Why You Can’t Forgive

One of the best ways to resolve relationship issues on the karmic level is through forgiveness. But there is a sickness in the spiritual community regarding forgiveness. People are urged to move to forgiveness before they are ready.

I know this firsthand, and I see it frequently when I work with people one-on-one. Complex relationships, and especially those that resulted in abuse and trauma, cannot be healed and forgiven in an instant simply because you will it.

As a child I suffered emotional abuse from a family elder who took every opportunity to knock me down with his words. My emotional set point in this relationship was at fear and shame. Fear that he would humiliate me again and shame once he did. But the worst part was that no one protected me, a small child, from this family member. This family elder had survived the unthinkable – he was born in captivity during WW2 and spent the first few years of his life half-starved, struggling to survive. He was a US immigrant success story – building a church, community, and living the American dream. But my family elder had many personality issues and a deep-seated anger. For some reason, my family allowed him to unleash his anger on me because of his sad start to life.

Whenever I complained to my parents about the emotional abuse, I got the same misguided Catholic response. “You just have to accept him and forgive him. Remember what he went through, it’s only natural he would have some issues.” Whenever I summoned the courage to stand up to my abuser he gaslit me. “What’s wrong, you can’t take a joke? Why are you so sensitive?” This victim blaming really solidified my distaste for religion.

As I got older I found lots of healing through spirituality. Always, the emotions from this dysfunctional relationship came up to be healed. And I found that most of the New Age community has the same misguided approach to forgiveness. I was urged to forgive my abuser, and then when I couldn’t I felt shame. What was wrong with me, that I couldn’t let this go?

It wasn’t until I started working one-on-one with a Timeline Healer (who I shall call Sabine) that I truly healed. When I explained to Sabine what had happened, she validated my feelings of hurt, anger, fear, and shame. She validated that it was normal to protect children, and very wrong to abuse them in any way. She saw that I could not move to forgiveness until I had reclaimed my power, from the family elder and from my misguided family who had failed to set appropriate boundaries and protect me. She saw that I needed to rescue my Inner Child and correct the confusion this situation had created in my consciousness.

In Timeline Healing sessions Sabine guided me to see my own aura and the aura of my abuser. I was able to see his low frequency, that he was a misogynist, that it bothered him to see a confident, powerful little girl. This in itself was healing.

In subsequent sessions we went back in time to incidents of emotional abuse. We healed them with the love and empowerment frequency, and I watched as my thinking cleared. I saw that I didn’t have to freeze and accept the abuse. My Higher Self guided me to call out the bad behavior and how to do it. Sabine and I healed incident after incident. My emotional set point shifted from fear and shame to anger and courage and self-love.

In later sessions we healed the energetic pathways that set me up to give energy to this vampiric family elder. I learned that repeated energy drainage set up a pathway that became easily activated in me. We worked on the body energy level to heal these pathways. I became the master of my body energies. In my spare time I read about boundaries and in Timeline Healing sessions I practiced them. Soon I was responding from a place of power rather than defensively reacting. All of my relationships improved. I became an empowered empath, who no longer felt drained around others.

One day I traveled back home to attend a funeral of a family member. The family elder who had caused me so much pain was there. It wasn’t long before he was up to his usual tricks, saying something cruel to me. This time my response was different. I felt myself holding on to my energy, and staying completely calm and connected to my Self. “You poor misguided Soul,” I said, the words just pouring forth from me. But what was more impressive was the energy behind the words. I watched as my abuser’s mouth hung open. He knew that I had changed. He could feel that the energy drainage pathway he had forced between us was now closed.

Over the years the energy vampire tried several more times to steal my energy. Each time, I stood in my power and sent the message: that is no longer an option. Each time I felt my Inner Child glow with happiness. My trust in myself grew.

One day I remarked to Sabine that I had been waiting for someone to rescue me from this situation, but I was the one who rescued myself. I had become the person I was waiting for. It might seem odd, but I was grateful for the experience. It had led me back to my own power. It wasn’t until I regained my power, that I could finally see my abuser with genuine compassion. And then, I forgave him.

*Additional note: Today, in my work as a Timeline Healer, I meet many people struggling with forgiveness. Many are doing advanced spiritual exercises before they have done the basic work of reclaiming their power and learning their Soul lessons. Others are writing out affirmations and intending to forgive through will and repetition alone. I share my personal story here as another approach to forgiveness. This approach heals challenging relationships on all levels – the bioenergetic level where energy drainage or entanglement occurs, the mental and emotional levels where confusion exists, and boundaries may be lacking. The remarkable thing is that when you take this step-wise approach to healing, forgiveness happens naturally and easily. This approach requires bravery and a love of truth. It requires seeing people clearly, and accepting that some people may have disappointed you. Old programs to protect others at your expense have to be dropped. If you are brave enough to do this deep work, I commend you.