What Forgiveness Actually Requires And Why You Keep Letting Them Back In

Forgiveness without access. That single reframe changes how you heal, set boundaries, and stop returning to what hurts.

Most of us were taught forgiveness means reconciliation that if you've truly forgiven someone, they get to come back. But forgiveness is releasing the war with reality, not granting someone access to your life.

Here's why you keep going back: you can't forgive what you haven't grieved. We skip straight to "I forgive you" without letting ourselves feel how devastated, betrayed, or disappointed we are. When you honor grief in your body instead of bypassing it in your head, you stop waiting for apologies and start choosing your freedom.

We explore:

• The difference between naming harm and blaming (so you keep your power)
• Why seeing people as they are not their potential protects your energy
• How to recognize discernment vs. the wound's voice (that "you're being cold" feeling isn't your conscience)
• What to do when nostalgia hits and your nervous system craves the familiar
• Real examples: family pressure to reconcile, friendship harm, co-parenting realities

Conversation can offer clarity, but reconciliation requires evidence of change not just hope. Love can say no. You can forgive, hold a boundary, and keep a soft heart with a strong back.

Healing isn't about being nice; it's about being free.

If this episode resonates, like, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs to hear this. Leave a review so more people can find these tools.

Chapters

• 0:00 Forgiveness Is Not Reconciliation
• 0:51 Defining Forgiveness For Yourself
• 2:27 The War With Reality
• 3:29 Boundaries After Forgiving
• 4:11 You Can’t Forgive What You Haven’t Grieved
• 5:23 Visiting Grief Without Becoming It
• 6:19 Seeing People As They Are
• 7:08 Naming Harm Versus Blame
• 8:23 Ownership Without Shame
• 9:42 Discernment Versus The Wound’s Voice
• 11:31 When Nostalgia Pulls You Back
• 13:00 Parents And Pressure To Reconcile
• 15:08 Friendship Breakups And Quiet Harm
• 17:35 Co‑Parenting, Context, And Safety
• 19:12 Love, Boundaries, And Possibility
• 20:19 Forgiveness As Repeat Practice
• 21:48 Closing Reminders And Resources

