I want to share with you and others about my journey to forgiveness. In my experience, forgiveness wasn't a linear process where one says "I forgive you" and then B happens. Then you are on the B square, then viola! You've moved to the C square. It didn't happen to me.
Intellectually, I forgave Ms. Wonka for the hurt she inflicted on me. Emotionally was a whole different ball of wax. Whenever I thought of some negative or painful action/words from Ms. Wonka, my wounds came to the surface and I picked at those scabs re-wounding myself. Then I'd get into a tailspin of resentment and going over 'what-ifs' that didn't serve me well at all.
You need to understand that it took me YEARS to get to the place of true forgiveness. I worked very hard to chip away at my own emotional unforgiveness toward Ms. Wonka. What was interesting was that the inability to forgive is very closely intertwined with anger. I somehow stumbled into this internal discovery after sitting on the discomfort sofa a few times asking myself why I'm feeling those uncomfortable emotions. From that new perspective, I tackled my own quiet, simmering anger under the surface and asked Teacher Anger what it was trying to show me.
As I worked through the anger, forgiveness started to fall in place and then I found my friend Indifference. Viola! I've arrived. Interestingly, when I reached that place of forgiveness, I finally sat down and composed an apology letter to Ms. Wonka (with the help of my wonderful friends over in the MLC forum and Bets). From that point and on, things shifted between the two of us. What ensured was pretty deep convos for the first two weeks after the letter was sent. The most communication ever in nearly 10 years.
The whole point of this is:
Don't be too hard on yourself in getting to the Forgiveness Square at a certain time. There's no fixed timeline. It is a process that one needs to work at diligently to FREE themselves of the bondage of anger and resentment. For me, it was a very hard road to travel on, but so so worth it!
