 Hello there, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Today, we're gonna be talking about a word that I personally have a vendetta against. We're talking deep-seated animosity, anger, and rage. Yes, I'm working on a therapy that's beside the point. Uh, forgiveness. Forgiveness is a topic that I have struggled so much of my life with. It is a word that has been used against me, caused great harm, but I also believe it is a beautiful concept in theory. But how it is presented so often throughout culture, whether that be in Christianity, in New Age circles, in mental health conversations, I do think there is a major flaw with how we talk about forgiveness, that no one seems to mention. So with that being said, if you have ever struggled with the idea of forgiveness, been confused by it, been angered by it, then this video is for you, my friend. Today's video is made possible by June's Journey, which is a free-to-download mobile game. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a gamer. I have like two games installed on my phone. This is one of those two games. It is a hidden object mystery game based in the 1920s, a very classy era. As you go through the storyline of June's Journey, you are attempting to help June solve a murder. Her sister's murder. Along the way, you meet characters and friends as you're trying to search for clues to solve this mystery. You're gonna find hundreds of different beautifully created scenes where you're looking for clues, you're looking for hidden objects, you're racing against the clock, but it's also something that's really relaxing and you can do at your own pace. Check out this journey today and download by clicking the link in my description. Like I said, I don't play a lot of games. This is one I genuinely do play because it helps me kind of take my mind off of things, relax. I'm looking for different objects. I'm kind of slowly going through this story. I've already made it to level six, which I'm pretty proud of. Just kidding, level seven. I literally just made it to level seven. So link in the description. Check it out and let me know what you think. And now let us dive back into that f-word. When I say that I hate forgiveness, I think most people's reactions would be, but Joe, forgiveness is a beautiful healing, restorative process. It's a weight being lifted off of you. Good people, forgive people. God, if you believe in God, wants you to forgive people. So what's the problem? Quick point of clarification. I don't actually hate forgiveness. I do think it is a beautiful tool when used appropriately. What I'm talking about specifically is the way that it is often presented and pushed on us to do. With that being said, let's continue. Okay. So for a little bit of context, I was born and raised in a conservative Christian environment and I spent the first two decades of my life completely dedicated to the church. And a lot of what the church taught me about forgiveness, which is what I'm going to talk about is also reflected in culture. So if you didn't grow up in the church, I do think we see this in a lot of self-help books and a lot of popular conversations in quotes that people cross-stitch on things. Forgiveness is kind of put on this pedestal, which perhaps it deserves of being a vital part of life, but especially in Christianity, where I was taught that God forgave me for being a dirty rotten sinner and all the terrible things that I had done. God is willing to forgive humanity and anyone of any sin. Therefore, as people, it is our responsibility to fellow man to forgive whatever trespass has been done against us. And going through middle school and high school with this mindset of how important it is to forgive those around us, I think was a beneficial thing. But that definitely changed when I actually had something deep to forgive. When you're talking about people who cut you off in traffic or a friend who's flaky or says something mean to you and the importance of forgiveness and restoring relationships, you know, that's all well and good. But in my early 20s, I was in an abusive relationship that involved sexual assault and was something that wrecked me to my core. The trauma that I experienced in that whole situation was deep and significant. And as I was able to come out of that relationship and began speaking to my close people, you know, mentors, people in the church, even friends about what had happened to me, the number one thing that was on most people's minds was forgiveness in the days and weeks after being sexually assaulted the last time. I can't tell you how many people who knew what occurred talked to me about where my heart was on forgiveness. You know, had I forgiven him, was I going to? Was God working on that with me? The weight of forgiveness was so heavy. It really did seem like people cared more about my ability to be able to forgive someone who had done such a monstrous thing. Then they cared about my mental health and well-being. And it was so confusing to have so many people pushing me towards forgiveness as I was trying to figure out how to live, how to stay alive. The obligation and necessity of forgiveness weighed on me for years after this. I wasn't able to immediately forgive this man. There were days when I thought I have no freaking desire to ever do that. There were other days where I desperately wanted to because I knew that that was the good, right thing to do, but I genuinely felt incapable of even knowing how to start that process. To be honest, it grew into this thing in my mind where I carried deep self-hatred and loathing. I thought I was weak and a bad person and doing a bad thing and committing a similar crime that had been committed against me by not being able to forgive this man. Looking back on that situation and the shame and guilt and self-hatred that I carried with me for not being able to forgive immediately or even as time went on, it was really difficult. I just wish I could go back in time and hug that girl and let her know it's gonna be okay. Here's what I wish I would have been told about forgiveness that it took me a long time to learn and understand. Number one, there isn't a timeline for forgiveness that you are required to be on. Whether you're a person of faith or not, I'll make the same argument in either situation. Forgiveness, if it's something that you want to pursue, is a process. It does not happen overnight. Generally speaking with serious offenses, it's not a light switch where you just forgive and then you're totally good, you're done, you've wiped your hands of it. Check forgiveness done. It's something that is done over and over again in different situations as different emotions arise. It's a long process. But whether that process takes a couple weeks for you or a couple decades, neither is a statement on your value or your goodness as a person. The next thing that I wish people would have told me about forgiveness is that it isn't actually a comment on your worth. Not being sure if you can or you want to forgive someone of something does not make you a bad person. Speaking just from my own perspective, we have linked forgiveness with being a moral and good person. Like you're a better human if you can do it and I just genuinely don't believe that that is true. If right now there's a situation or a person that you're thinking about that you can't forgive or you don't know how to or like I said, maybe you don't want to, that's okay. It's okay to sit on it for a very long time. It's okay to contemplate and ponder whether you want to go down that path at all and it's okay to decide that maybe you don't want to. Which