Forgiveness is often presented as a moral obligation or a spiritual virtue, something we are supposed to reach once we are “evolved enough.” But in my experience, forgiveness is none of that at first. It is a threshold. A narrow and uncomfortable passage that forces us to confront who we are when we stop defining ourselves by what hurt us.
For many years, I carried hatred and resentment as if they were essential parts of my identity. Experiences from my early life shaped the way I trusted the world, the way I related to others, and the way I related to myself. I knew forgiveness was not easy, but what frightened me the most was something deeper: if I forgave, would I be erasing my story? Who would I be without the pain that had accompanied me for so long?
When pain becomes part of the self
There were wounds that felt untouchable, not because they were sacred in a beautiful way, but because they held the memory of a child who had suffered and had never been fully protected. Forgiving felt like silencing that child, like denying the reality of her pain. And for many years, I refused to do that.
I recognize now, with honesty, that the hatred I carried was poisoning me. I was aware of it. And still, there were long seasons in my life when I did not care. Just hearing the word forgiveness triggered rejection in me. I wanted the pain to remain present, visible, undeniable. I wanted it to have a place. Even if that pain was slowly destroying me, at that moment, it felt more loyal than letting go.
The inner journey and the layers of the wound
Years passed before I truly immersed myself in what I often call my inner journey. Meditation, introspection, silence, and the slow release of emotions that had been locked inside for decades became part of my daily life. And, as always happens in this kind of work, the process was not linear.
At first, what surfaced were the most manageable memories, the ones my system was ready to face. Like peeling an onion, layer by layer, I went deeper. Until eventually, I reached a wound that felt like the origin of many others. The root. The first fracture.
Forgiveness did not arrive as a sudden revelation. It arrived as exhaustion. As surrender. As the understanding that forgiveness had nothing to do with the other person, and everything to do with my own freedom.
Forgiveness is not forgetting, it is integrating
There were many moments when I fell back into the past, reliving the same pain again and again. That pain felt like a limb, like an extra arm attached to my body. I could not imagine myself without it. Letting go felt like losing a part of who I was.
I was also deeply perfectionistic, something that looked like strength from the outside. If I appeared flawless, no one would notice how broken I felt inside. But perfectionism is not protection. It is armor that suffocates.
Paulo Coelho writes in The Alchemist:
“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
It took me years to understand that this also applies inwardly. That my worth did not depend on how well I carried my pain, nor on how perfectly I hid it.
The alchemy of lived experience
In The Alchemist, Coelho also reminds us:
“What hurts us is what heals us.”
For a long time, I resisted this idea. Today, I live it. I became the alchemist of my own experiences. Nothing that happened to me was wasted. Nothing was meaningless. Every experience, even the most painful ones, became raw material for transformation.
Fritjof Capra, when speaking about life and consciousness, explains:
“The universe is seen as a dynamic web of interrelated events.”
When I stopped isolating my wounds and began to see them as part of a larger pattern, something shifted. My pain was not an anomaly. It was a node in a much bigger network of meaning. Healing did not mean removing the wound, but understanding its place within the whole.
Where the light enters
There is a quote by Rumi that I rejected for years because it felt too gentle for the violence of what I had lived:
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Only after years of inner work could I truly understand it. The light did not enter by erasing my pain, but by asking me to look at it without resistance. By staying present. By allowing integration instead of rejection.
A message for those who are still resisting
My message with this article is simple: do not give up. The only story that truly deserves to be witnessed is your own. You never know what can emerge when you dare to look honestly within.
I am not saying that life becomes free of challenges. It does not. But something changes fundamentally. It feels like wearing an invisible armor, not made of defense, but of truth. When you have faced your inner darkness, the external world no longer feels so threatening.
Forgiveness did not erase my past. It gave it meaning. And in that meaning, I finally found a sense of fullness that no resentment could ever offer.