* Can I forgive someone without allowing them back into my life?

Sometimes forgiveness is freeing. Sometimes it is an important part of healing. Mycorejourney believes that not forgiving can sometimes also be a boundary and a truth that sets us free.  And perhaps that distinction matters more than we usually admit. Because when you’ve been hurt, there can be another kind of pressure hidden inside the advice to forgive: the feeling that your healing is somehow incomplete until you have forgiven the person who hurt you. But, you can release your anger without reconciling. You can stop thinking about someone without welcoming them back. You can understand why someone hurt you without excusing what they did. And you can choose peace without giving someone access to you again. EVER. That does not necessary align with the term “forgiveness”.

There is something about that word that becomes a rule, a test of goodness. Something you “should” do to prove you have healed. The word is morally loaded, and quite worn out. It might even an entirely internal process for some, while for others, it is tied to accountability, to the person who caused the hurt actually recognising what they did and feeling genuine remorse and ask for forgiveness.  And maybe that matters too. Because healing should not require us to deny what we needed in the first place.

So, yes, maybe sometimes it is about freeing yourself from what happened. Maybe sometimes it is about finding compassion for another human being. And sometimes, perhaps, the most healing thing you can do is to take the power back and simply say:

I have made peace with the fact that it happened, but forgiving is not on the spectrum. Reclaiming is. I reclaim myself from what happened. Period. 

Jay Shetty’s perspective on forgiveness interesting: Listen to How do I forgive? from Voices Worth Hearing.