If someone told me this or if I have had this revelation before, I do not recall.

Forgiveness is scary and profoundly vulnerable.

A couple of weeks I ago I realized forgiveness left me feeling like I was sticking my neck out and saying to someone who has harmed me: here’s my jugular.

I decided, I need some sort of system in place to be both open-hearted and self-protective. I need discernment.

Sometimes, I am having to forgive without being able to let the person know what they’ve done to me. Or maybe it is the case they simply cannot understand my perspective, my experience. In such times, forgiveness can feel like foolishness – as though I’m letting someone get away with something when I ought to be punishing them, holding them accountable somehow.

All that said, forgiveness can be a kin to hugging – a true hug is mutual and when I give one, I get one back. If I forgive you for what you’ve done to me – even if it is the kind of injustice/harm which was not intended, not conscious and perhaps another might not even share the perception of there even being any harm done – I am invited to do the same for myself. I am invited to forgive myself for whatever ways I have caused harm in the world.

I suspect the two feed off each other – the more I become willing to forgive others, the more I become open to forgiving myself and vis-versa. I am not certain of this – it is a new idea for me.

I am certain I have areas in my life where I struggle to forgive myself. This evening, I’m wondering why. Why is self-forgiveness so hard? In what ways is self-forgiveness scary?