we berate ourselves for years for a non-existent list of wrongs. In our psychic reality, some of our behaviors take on additional horrors, growing like shadows on a wall.

There are a huge number of people who cannot forgive themselves for their misdeeds. They live with them for years. This is where it’s really important to talk about forgiveness and self-compassion, compassionately relating to your past experiences in which mistakes have probably occurred, simply because there was no other opportunity, skills and resources to do otherwise.

It may not work out right away. For many, self-forgiveness is a journey, not a one-time process. It happens when there are many more negative perceptions than positive ones. But treating yourself well will definitely help you move forward.

Understanding your emotions and needs

When some conflict occurs, it’s important to sort out what actually happened in the here and now. Is the reaction appropriate to the stimulus or is it excessive? There are times when we overreact because the external situation was a trigger that set off a cascade of internal associations that are pulled from past experiences. Or maybe we even lapse into affect (when “it’s all a blur from here on out”).

It’s important to realize that the trigger is only part of the reason for this reaction. The rest lies in our old unexperienced experience.

In such a situation, it’s worth sorting out within ourselves what really happened. Have I really been harmed? Or am I now caught up in all my old hurts? What has been the trigger? How can I support myself? What can I do to protect myself from such acute reactions in the future? How can I take care of myself?

It is helpful to research and know yourself well in order to be able to process the situation mentally, to respond verbally rather than with actions. We play out in the present what we could not cope with anymore. For example, we get sick when we had to initiate an important conversation with our boss. In a sense, this is playing out our inner helplessness when interacting with someone big and important.

Understanding your needs and fears is also a very important part of contact. Without it, it is very difficult to build quality and reliable relationships. Why? The fact is that any relationship with others begins with building it with yourself. As simple as this sounds, it can be a complicated process in practice.

Understanding the other person

The ability to visualize another person’s motives is due to empathy and the workings of mirror neurons. However, in order to be able to put yourself in his or her shoes, you need to have sufficient mental stability and maturity.

There’s a very fine line here too. Often people go off into justifying themselves (and their actions) or others. Seeing reality is quite a challenge. Yes, the person did a bad thing that I will not ignore, try to balance it with something good. For example, that he insulted but gave flowers… Does the latter cancel out the former? No, it doesn’t work that way. You have to really see the bad, but you have to see the good. For example, that he insulted me, but now he’s truly sorry.

In a way, forgiveness is often used as a way of not facing reality. To pretend that nothing happened. A person begins to ignore their own discomfort, and that discomfort only grows over time when in contact with another person. After all, the situation has not been lived and talked about with him. And everything that is not clarified in the contact, contributes to the increase of distance. Any lies and silences contribute to distance.

Acceptance of the past

Accepting a past event means accepting that it happened. The experience gets its place.

I would like to say separately about shame and guilt. The first one is directed to the past and to oneself. That is, here we are engaged in self-deprecation for what has already happened. In shame there is no development and there is no other person. Here we are entirely focused on ourselves. Guilt, on the other hand, is directed toward the future, taking into account the past (what can I do differently?) and turned toward the other person.

I am not worried about myself, but about the damage I have done to the other person. This is a very important process – we cannot demand forgiveness, but we are able to be truly sorry and try to make amends.

Practical steps

Dialogue is an important part of any relationship. Silence creates tension and room for speculation, and fantasies are in most cases much worse than reality. If something was or is, because of its history, difficult for us in life, it is very important for us to learn to understand it first (we can make a “map of inner difficulties”) and to speak it out loud.

For example, couples therapy is based on the principle of both partners discovering these difficulties, being able to say them out loud and explain to each other what is going wrong, and then looking for solutions together.

Without the first point (discussion), finding a good solution for both is unlikely. It’s more of a lottery: it may or may not work out. And instead of picking up the keys with closed eyes, wasting time and energy, it is better to talk about it directly and find out.

Anger also plays an important role in accepting the situation and dealing with resentment. It is responsible for our ability to react and do something to restore inner balance. However, it can be overdone here – if you don’t have the skill to deal with emotions. We need to remember that the goal is not to destroy the other person, but to communicate our own condition so that we can repair the relationship.

When forgiving, it is very important for both parties to be prepared for the consequences. If some negative behavior has occurred, it is logical that it will have consequences.

Forgiveness in no way implies that they will be avoided. After all, if a cup falls, it will break. If we don’t do our job well, we will be fired. So it is with relationships: if damage has been done, it will affect what happens and both of us will have to face the consequences of this situation. Therefore, you should not demand to feel that nothing happened and you can just forget about it.

Real intimacy involves being able to talk openly about your feelings. This is a very important process. Both for the person to whom the feelings belong (to have the experience of validating the importance of their feelings) and for the person to whom they are presented (because such a conversation shows the existence of trust between people, thanks to which they can show their vulnerability). There is a lot of courage and fortitude involved. It is the willingness to take risks that determines whether or not we will walk into a close relationship. It is, after all, always scary.

Many people choose to forgo deep close relationships for the sake of safety, but the price is high. The thing is, we can’t choose one feeling that we give up, we freeze ourselves out entirely. And, of course, there are some things that are impossible to get over on our own. For this we simply need another. Therefore, it is important to learn how to live through difficult situations together, discussing and forgiving if possible. Such a difficult experience will help to make the relationship stronger and deeper.