Do you feel restricted in relationships sometimes, and you don’t know why?

One reason might be, is that you are carrying the weight of toxic relationships, and you are struggling to forgive.

Hi, I’m Shanelle Roberts, author of the book Reawaken: 10 actions to take back a very intense ownership of your life. Just like you, I’ve experienced my fair share of toxic people and traumatic experiences. It's part of being human.

I believe you were created by God to live in freedom from toxic relationships while using your pockets of genius to fulfill your unique purpose, mission and vision. In this article, you will learn three of my secrets about practicing forgiveness to help you identify what’s restricting you.

In the depths of your heart, you know that you were made for more. The purpose your soul longs to express, hasn’t been fulfilled yet. 

Let me ask you something. 

How do you know if you are restricted?

You struggle with the physical, emotional, spiritual, or financial pain, caused by toxic people and your reaction to their harmful behavior. 

You may struggle with identifying what the root of the toxicity is. The root of toxic relationships is injustice. Subconsciously you know you aren’t being treated well, but the fog of toxicity clouds your mind.

These experiences can make facing each new day a challenge. Getting out of bed feels like a huge hurtle. Your energy is depleted, your outlook on your future a bit bleak, you harbor resentment against those who hurt you, but have failed to enforce strong, healthy boundaries that would help you protect yourself because doing so just seems ‘wrong’ or ‘unloving’. 

Yet in the corner of your heart there is a small flame of desire for healthy, happy, meaningful relationships that refuses to go out.

Your heart longs for a solution, a fresh start, but you are unsure how to go about pursuing one for fear that you will be disappointed again and hurt. Like you, that was exactly how I was feeling for a very longtime. I felt oppressed, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unimportant and stuck in my own life. 

While my professional life was “successful,” I wanted to be free to pursue the dreams that were buried deep in my heart, not bound by the expectations of others whose manipulative tactics, guilt and lack of vision were trying to limit me. 

In today’s culture, toxic people are rewarded. Because of this, it is easy to view forgiveness as a fool’s errand. Forgiveness is wrongly used as a tool by manipulative people to excuse their poor behavior. They then demand you let them off the hook. That type of forgiveness is toxic. It leads to unforgiveness in our lives if we are not careful. 

Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and then expecting the other party to drop dead. 

Clinging onto unforgiveness eats away at your mind. It poisons your soul, increasing your chance of early death and causes many kinds health problems, especially mental health issues. 

John Hopkins Medicine reports that unforgiveness increases your likeliness to experience PTSD and severe depression.

The Fetzer Institute found that 62% of people recognize their need for forgiveness in their lives. 

Your transformation starts with forgiveness. 

Genuine forgiveness is a spiritual practice, not a “feeling”. 

It is a process God gave us to help us heal from hurtful people and us bring freedom, so we do not have to remain under the control of the person who hurt us. 

The process of forgiveness for the person who was harmed is an active choice to surrender your desire for vengeance to God. You are choosing to exchange your anger and hostility for God's justice, letting go oft he negative emotions you are experiencing against the person who has harmed you.

I know this may seem crazy, but the best way to get revenge against toxic people is to create a life you love while you live your audacious dream.

Why should you forgive?

It stops the other person from getting their secondary win because when you don’t forgive, you punish yourself causing you even more damage.

It also opens up your heart to tap into your empathy and compassion for the person who harmed you. It releases your mind and body from the toxicity that holding onto those negative emotions causes you.

Forgiveness is not a one and done event. It’s a process of continued submission, leaning on God’s wisdom, mercy and justice throughout your healing journey. Some wounds will heal quickly. Others may take the rest of your life to heal from.

Genuine forgiveness is not weakness. It is a sign of great strength.

Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is only the attribute of the strong.” 

It takes great courage to be able to trust God with your pain, your devastation, and your suffering, to ask for him to bring his perfect justice in your situation. 

I want to clarify that forgiveness does not:

Deny that you were harmed.

Dismiss your right to feel angry at your injustice.

Manipulate the victim.

Restore broken trust. 

