If you’ve ever had your heart trampled, you know how difficult it can be to forgive.

You might want to forgive, but not be ready yet. You might find yourself striving in that direction but don’t feel a sense of peace or being “over it.”

Don’t be hard on yourself if forgiveness isn’t happening as quickly as you want.

Forgiveness has good reasons for taking its sweet time.

Depending on the harm done, we can linger in any of the stages of forgiveness until the work of that stage is complete.

Immediately after a betrayal, the “licking our wounds” phase involves a natural pulling back that helps us sort ourselves out, protects us from more harm, and invites us to set boundaries.

But after that phase (when the shock, anger, and hurt cools down), we might be in a place to uncover meaning from our trauma. We might mature to see the other person’s wounds, or begin to understand why they did what they did. We might see our own part in it too.

We might begin to contemplate and even activate forgiveness.

And as more time passes, we might begin to feel a sense of peace and completion when we think of the situation.

But we might not, and that’s okay too.

After you watch the video and practice the meditation, I’d love to hear your thoughts on forgiveness, in the comments below.

With love and respect,

Tamika