Transcript

NATNAT BE : 0:00

You can forgive someone and never speak to them again. You can release resentment and still block their number. You can wish them well from a distance. Because forgiveness isn't reconciliation. And if you've been feeling like you're doing it wrong because the relationship didn't heal, this episode is for you. Welcome back to the Lift One's self podcast. I'm your host, Nat Nat. Last week we talked about crumbs, recognizing where you've been settling, where you've been accepting less than you deserve. And if you listened, you probably identified someone or something you need to let go of. Yet what I've been hearing the most is okay, I see it, but how do I actually let go? How do I forgive them? And how do I make sure I don't go back? That's what today is about. The practice of letting go, the work of forgiveness, and why it's so much harder than you think, because you haven't probably grieved yet. If this episode lands for you, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who came to mind while you were listening. This might be the medicine they've been looking for, the words they needed. Let's get into this. I'm gonna ask you this question so that it can kind of center yourself. What does forgiveness mean for you? How have you defined forgiveness? Really think about that for a second. For most of us, we learn that forgiveness equals reconciliation. That if you've really truly forgiven someone, you'll welcome them back. You'll let it go, you'll move forward together. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself, where did that come from? Religion, family, culture, they've all influenced how you define forgiveness. But have you taken the opportunity to understand and define it for yourself? Not the indoctrination others have imposed on you. Not what the wound wants to believe, but what forgiveness actually means to you, for you, in your healing. Because here's what I've discovered after years of sitting with this question and putting it into practice in my own life and with people I work with. Forgiveness is releasing the suffering of wanting it to be different than it is. Now, let me break that down. Many of us want them to be different. Many of us are waiting for the apology that may never come. It's also about releasing the war you're having with reality itself because it's not measuring up to what would soothe you, what would have you avoid doing your own inner work. Have you ever noticed this? That constant loop in your mind? Why did this happen? How could they do this? It shouldn't have been this way. That's the war. And that war is what's keeping you stuck, not them. The war with what is, and also the war of your protective mechanisms protecting you from vulnerability. Now, here's the part that might change everything. Forgiveness doesn't mean the person gets access to you. You can forgive someone and never speak to them again. You can release resentment and still block their number. You can wish them well while keeping them far away from your life. Because forgiveness is your internal work. It has nothing to do with the relationship status. If there's genuine accountability, change behavior over time, mutual willingness, that's rare and worth exploring. So dive into that. Yet forgiveness doesn't require any of that from them. It requires something from you. The willingness to put down the weight of resentment so you can be free. You know what nobody tells you? You can't forgive what you haven't grieved. This is why you keep going back. This is why the patterns repeat. I've hit this pattern many times in my life. You're trying to jump straight into I forgive you without ever letting yourself feel how devastated you are, how betrayed, how disappointed. We skip the grief because it's uncomfortable. It activates vulnerability, it activates that sense of helplessness. And shame shows up to protect you from that vulnerability. Shame says, don't go there. It's too much. You'll fall apart. But if you don't go there, you can't integrate the wound. You can't do the forgiveness work. So when shame shows up, and it will, don't fight it. Recognize it. Thank it for trying to protect you and gently move through it to access what's underneath. Because grief says, this will never be what I wanted it to be. And only after you let yourself feel that, really feel it in your body, not just think it, can forgiveness begin the transformation in alchemy. Now, here's where grief gets tricky. Grief can become a place we live instead of a place we visit. It can latch us into victim mode, and victim mode is predictable. It's known. The grief can become our identity. I'm the one who was betrayed. I'm the one who was abandoned. And we can live there. A lot of people do. I've been there. But what's been helpful for me is releasing the morning energy so to have clarity of the empowerment. Not bypassing the grief, not becoming it either. You feel it, you let it move through your body. You witness it with compassion. You listen to what's been hiding in the shadows. And then you let it go so you can see clearly what's yours to do now. Here's where most of us get tangled up in. We're not seeing the person for who they are. We're seeing their potential. We're seeing who they could be if they just did the work. And we abandon ourselves trying to love them into healing. You know what that is? Making their healing your project so you don't have to face your own. The truth is, you can't do someone else's healing work for them. So what might help is to see them as they actually are, not as you need them to be, not through the lens of their potential, but as they are showing up right now with the capacity they actually have. That clarity is where your power lives. And now this brings us to blame. Blame is gonna show up. We all know that blame. You're gonna want to point fingers. You might be justified. They may have done some really harmful things. But here's what will possibly help you understand. There is a difference between naming harm and blaming someone. Naming harm sounds like what you did caused damage. That behavior was hurtful. When you did X, I felt Y. Blame