A few days ago, I was watching a YouTube video where a woman was sharing her life story—pain, struggle, everything she had been through. And honestly, there was no doubt that she had suffered a lot. You could feel it in her words, in her emotions.
Then she started talking about forgiveness.
At one point, she said something like:
“Forgive them… and let them go to hell.”
And I paused.
Something about that sentence didn’t sit right with me.
It sounded like forgiveness on the surface, but underneath, there was still anger. Still resentment. Almost like forgiveness was being used as a way to cover something, not resolve it.
And that made me think—
What do we actually mean when we say forgiveness?
Is it really about letting go?
Or is it sometimes just a way to escape what we don’t want to feel?
That question stayed with me.
Because the more I thought about it, the more it felt like what we often call forgiveness might not be what we think it is.
Forgiveness as a Spiritual Shortcut
We’ve been taught to forgive so quickly that we rarely pause to ask what we are actually doing when we say that word. It has almost become automatic—“forgive and move on,” “forgive for your peace,” “forgive, they did their best.” These phrases sound wise, even comforting, and over time they begin to feel like unquestionable truths.
But if you sit with them a little longer, something starts to feel incomplete.
Because real healing is not quick, and it is certainly not clean. When you are hurt deeply—especially by people you trusted—it does not remain just an event in the past. It enters your mind, your body, your patterns, and quietly shapes the way you see yourself, the way you relate to others, and even the way you experience life.
And to face all of that takes time.
A long time.
It is not a simple act of letting go. It is a process of going through confusion, anger, and grief, often returning to moments you wish had never happened, questioning yourself, and feeling things you would rather avoid. It is uncomfortable, sometimes overwhelming, and there are phases where it feels like you are going backwards rather than healing.
And this is where forgiveness becomes tempting.
Not as truth, but as relief.
Instead of entering that long and painful process, we reach for something that promises immediate lightness. We tell ourselves that we have forgiven, that we have let go, that we are ready to move on. For a moment, it even feels real.
But if you look honestly, nothing fundamental has changed.
The pain is still there, just quieter.
The anger is still there, just pushed beneath the surface.
The questions are still there, unanswered.
This is not healing.
It is avoidance, expressed in a more acceptable language.
And over time, this creates a subtle conflict within us. On one level, we believe that we have already forgiven, that we have done the “right” thing, but on another level, something inside continues to react, to remember, to resist.
That contradiction is not a flaw. It is a signal.
It tells you that forgiveness did not come from healing. It came instead of it.
And the real problem is not just that this kind of forgiveness does not work. It is that it delays the deeper work. Because once we convince ourselves that we have already let go, we stop looking further. We stop asking what actually happened within us, what was left unresolved, and which part of us is still carrying the weight of that experience.
So the wound is not healed.
It is simply covered.
The Reality of Healing
If there is one thing I have understood through my own experience, it is this: healing does not begin with peace. It often begins with disturbance.
When you finally stop avoiding what happened, when you stop trying to move on too quickly, something else opens up. Memories that you had pushed aside begin to return, not just as thoughts, but as emotions—raw, unprocessed, and often overwhelming.
In my own case, there were weeks and months where I found myself constantly preoccupied with those thoughts. Even when I was doing something else, in the background, those memories would keep replaying—the same instances, the same moments where I could not understand what was really happening at the time. It was frustrating, honestly. There were moments when I would think, why is this happening to me? Why am I stuck in this loop? Am I just wasting time? Shouldn’t I be moving ahead in life? There were so many other things I felt I should be doing, and yet my mind kept returning to the same place.
You find yourself going back to moments you wish you could forget. Small details. Conversations. Situations that did not make sense back then but start to become clearer now. And with that clarity comes anger, grief, confusion, and sometimes even disbelief at what you allowed or endured.
It is not a straight path.
Some days, you feel like you are understanding things better, becoming calmer, more aware. And then suddenly, something triggers you, and it feels like you are back at the beginning again.
It can be frustrating.
But that is not regression. It is depth.
Healing moves in cycles, not in straight lines. Each time you revisit something, you are not starting over—you are going deeper into it, seeing it from a place you could not access before.
And that depth is necessary.
Because real healing is not about forgetting what happened. It is about understanding how it affected you—your trust, your sense of safety, your way of relating to others, even the way you see yourself.
There is also a grief that comes with this process, not just for what happened, but for what could have been.
And that part cannot be skipped.
What We Think Forgiveness Means
After going through this process, I started looking more closely at what we actually mean when we say the word forgiveness.
Because most of the time, we use the word without really examining it.
For some, forgiveness means letting go of anger. For others, it means accepting what happened. Sometimes, it is seen as a sign of maturity—as if being able to forgive makes you a better or more evolved person. And in many cases, it carries a subtle sense of moral closure, as if something has been resolved simply because you have decided to forgive.
But if you look carefully, there is often something hidden inside this idea.
When we say, “I forgive you,” there is an unspoken structure within that sentence. It assumes that a wrong has been done, that you now stand in a position to release it, and that by doing so, something is being settled. It may not always be said with ego, but it can still carry a quiet sense of elevation, as if you are stepping into a role where you decide what to hold and what to release.
