Why letting go is harder than it sounds
On one lazy weekend afternoon, I was watching the news on television. My phone chimed.
It was a message—from someone who had cut off all contact for more than two years—asking casually about my well-being and whereabouts.
Just one message.
And suddenly, my mind darkened. It began to race. Memories returned with uncomfortable clarity—conversations, silences, moments I believed I had already processed. Something inside me questioned a conclusion I had been quietly carrying: that I had forgiven this person.
In that instant, it didn’t feel true.
Perhaps I had not forgiven.
Perhaps I had only thought about it less.
The realization felt like a small defeat. And it left me wondering: Have you ever felt this way—believing you had moved on, only to realize the past still had a grip?
That moment stayed with me. Especially because we live in a world that speaks of forgiveness so easily.
Forgiveness is everywhere. In books, in spiritual talks, across social media feeds. It is offered as advice, sometimes even as a prescription. Forgive and move on. Forgiveness is for your own good. Holding on will only hurt you.
And yet, for many thoughtful people, forgiveness feels anything but easy.
It feels complicated.
Unsettling.
Even threatening.
Not because they enjoy resentment—but because something deeper is involved.
Their sense of self.
For a long time, I believed forgiveness failed because emotions were too strong. Anger lingered. Hurt resurfaced. Memories replayed. Every time the event returned to the mind, forgiveness seemed to evaporate.
Only later did I realize this was not the real problem.
The real bind was expectation.
Most people do not remain stuck because they refuse to forgive.
They remain stuck because they are waiting for closure.
An acknowledgement.
An apology.
A sign of remorse.
A moment where the other person finally understands what they did.
This expectation is rarely spoken aloud, but it carries weight. Closure promises validation. It reassures us that our pain was real, that our dignity matters, that the moral order of the world still holds.
So forgiveness is postponed—not out of bitterness, but out of hope.
The difficulty is this: closure depends on the other person.
And many people—whether through entitlement, fear, defensiveness, or lack of introspection—are simply incapable of providing it. Some act deliberately. Some act carelessly. Some act in ignorance that never takes responsibility for its impact.
Waiting for closure from such people keeps us emotionally tethered to the very place we are trying to leave.
You are waiting at a door that has already shown – it will not open.
Forgiveness is often misunderstood as a moral act toward the other person—a softening, a generosity, a letting go of judgment. But that framing quietly threatens self-respect. It feels like excusing what should never have happened.
True forgiveness is none of that.
Forgiveness is not reconciliation.
It is not forgetting.
It is not saying, “This was acceptable.”
Forgiveness is psychological disentanglement.
Forgiveness is not about absolving the other person.
It is about releasing your inner life from their control.
What keeps forgiveness difficult is not memory, but entanglement.
The event is remembered not as something that happened, but as something that is still happening—each replay reactivating the same emotional charge. The body responds as if the threat is present.
The mistake is believing forgiveness should erase memory.
It doesn’t.
It removes the authority of the memory.
This requires a subtle but decisive shift: moving closure away from the other person and back to yourself.
Closure does not mean they understand.
Closure means you understand enough.
Enough to see the limits of their awareness.
Enough to recognize what their behavior revealed.
Enough to adjust expectations and proximity accordingly.
Once meaning is complete, waiting for further explanation loses its grip.
There is a fear that often surfaces here.
Many resist forgiveness because it feels like betraying their values—as if letting go means diminishing the seriousness of what happened. But forgiveness does not weaken values. It preserves them.
Forgiveness says: what happened was not acceptable—and I will not allow it to govern my inner world anymore.
That distinction matters.
Forgiveness without boundaries is self-erasure.
Forgiveness with boundaries is self-respect.
You may remember the event.
You may reduce access.
You may change roles.
You may never trust again.
Forgiveness does not require reopening doors.
It requires stepping away from closed ones.
Is forgiveness humanly possible?
Yes—but not as a single emotional act.
It is a decision repeated gently. Each time the memory surfaces, the choice is not to relive it, but to remind yourself:
This happened to me.
It does not get to decide who I become.
Over time, the emotional charge weakens—not because the past was erased, but because it no longer governs the present.
Perhaps forgiveness is not about becoming kinder.
Perhaps it is about becoming freer.
Free from waiting.
Free from rehearsing conversations that will never happen.
Free from tying peace to someone else’s capacity for remorse.
And maybe this is the most honest form of forgiveness:
I no longer need you to be different for my life to move forward.
That is not surrender.
That is release.
Letters for the Inner Journey by Pushkar
Whisper back, if the letter spoke to you.