sounds like you're the reason I'm suffering. You're the reason I can't heal. That's why I'm the way I am. Blame disempowers you. You've given everything to the other person. You have no ability to do any work. Naming what they did, that's powerful and it's needed. Just be aware that saying they caused who you are, that's giving away your power. As an adult, you are responsible for how long you stayed. Now, I want to be clear. If a childhood memory came up in anything that I've said so far, if you were a child, this does not apply to you. Children have no power. That was never your responsibility. But as an adult, we do have choice. We do have autonomy, even if it doesn't feel like it. And ownership is not the same as self-blame. The part of you that stayed was doing the best they could with the nervous system they had. Have compassion for that version of you. Ownership means I see why I stayed, I understand the wounds that keep me there, and I'm choosing differently now. Not I'm stupid, I'm broken. That's shame. And shame keeps you stuck. What's been helpful for me is holding both. I made choices that kept me in harm. I made those choices from a wounded place trying to survive. Now, you know, here's something that's gonna come up when you do this work. A voice that says, you're being cold, you're a bad person, you're being selfish. And you might think that's your conscience, that's your intuition telling you you're doing something wrong. But it's not. That's your protective mechanisms feeling uncomfortable because you're breaking the pattern. See, we've been taught that forgiveness should feel soft and fluffy, that choosing yourself should feel peaceful and easy. But when you're breaking patterns, when you're integrating wounds that have been hijacking your behavior, it feels unsafe. It feels lonely, it feels uncomfortable. And that wound will use the discomfort against you. It'll say, see, this doesn't feel right. You're being mean, you should go back. But there's another voice, a quieter one. The voice that says, don't go, protect yourself, choose differently. That's the part that wants to champion you. That's discernment. But we've been taught that voice is harsh, that it's cold, that it goes against who we are. So we ignore it. We listen to the guilt instead, and we stay stuck. Here's what will possibly help you to better understand. The voice that feels uncomfortable is often the wound trying to keep you in the familiar pattern. The voice that feels uncomfortable is often discernment trying to guide you towards wholeness. Many of us don't even know what advocacy of ourselves sounds like. We've spent so long performing, pleasing, bending backwards that the voice that says choose yourself feels foreign. It feels harsh. And that's not harshness, that's sovereignty. And part of this work, part of forgiveness, is learning to listen to that voice, even when it goes against the image you've created for yourself. Even when it feels like you're being bad or selfish or cold, because you're not. You're choosing differently than you've been conditioned to. And your nervous system, it's gonna protest, it's going to tell you you're doing it wrong. But breaking patterns is supposed to feel uncomfortable. That's how you know it's working. So when that voice comes up, you're being cold, you're a bad person, yada yada. Pause. Take a deep breath. Acknowledge what you're actually feeling. Ask yourself, is this my intuition? Or is this my wound trying to keep me safe by keeping me small? And then listen to the other voice, the one that's advocating for you. That's discernment. And that's what will set you free. Now I want to talk about something I've seen all the time, especially with myself. You've done the work, you've forgiven, you've removed this person from your life. And then one day the wound activates. Maybe it's a song, maybe the holidays, maybe nostalgia popped up. And suddenly you feel it, that longing, that pull, and your nervous system whispers maybe they've changed. Maybe it could be different this time. In that moment, your system is searching for soothing. And it tells you what you need is that person. So you reach out, you let them back in, and very quickly, maybe hours, maybe days, maybe months, you realize nothing changed. And now you're going through forgiveness all over again. Except this time, it's not just for them, it's for yourself. Because the accountability is allowing you to see the choices you made. Here's what I want to offer you in compassion. You didn't fail. You weren't weak. Your brain wants what it knows. It wants familiar, even if that familiar is harmful. The brain wants to predict, and familiar, even when it hurts, is predictable. For a lot of us, we were never taught to hold people accountable for how they treat us. We were taught to bend backwards. We were never taught to have a strong back and a soft heart. But here's what I've come to see. What you needed was never in that person. What you needed was to witness your own wound with compassion, to recognize this ache isn't about them. This is an old wound asking to be seen. And instead of going back, you meet yourself. You meet that deep raw vulnerability. You meet the wound. That's the work. Now, to help you put this into practice, I want to speak to a few specific situations. Listen for the one that resonates with you. Does this sound familiar, possibly with your parents? Maybe you're heading into the holidays and there's pressure to reconcile. And maybe you had a traumatic childhood. Maybe your relationship with your parents is toxic. And when people talk about forgiveness, you feel like you're doing it wrong. You're not doing it wrong. A lot of people haven't experienced what you've experienced. They can't comprehend why you can't have a relationship with your parents. And they'll say, but it's your mom or family is everything, or respect your parents. They're not here for long. What might help is not to get caught up in the comparison trap. Your work is to honor your story and what you need to take care of yourself. Now let me speak to something else that I hear all the time. You guys just need to