How to truly forgive someone who hurt you?
Yom Kippur is for me a day of stopping. Deep observation. Thinking. Route recalculation.
So far, this is what most of us (those who observe Kippur) think.
For me it is also a day to forgive myself.
In order to forgive myself, I also ask for forgiveness from those who hurt me.
I can understand if some of you raise an eyebrow or even get angry.
But I'm talking about an injury at a level where the offender can be forgiven (not sexual, mental, physical injuries that leave trauma - this requires different treatment).
I will give an example.
There is a person who hurt me very much. We had a very good relationship and the person hurt me with particularly offensive statements.
I got sick from it. Literally. The mind was ‘drilled’ day and night. "What did I do? After all, I'm the last person to hurt someone. I give everything if someone needs me (ask my clients...). So why did the person hurt me so much?"
In a country that is not mine, in a language that is not mine, I tried to understand the nuances, directions, words...
In the process of self-compassion that I did upon myself (with the help of tools from the coaching world) I learned that there are things I must let go of. That I may never understand and that the questions will remain unanswered.
And most importantly - I learned to forgive myself.
To forgive the words I may have said, the thoughts I had, the things I showed intentionally or unintentionally that caused the other person to hurt me...
To forgive myself I needed the forgiveness of the other.
And I apologized. As strange as it sounds, I said how sorry I was if there was something that caused that person to hurt me.
Only then could I forgive myself.
I let go.
I don't deal with it anymore, I don't have thoughts in my head of what I said and what I didn't... it's over.
When we are in another country, social connections are sometimes not easy to create, to say the least. And the thoughts of "what have I done"? “Did I act right or not...” are exhausting because we are not in our familiar and comfortable zone. And in the end we want to fit in... every such statement makes relationships more and more complex. Sometimes the pain is so significant that we develop fears in social contexts (not always social anxiety).
Decided to forgive. First of all to yourself.
Have a great (Jewish) New Year everyone, wherever you are!
Dr. Efrat Tzadik
Expert in migration and integration
Certified coach for empowerment and personal development