FORGIVING

Recently, I watched a video and found it insightful. The video opens by acknowledging that forgiveness is one of the hardest things a human can do, especially when the wound is deep [00:00:46]. Importantly, forgiving doesn't mean forgetting what happened or saying the action was right. Rather, it means choosing not to let that a bad event control one's emotions [00:01:21]. Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Resentment only destroys the person harboring it [00:02:14]. 

Forgiveness is a spiritual strength. Human logic often fails at forgiveness, so one must ask God for a "wide heart" to let go sincerely [00:04:18]. God's love, light, and energy can now be used for one's growth and happiness [00:05:42]. I notice that once I forgive, I regain the energy that my anger had stolen and experience the lightness of heart that follows the decision to forgive [00:07:10]. Bunda Arsaningsih suggests that truly forgiving someone can be hard, and that sometimes one might need help, such as turning to the Supreme One for support. It also points out that asking for forgiveness for my own mistakes is similar to showing mercy to others. While I cannot control what people do to me, I have 100% control over how long I allow their actions to hurt me. This is called letting go.

The video also acknowledges that emotional pain is real and that some actions are truly wrong. Forgiving someone does not mean excusing their behavior or approving of what happened. It also points out that holding onto resentment can hurt my well-being. By choosing to forgive, I can stop past experiences from affecting you and start to take back control of your future. The focus shifts to forgiveness as an act of self-love. I forgive so that I can be free, not necessarily because the other person deserves it [00:03:02].

​Then, the meditation in the video is about letting go of old hurts and feelings. It helps me notice the anger or bitterness I have been holding onto. It asks me to picture the person or event that caused my pain. It helps me let go of the anger, which is described as poison, and imagine it leaving my heart so it stops hurting me. The grudges are as a heavy stone I have been carrying. The meditation asks me to picture putting down this weight I have carried for years. By letting go of these old hurts, I regain the mental and emotional energy I lost by dwelling on the past. It encourages me to look at the painful years not just as stolen time, but as a period that produced strength.

Instead of just mourning the 24 years, It invites me to be grateful for the resilience I developed. I survived, I thrived academically, and I raised my good children. Gratitude turns those "in vain" feelings into a story of survival.

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My reflection on forgiving

I wrote these reflections in 2021. Feeling alone, disappointed, and unhappy. These are the words I felt most often during my twenty years of marriage. How did I survive? I don't know. The dogma in my brain said it's already done; it must be lived through until the end. I had read the teachings, shared with friends, and done numerous hypnotherapies. But again, I ended with enormous questions without answers.

It was late at night. My room was silent, except for the rhythmic hum of rain against the window. This sound usually brought me back to the gray skies of Sydney, and to the cold heaviness of a life that felt like it belonged to everyone but me. "Gusti Allah," I prayed, my voice barely more than a breath: "Sempitkan lukaku, luaskan hatiku." Narrow my wounds, widen my heart.

I began to visualize my stolen narrative: the years of silence, the 1997 goodbye forced on me by my mother’s command, the feeling of spiritual stain, the merging of my energy with a prostitute's, the debts that were not mine, and all the hidden stories. I realized that by forgiving my mother, by forgiving the version of myself who did not know how to say 'no' for years, and by forgiving the one who stole my narrative.

The first year after meeting Bunda Arsaningsih, I spent time in trying to realize, dive deep, and accept all the bad things as they were, without rejection. I hoped to find a solution to our relationship soon. I did not regret what had happened. I would patiently accept it while continuing to improve myself so that I might find a more harmonious life. Every moment, I cleaned the karma and cursed him and his family, asking for forgiveness and forgiving them. I did not know when I would find happiness in my marriage. I would simply live it without being attached to the result.

I once believed forgiveness was something you gave to others—an absolution, a pardon, letting them off the hook. Over time, I learned that true forgiveness is not about the other person at all. Rather, it's the choice to stop carrying what was never meant to be yours. True forgiveness is realizing that holding onto anger and hurt punishes only yourself, not the person who wronged you.

One day, when I randomly opened the Soul Reflection book, the following words found me:

When someone can become peaceful, they will be able to see the root of the problem. Take time to be in silence, releasing and unraveling the tangled threads we possess one by one. Continue to give meaning to this life with depth of understanding so that the process of soul maturation can continue to grow

In that moment, I felt the journey I had been on was seen and understood. It was as if the words were written for me. In the silence I had been forced into—the silence of not being heard, not being seen, not being asked—I was slowly learning to see the root of the problem. Not in him. Not in his family. In me. In the tangled threads I possessed. In the karma, I was here to resolve.

I began to understand that forgiveness was not a single act. It was a process. It was unraveling, one thread at a time, the knots that had bound me to my pain. Some days, I would pull a thread and feel it loosen. Other days, it would tighten again. But I kept going. I kept unraveling.

I learned to accept that the pain I felt now was equivalent to the pain I had caused in a past life. This was not a punishment from a vengeful God. It was the natural law of cause and effect. It was the universe's way of giving me the opportunity to complete what I had started. I would keep resolving past-life karma and curses to the best of my capacity. Slowly, I would strive to pay off the karmic debt to erode the bad karma.

This understanding changed everything. Not because it made the suffering easier—it did not. But because it gave the suffering meaning. I was not a victim. I was a student. I was not being punished. I was being given the chance to learn. I was not trapped. I was completing. And in that completion, I found the strength to forgive. Not because he deserved it. But because I deserved to be free. This is the story of how, over those two decades, I slowly learned to forgive anyway. Not because he deserved it, nor because he asked for it, but because I deserved peace. As I discovered, peace was not waiting for him to change; instead, peace was waiting for me to let go.