talk and make up. You have too much history. That's bypassing. The person saying that doesn't know how to hold space for your pain. So they hose it down with just talk. But here's the truth: conversation might help you get clarity, but it does not guarantee reconciliation. So if someone is pressuring you to just talk and work it out, you get to say no. You get to say I'm not ready. And you get to recognize that their discomfort with your pain is not your responsibility. Forgiveness is your work. Conversation is optional. Reconciliation is not the goal. If there is longing for reconciliation, what might serve you is getting professional support because trying to do the work with the person who caused harm is incredibly difficult. All dynamics activate, trauma patterns kick in. So explore it with support and be willing to discover the answer might be no reconciliation isn't possible or it isn't healthy. Does this sound familiar? Possibly with friendships. Losing a friendship can hurt as much as losing a romantic relationship, sometimes even more. Because with friendship, we don't have the same language. We don't have a clear endpoint. So when a friendship is causing harm, you might not even recognize it. You just feel low-grade anxiety, feel gaslit. You're walking on eggshells. You realize it's one-sided, or maybe it's subtle. They compete instead of celebrate. They're never available when you need support. They undermine your choices. And because it's not bad enough, you feel like you can name it. But you don't need a good enough reason to release a friendship. If it's draining you more than nourishing you, that's enough. You can forgive them for not being able to meet you. You can release the resentment and you can still step back. Because sometimes people can only meet us for a season. And trying to force it only causes more harm. Now, does this sound familiar, possibly with co-parenting? This is my lived experience right now. When people ask me about the twin's father, and I say that there's no contact, and especially in the Caribbean community, there's an immediate judgment. A father should have access to his children. But what they don't understand is the context. And I'm not here to explain nothing to anybody that isn't willing to really listen. You can forgive someone and still recognize they haven't done the work to be safe for your children. And you can feel left out. I feel left out all the time because I don't have someone I can co-parent with the way others do. But that grief, that longing for what co-parenting could be, doesn't mean I failed at forgiveness. And it doesn't mean I'm a bad parent. It means I'm grieving what will never be while being the parent my children need. Both are true. So if you're co-parenting alone, if you're being judged, if you feel isolated, you're not doing it wrong. You're doing what's necessary. Forgiveness is your internal work. Co-parenting requires two people. And if one person isn't doing their part, that's not on you. If something is popping up for you right now, parents, friendships, co-parenting, or something else. If there's something that you're gnawing on that you don't quite understand, send me a message. Because these examples aren't the only one. We'd be here forever on this podcast. I'm just sharing the ones that I'm living in right now and that I see that is very familiar with many. So what does love look like in all of this? Love does say no. Love doesn't abandon itself to be accepted by others. Love softens into discernment, not collapse, not hardness, having a strong back and a soft heart. And here's something that might feel counterintuitive. Some people do change, not most, but some. And part of staying soft is leaving the door to possibility cracked open. Not naively. Not without evidence, but without hardening into everyone will hurt me. Discernment isn't cynicism. It's staying awake, watching patterns, believing people when they show you who they are, including when they show you they've changed. This is the practice. Choosing to release resentment without guaranteeing access. Choosing to see people as they actually are. And when the wound activates and longing comes, choosing to meet yourself with compassion instead of reaching for false soothing. Forgiveness is an inside job. And it's not a one-time thing. You might forgive someone today and next week feel the resentment again. That doesn't mean you failed. It means the wound has layers, and possibly that person is mirroring something that is deep within you, within your childhood. Forgiveness is something you choose again and again. Here's what I want to leave you with. Last week we talked about recognizing the crumbs. Today we talked about how to put them down. You can't forgive, but you haven't grieved. So if you're still holding on, if you keep going back, if you can't seem to let go, it's not that you're weak. It's that you haven't been with the vulnerability attached to the trigger yet. You haven't let yourself feel how deeply you were hurt. You haven't moved through the shame that's protecting you from the grief. And that's the work. Not thinking your way through it, not isolating your way through it all the time. It's feeling your way through it. This work can take years. Understanding forgiveness conceptually and being able to practice it in your body are two different things. So be patient with yourself. Come back to these concepts when you're ready and know that every time you choose, even imperfectly, to release resentment, to grieve that will never be, to see clearly, to meet yourself with compassion, you're doing the work. And that's enough. If this episode resonated with you, please like and subscribe to the LiftOneself podcast. And if someone came to mind while you were listening, that friend, that family member, that person who's been struggling to let go, share this episode with them. This might be the medicine they've been looking for. You can find the show notes and resources at liftoneself.com. And remember, healing isn't about being nice, it's about being free. I'll see you next time. Please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.