What Does Forgiveness Mean If You Are Stuck in Trauma?

You hear the word used in relation to healing, and you know that unforgiveness is like a poison, but what does forgiveness mean when you strip away all of the clichés and shallow advice? If it were so easy to do, then why do people struggle with it so much? Surely there are steps or stages to forgiveness, just as there are with grief or addiction?

The truth is that forgiveness is probably a lot different from the things people have said it is. Forgiveness is not a choice you make once and try to stick to. In fact, it has nothing to do with your mentality or mindset. It is about changing your relationship to the person who hurt you, or changing your life until you can face them again.

Forgiveness is something you do to release your nervous system from being stuck in trauma. As long as you are holding onto the memory of what you experienced, your nervous system is kept in survival mode. This results in using all of your physical energy to protect you from a danger that is no longer present. Forgiveness and healing go together and cannot be separated, but the path to both might be different from what you have been taught.

What does forgiveness mean?

Forgiveness happens in your body. The emotions you feel are an echo of something happening in your body. Your nervous system feels everything you do. Anxiety can feel like a tightness in your chest, sadness like a lump in your throat, anger like a heat that flushes your face, and exhaustion like a tension in your shoulders.

When you experience the emotions caused by unforgiveness, like bitterness, resentment, fury, and disbelief, your nervous system remains activated and ready to face the threat that it thinks is causing you to feel these things. You know that these events are in the past, but your nervous system never got the memo. It responds to all these memories, emotions, and triggers as if they were a present danger.

Each time you remember the person who hurt you, or the events that traumatized you, it is a signal to your nervous system that it must fight, escape, shut down temporarily, or try to figure out a way to avoid the pain. It is like being haunted by a ghost that cannot physically harm you except by the anxiety and distress its presence causes you. As long as these events are being replayed in your memories, they are a present threat to your body.

What does forgiveness mean? Forgiveness means giving your nervous system a chance to relax. It is the act of moving to a place that is not haunted by the past and getting a good night’s sleep for the first time in years.

Forgiveness only involves you

If you were waiting to forgive that person only after they made an apology, offered an olive branch, or simply acknowledged their actions, you might wait forever. You don’t need their participation to forgive them.

It’s painful to realize that they have no plans to try to salvage the relationship or take ownership of their part in what happened. When you realize that you need to move on for your own good, even if that means you will never get an apology or acknowledgment, you have begun the healing process.

Forgiveness only waits on you alone. You might not feel ready to let things go because it takes a long time to heal from injustice. Your tormentor only has enough power over you as you give them, though. Forgiveness happens in your body and according to your own timeline. What does forgiveness mean if not healing simply because you deserve to?

Healing comes before forgiveness

The most traumatic event in your life has happened, and it has altered events for good. It was unfair, it was brutal, and it caused some serious damage that will take years to recover from. Forgiving the person who did this to you does not mean that you have to overlook this damage. In fact, it is only once you begin healing the harm that was done that you can begin forgiving the one who did it. First comes healing, then comes forgiveness.

You can choose to forgive someone because you know it’s the right thing to do, and you can say all the appropriate words to formalize your decision. Forgiveness isn’t as simple as making the choice or doing the right thing, though.

You can choose to forgive them, mentally release them, and even genuinely pray for their well-being, but until your nervous system has processed the trauma and begun healing, you cannot truly forgive or forget. What does forgiveness mean? It means giving yourself the time to heal and process the trauma so that you can move on.

Releasing the Debt

Have you ever noticed how much of the language we use to talk about forgiveness mirrors the things we say about money? We say, “they owe me an apology”, or, “I would feel better if I could get some payback.” When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, He linked forgiveness with money debts, later translated as trespasses or sins. What does forgiveness mean? It is letting someone off the hook even while they still owe you an apology or explanation for their actions.

Forgiving someone does not mean they are welcome back into your life, or that you must fix your relationship with them. It means that you no longer owe each other anything; you are both free. Most of the time, this is why we don’t want to forgive someone: we want them to pay for what they did. When you release the charge you have over them, it completely severs the connection between you, regardless of what they meant to you before.

You are connected to someone as long as you feel like they owe you something. Forgiveness means letting go and ending that connection, even though you might never get that apology, acknowledgment, or explanation. You have lost out on those things, but you have provided yourself with closure and the freedom to move on.

True Forgiveness, Freedom, and Healing

You can choose to forgive someone over and over again, but it is only when you have properly processed your experience that you can truly forgive someone. When you have felt the anger, found the depths of your grief, and found the safety that your nervous system has been craving, you can finally and fully forgive and move on. The beauty and frustration of this experience is that it happens when it happens.

At some point, you realize that something has shifted, and you don’t feel that weight on your chest anymore, or your mind is quieter. It is like noticing that the sun has been shining for a while and smelling the gentle fragrance of new blossoms through the open window. Healing comes as unexpectedly as springtime.

If you work on processing the trauma you went through, at some point, you will no longer flinch when you hear their name, and you will look forward to a new chapter in your future. You cannot decide when you will heal. You can only begin paying attention to your needs and trying to look after yourself. What does forgiveness mean? It means doing the best for yourself and waiting for healing.

We can do a lot of work on our own, but it’s always better when we have others helping us. We host an online catalog of counselors where you can find someone to begin meeting with if you want some extra support. Our reception team would also be happy to help you find the right person for you. Healing and forgiveness are hard and complicated, but you don’t have to be alone on the journey.