At the deepest level of forgiveness, you realize there is nothing to forgive. Not because what happened was acceptable. Not because it did not hurt. But because what you were witnessing was unconsciousness. A human being acting from pain they had never healed. Fear they had never faced. A false identity they believed was who they were. The way someone treats you reveals what is happening within them. It does not define you. And when I look back at the people I have hurt, I can see the same truth. I was blind. I was acting from shame, trauma, fear and a complete misunderstanding of who I was. That does not excuse my actions. But it helps me understand them. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus spoke those words while being tortured by the very people he was forgiving. So forgiveness is not pretending the wound never happened. It is refusing to carry their unconsciousness inside of you any longer. It is releasing them. It is releasing yourself. It is leaving the prison of the past and returning to the only place healing can ever happen. Here. Now. Whole. Aaron Doughty