Guarantee reconciliation. 

Require you to be a doormat. 

Require you to stay in a relationship with the person who hurt you. 

Require you to refuse to report the perpetrator if they have violated the law.

What is the secret to practicing forgiveness?

Let me share three of my secrets of how practicing forgiveness saved my life. 

The first secret is to acknowledge your pain to God. 

Talk to him about your pain, about the struggles you face as a result of your injustice. Let it all out. The good, the bad, the ugly of your injustice.

Don’t hold back. If you need to curse, throw things, or rage to get all of the emotion out, do it. 

Don’t worry about offending him or shocking him. He can take it.

If you struggle with talking to God out loud, try journaling your pain instead. 

Journaling has been super helpful for me identify, validate and begin to process my emotions, and has helped me get to the place where I want peace and freedom more than I want vengeance. 

Peace comes when you take the time to talk to God about all of your struggles, inviting him into that place of pain and choosing to trust in Him for the solution to your injustice.

The second secret is to release the person who harmed you from YOUR punishment. I know that may feel impossible, especially if they are still actively hurting you. It may take some time to work through the conflicting feelings this action requires. It did for me.

I won’t lie and say that I didn’t want my pound of flesh for the pain they caused me. Sometimes I still do.  But I am willing to forgo taking action because I know that it will not bring the relief my soul longs for. Taking revenge only creates more wounds. It cannot bring healing. I want healing and freedom for myself, more than I want vengeance. 

Practicing forgiveness doesn’t mean that you abandon seeking justice if your harm is illegal or unethical. It means you are willing to surrender your own desire to enact vengeance to God and His ordained institutions.

Vengeance is mine says the Lord.

The third secret is to stop dwelling on the past. 

I know. I know. It’s tempting, but don’t live there.  Take the lessons you learned and leave the rest where it belongs. You can’t change it, only learn from it. 

I have lost so much time dwelling on painful people and experiences that I couldn’t change. I don’t want that for you. Choosing forgiveness saved my life. It helped me let go of the poison that was continuing to affect me long after the events had passed. 

It also helped me strengthen my own boundaries so that the toxic people in my life could no longer have access to me and continue their abuse. 

It’s allowed me to gain insight and clarity into my own heart and helped me begin to heal from the deep wounds of abuse and trauma I’ve experienced in my life.

Letting go of vengeance and trusting God to get me my perfect justice has helped me find peace, to discover who I am at my core and to peel away all of the crap that others had placed on me to keep me under their control. 

It can do the same for you. Don’t you deserve to live a life filled with meaning, one that is in alignment with who you are? If you aren’t sure, the answer is yes. You deserve to wipe the slate clean and live in a place and space that isn’t tainted by toxic people.

Now, close your eyes, I want you to imagine living in a place of wholeness, a place of peace and prosperity, filled with you pursuing your unique purpose, loving the life you have, ready to share that freedom and passion with others. 

To get there, you must be willing to practice forgiveness. 

Start with forgiving yourself. It’s not your fault that other people harmed you. 

Then forgive those who’ve hurt you. I know. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but trust me, it will help you transform yourself and your life. It’s dramatically helped mine.

When you do this, you make room in your heart and mind for your new life. You are giving yourself permission to break the toxic cycle that has held you back from living the life you love and long to experience.

I invite you to not only forgive, but to take action to place smart, strong boundaries in your life so that you can gain the clarity your situation deserves.

To sum up the three actions to effectively practice forgiveness, you must start by acknowledging your pain to God. 

Second, you must release them from YOUR punishment. 

Lastly, stop dwelling on the past. 

Practicing these three secrets will kick start your transformation. They help you move from feeling trapped by toxic people into an active participant in your own life. 

You deserve to be free, living a life you love while you pursue your audacious dream. You have something the world needs. 

So, take action and begin the journey to realizing the life of purpose you were designed to live.

The life you love awaits.

If you need some help with practicing forgiveness so you can begin identifying what’s restricting you, I invite you to book a free 15-minute conversation with me. 

BOOK NOW