brings me to the next thing I wish someone would have told me about forgiveness. It is a choice. So often it is spoken about like an obligation, this thing that you have to do, but you don't, especially when we're talking about traumatic things, big moments. You are not required to forgive. This is something that is 100% in your hands, whether you decide to do it or to not do it, to pursue the path, that journey of forgiveness or to close the door now or always and say, no, no one can force you into forgiveness. This is a choice that you hold the power over. I feel like this could be controversial to say, but I'm going to go ahead and put it out there. I genuinely think that forgiveness is pretty low down on the list of things that you need to be concerned about, especially in the immediate aftermath of going through something bad. Very often it is the key that everyone says that's how I got free from my past. I finally was able to forgive things and maybe that's true and maybe that's beautiful good thing, but so often it is pushed as like this first step. Here's the thing that has always puzzled me about forgiveness and the pressure to do it and to do it quickly. In my mind, I can't forgive something that I don't actually understand the hurt of. And when you're talking about serious things like trauma, like deep lasting relational wounds, you generally don't comprehend the weight of it right away. It takes weeks and months and years to understand how this thing has affected you. Though certainly it can be an ongoing process until you are able to feel and acknowledge the actual pain, the hurt that has been caused. It becomes very difficult to forgive someone for it because you don't even know what that is yet. Looking back at my own life and situation, speaking specifically kind of in the spiritual realm, which for me was Christianity, it's so bizarre to me that a lot of people cared a lot more about my capacity and my willingness to forgive someone for something than for the thing that was done against me in the first place. Because things like trauma and deep pain are uncomfortable to be around, I do think that some people rush others into forgiveness and really stress the importance of this to get someone past it, to get them over it, right? Like if you've forgiven something, we think it's done, it's over with and this person is uncomfortable and having a hard time and maybe I don't know how to deal with that. So I'm gonna push for forgiveness because I know that's a good concept and it's a lot easier to instruct someone to do this thing than it is to sit with them in their pain. Speaking specifically about abuse and forgiveness because often those two topics are tied. When I had just gone through something that was so deeply painful, someone had taken a lot of things from me. They had taken my sense of security, my sense of safety, my mental stability. There was deep pain, deep betrayal. Being pressured to extend this mental gift of forgiveness to a person who had taken so much from me was a real mind-bending experience and something that kind of left deep scars because even contemplating this idea of I now owe this person in my head forgiveness. I now owe the person who has done such harm against me. I couldn't wrap my head around that for a very long time. It took years of researching forgiveness, looking into it, talking to people about it, trying to wrap my head around this thing to get to the place where I really understood that it doesn't have anything to do with this other person. At the end of the day, I really do believe forgiveness is a beautiful thing. I think it is a great tool that can be used. I think it is a long journey for most of us anyways. And yes, it is very freeing. There was a different situation in my life recently where pain had been caused. It was something that I felt for years. This relationship was fractured and very recently I was able to, you know, kind of grant that situation forgiveness in my mind. And it feels amazing. It feels great not to have so many negative thoughts, feelings, emotions built up the second I'm thinking about this thing to have peace about it. You know, it's nice, but it took me a long time to get there and it was a choice I got to make for myself and I don't believe that I was a better person for making it. I just think I realized it was a good choice for me to make and a healthy good thing to do and when I was ready to do it, I did it. I really wish that there was more of an emphasis in our culture. On the reality, forgiveness is a tool. Yes, it's a good thing, but it is not the ultimate good. It isn't a moral statement making you a better person and also it doesn't have a timeline attached to it. For so many years, I carried around this weight of failure and guilt and shame and self-hatred for not being able to forgive something that was done against me and it was simply unnecessary. Forgiveness is part of the process of healing from trauma if you want it to be. But that, my friend, is up to you and please don't let anyone else tell you differently. Now, did I ever forgive that person in that situation? I feel like this video wouldn't be complete unless I at least address that, right? I don't have an answer to that. There are many aspects that I have forgiven and to me, the only way I've been able to make peace with that idea in my mind is basically saying, you know what? I am giving up the right to avenge this. I am giving up the right to revenge. I am giving up the active contemplation of that. Whether or not I actually believe in God which I'm still working on, I am trusting this to a higher power of justice. It's not in my hands. For me, it's been recognizing that there was nothing any human could do that would make that situation right anyways. So I definitely feel a lot less emotion towards that situation. There are times where I'm like, yeah, I do feel like I've forgiven it and there are other times where I'm like, no, and I have no intention to. It waffles a lot. It's a difficult thing. Like I said, forgiveness is a journey. I do feel exponentially more free from the pain that that situation caused me than I did even a year ago which honestly feels great. So thank you for attending my Vendetta Ted Talk rant Against Forgiveness. It's not really Against Forgiveness but rather the way that it is presented to so many of us. I know that a lot of people have been hurt by this idea of forgiveness and the way it is pushed upon us. I know I'm not the only one but I am curious how it was presented to you. Do you view forgiveness as a necessary thing? As a good thing? Have you found ways to exercise it in your own life? Do you even want to? Let us know in the comment section down below and start a conversation. I'd love to see you there. Allow me to wrap this up by saying that I am not a mental health professional. Forgiveness is a difficult topic. These are just my thoughts on it. A big thank you to our sponsor, June's Journey. This is a game I genuinely enjoyed playing. I was playing it last night when I was watching the dogs run around outside. It's really fun and light and happy and could be useful after discussing such a heavy subject. A big thank you also to my patrons for making these videos possible. I so appreciate the community I have over there. Thank you to each and every one of you. You'll see your name, plan the credits here in just a moment. But to you watching this video right now, thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today. You could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I really appreciate that. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys.