Forgiveness, It’s Complicated.
The concept of forgiveness can be complicated and misunderstood. We're told it's something we should do for our own peace, for our healing, for our growth. That’s really valid. But people often leave out how hard the forgiveness process can be, and what forgiveness does and doesn't require of us.
This post is for anyone who has found that difficult emotions and painful memories keep coming back, even when they’ve forgiven the other person (or themselves). This can make a person wonder if it means they haven't really forgiven at all. This post is for anyone who has been told that forgiveness means letting someone back in, pretending the hurt never happened, or continuing to accept behavior that harmed them.
What Is Forgiveness?
Some of my favorite teachers have written a lot of wisdom on the topic of forgiveness. Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, and Tara Brach share a common thread in their teaching: forgiveness is not about excusing what happened, minimizing the harm, or going back to a relationship that repeatedly causes harm. It's about releasing yourself from the ongoing suffering of carrying resentment, bitterness, and unprocessed pain.
What all three share is this: forgiveness is a practice, not an event. It is something we return to, again and again, not something we accomplish once.
Why the Pain Keeps Coming Back
Many people who have made a sincere decision to forgive and have felt moments of release and peace get confused and discouraged when the pain comes flooding back the next time they're reminded of what happened. Then they find themselves asking, “Does that mean I haven't really forgiven? Am I doing it wrong?”
No. You haven’t done it wrong. It means you're human, and your brain works the way brains work. When we experience something deeply painful, the memory gets encoded in our neural networks along with all of its emotional content (the fear, grief, anger, shame.) Every time something reminds us of that original experience, like a similar tone of voice, a particular setting, an anniversary, even a smell, those neural networks get reactivated, and all the emotional content comes back.
This is what I call an amygdala hijack. The survival part of our brain processes threat faster than the logical part of our brain can respond, and it doesn't distinguish between the memory and the present moment. It responds to the activation as if the original painful event is happening in the here and now. So your body tenses, your heart rate rises, and all those spicy emotion flood back.
This isn’t evidence that forgiveness hasn't happened. It's evidence that the memory is still carrying the original emotional charge and that the work of healing isn't finished yet, even when the intention to forgive is genuine and complete.
Forgiveness as a Repeated Practice of Healing
Forgiveness isn’t something we do once and move on from, forgiveness becomes a practice we return to as a repeated offering of healing toward the wounded part of ourselves that still carries the pain. This is where mindfulness and self-compassion practice can be useful.
Lovingkindness (“metta” meditation) practice involves the deliberate cultivation of goodwill, first toward ourselves, then gradually extending outward to others, including those who have hurt us. The traditional phrases vary, but the point is to offer compassion and care: “May I be safe. May I be at peace. May I be free from suffering. May I know that I am loved.”
When a painful memory comes up, when the amygdala fires and the emotion floods back, we can offer self-compassion and kindness to the wounded part of ourselves. It’s not trying to push the pain away or talk ourselves out of it, but it’s acknowledging it with deliberate care: “I see you. I know this hurts. May you be safe. May you have peace.”
This is not spiritual bypass or pretending the pain isn't there or wrapping it in positivity. It's the opposite: acknowledging the pain fully, naming the emotion that's present ("this is grief," "this is fear," "this is the part of me that still feels betrayed"), and then offering that part of you the compassion it deserved at the time of the original hurt and may never have received.
Naming the emotion matters. Research in neuroscience, and the clinical experience of therapists working with both mindfulness and trauma, consistently shows that naming what we're feeling ("I notice fear," "there is grief here") brings the thinking brain back online after an amygdala hijack. Naming it creates just enough distance from the feeling to be with it instead of being consumed by it.
Each time the pain surfaces and we meet it with compassion rather than avoidance or self-criticism, we're doing the work of forgiveness. Not finishing it. Doing it. There is a difference.
How EMDR Helps Neutralize the Charge of the Painful Memory
For many people, the repeated return of painful emotions around a particular memory can be destabilizing. This is where EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can be transformative.
I shared in a previous post, that EMDR works by activating the brain's natural information processing system to help deeply painful memories get reprocessed and integrated so that what was "frozen" with its original emotional charge can shift. In the context of forgiveness work, EMDR does something specific and important: it helps the survival brain, (the wounded part that keeps responding to the memory as if the hurt is happening now) learn that it doesn't have to be hurt again. The threat encoded within the memory begins to lose its grip. The past becomes more clearly the past. Your emotions become more manageable and you can think about the person or the event without feeling run over by it.
EMDR doesn't do the forgiveness for you. But it can reduce the intensity of the emotions and thoughts attached to the memory so you can move on from the pain.
What Forgiveness Doesn’t Mean
Forgiveness does not mean that what happened was okay. You can fully forgive someone and still know that what the other person did was wrong. These are not in contradiction.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending it didn't happen. Minimizing, denying, or acting as if the harm never occurred is not forgiveness. It's suppression and it tends to delay healing rather than support it. Real forgiveness happens with eyes open, not closed.
Forgiveness does not mean the relationship is automatically restored. Trust and forgiveness are not the same thing. Forgiveness is something you can do in your own heart, regardless of what the other person does or doesn't do. Trust is something that has to be rebuilt through changed behavior, over time. It cannot be demanded, assumed, or rushed.
Forgiveness does not mean continued access. If someone has repeatedly harmed you and has not changed the behaviors that caused that harm, forgiving them does not require you to remain in relationship with them, continue to expose yourself to harm, or pretend that the pattern doesn't exist. You can wish someone well from a safe distance. You can hold compassion for their humanity while also recognizing that being around them is not safe for you.
A friend once said something about a person who hurt her and what my friend said stayed with me ever since. She said “Whenever I think of that person, I say, "I wish you well, and I wish you away." That is forgiveness. Complete, genuine, and boundaried. The goodwill is real. So is the distance. Neither cancels the other out.
When Walking Away Is the Most Loving Act
Sometimes the most honest and caring thing we can do for ourselves, and even for the other person, is to remove ourselves from a dynamic that keeps causing harm.
This isn't giving up on forgiveness. It's recognizing that forgiveness doesn't obligate us to keep coming back to a situation where we keep getting hurt. A person who hasn't changed the behaviors that caused harm in the first place hasn't earned restored trust. Once trust is broken, it gets rebuilt through consistent action over time, not through empty promises or our willingness to keep giving more chances.
Walking away from someone who repeatedly hurts us can be an act of profound self-respect and self-love. Sometimes, it’s also an act that offers clarity for the other person, who may only start to recognize the impact of their behavior when the relationship they've been taking for granted is no longer available.
You are allowed to forgive and still protect yourself. You are allowed to wish someone peace and not invite them back into your life. You are allowed to hold both the compassion and a boundary, because real forgiveness doesn't require you to keep sacrificing yourself.
A Practice to Return To
The next time a painful memory surfaces and difficult emotion comes flooding back, try this:
Name what's present. "This is grief." "This is anger." "This is the part of me that still feels betrayed." Say it gently, without judgment.
Place a hand on your heart. It’s a simple somatic gesture that activates the body's self-soothing response and signals care toward yourself.
Offer lovingkindness to your wounded part. “May I be safe. May I have peace. May I know that what happened then is not happening now.”
Let the emotion be there without trying to fix it. You don't have to resolve it in this moment. Just try being with it, kindly.
Remember: the return of this feeling is not evidence that you haven't forgiven. It's an invitation to offer healing, one more time, to the part of you that still needs it.
Forgiveness is a direction you keep moving in, gently, imperfectly, again and again, until the weight of what you've been carrying becomes something you can finally set down.
If forgiveness feels impossible, or if certain memories continue to flood you, EMDR and somatic therapy can help. Book a free 15-minute consultation to talk about whether working together might help.