And this is where something begins to feel uncomfortable.
Because without realizing it, we start moving into a space that is not really ours to occupy. We begin to take on a role of judgment and release, as if we fully understand the other person, their intentions, their awareness, and their inner world.
In a subtle way, it starts to feel like we are playing God.
Not always consciously. Not always with arrogance. But the structure itself carries that tone—that we have the authority to decide what is forgiven and what is not.
And that is where the discomfort deepens.
Not because forgiveness itself is wrong, but because of the way we have come to understand and use it.
We begin to treat it as something we should do, something that proves our growth, something that brings closure. And in doing so, we move too quickly into a conclusion without fully understanding what is still unresolved within us.
Sometimes, forgiveness becomes less about truth and more about identity. We want to be the person who has forgiven. We want to feel like we have risen above.
But that desire, however subtle, can take us away from what is actually happening inside. Because real resolution does not come from a statement.
It comes from understanding.
It Was Never Really About Them
At some point in this process, something began to shift in the way I was looking at everything.
For a long time, the focus was on them—what they did, why they did it, how they could behave in certain ways. My thoughts kept circling around the same questions, trying to make sense of something that, at that time, did not make sense at all.
But slowly, that focus began to change.
Not because I forced it to, but because I started seeing something more clearly.
That healing was not really about them.
It was about what had happened within me.
What they did was a part of the story, but what stayed with me was the impact—the confusion, the broken trust, the patterns that had quietly formed, and the way I started seeing myself and the world after those experiences.
And that is where the real work was.
Because no matter how much I thought about them, it did not change what was happening inside me.
At some point, I realized that I did not need to understand them completely in order to heal.
I needed to understand myself.
And once that shift happened, the question of forgiveness also started to lose its importance.
Turning Inward: Healing the Many Selves Within
As the focus turned inward, I started noticing that what I was dealing with was not just one wound, but many layers within me that had been affected in different ways.
There was a part of me that had trusted without question, that had believed in people and relationships without hesitation. There was another part that did not fully understand what was happening at the time, that could sense something was wrong but did not have the clarity to name it. There was also a part that carried anger, not only toward what had happened but also toward myself—for not seeing it earlier, for not responding differently, for staying longer than I should have.
Along with that came grief.
Not just for what happened, but for what could have been—the version of life I believed in, the relationships I thought I had, the sense of safety that, in hindsight, was never really there.
When I looked at it this way, it became clear that healing was not about fixing one thing.
It was about understanding all these parts.
Each of them had its own experience. Each of them had its own truth. And none of them needed judgment.
They needed to be seen.
And in that seeing, something began to soften—because those parts were no longer being ignored.
What Happens After Healing
As this process continues, something begins to change in a quiet and almost unnoticeable way.
The intensity that once defined your experience starts to fade. The memories are still there, but they no longer pull you in the same way. The anger begins to lose its grip, and the questions that once felt urgent slowly lose their importance.
Without forcing anything, a distance begins to form.
You are no longer inside those experiences. You are able to look at them.
And in that space, something becomes clear.
You don’t feel the need to forgive, but you also don’t feel the need to hold on.
What remains is not love, and it is not hate, but a kind of quiet indifference—a clean distance where the past no longer has an active presence within you.
And in that space, the question of forgiveness begins to lose its importance.
Because what forgiveness was supposed to bring—closure, peace, release—has already happened through understanding.
You did not arrive here by forgiving.
You arrived here by going through.
And that is when something becomes clear:
When healing is complete, forgiveness becomes irrelevant.
The Quiet Pressure to Forgive
As I reflected more on this, I began to notice that forgiveness is not just a personal idea, but also a deeply cultural one.
It is repeated so often, especially in spiritual spaces, that it starts to feel like a necessary step—something you must do in order to grow or heal.
And because of that, it creates a quiet pressure.
You begin to feel that if you are not able to forgive, then something is wrong with you.
But healing does not follow a fixed structure.
It moves according to your experience, your pace, and your readiness.
And when forgiveness is introduced too early, it can become a form of performance—something you say, something you try to feel, but something that is not yet real within you.
That is not failure.
It is simply a sign that the process is not complete.
A Different Way of Looking at Forgiveness
After going through all of this, forgiveness no longer feels like something I need to do.
The focus has shifted.
From trying to forgive… to trying to understand.
And in that shift, there is a certain ease.
Because when the attention is placed on healing—on seeing clearly what is happening within, on allowing each part of the experience to be understood—there is no need to force any outcome.
Because what matters is not whether another person has been forgiven, but whether something within you has found clarity.
There is no fixed path here.
Only honesty.
And when that honesty is there, the inner conflict within you settles.
So maybe the question is not: Have I forgiven?
Maybe the real question is:
Have I truly understood what is still alive within me?
And when that understanding deepens, something changes on its own. And in that space, whether forgiveness exists or not… no longer matters.
If this topic resonates with you, you can also read my earlier piece where I explored this idea from a different perspective:
Musings of a Warrior Buddha 
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