Forgiving Your Parents

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

Forgiving your parents is one of the most complex forgiveness journeys a person can undertake. Because the harm done in childhood is done to a self that was not yet formed — a self that had no defenses, no context, no ability to protect itself.

And because the people who did the harm were also the people you depended on for survival. The harm and the love were often mixed together in ways that are still being untangled.

Forgiving your parents does not mean excusing what they did. It does not mean pretending the harm was not real. It does not mean you have to have a relationship with them.

It means releasing yourself from the obligation to carry their failures as your identity. It means deciding that what they did to you does not have to determine what you do with your life.

Related Reflections

Themes that often travel alongside forgiveness.