Forgiveness: The Most Powerful Form of Love
There are too many shapes of love to be counted. One of them is forgiveness. ~Yoon Ha Lee
Love says, visit me again.
It invites; despite leaving you distorted the last time it visited you.
Love keeps making these little whispers until it starts echoing within.
It reminds you that you still need it despite how bad it made you feel the last time you came close to it.
Maybe you want it even more, but the hurt it caused last time stops you from giving it a chance.
You have been living with a feeling of dismissal and avoidance for love, not because you resent it, but because it has butchered a version of you that was innocent, naïve, and so much open to love.
Then you were ready, you were willing, you wanted to go close to it, but the closer you went, the uglier it turned.
You hold a memory of hurt for choosing Love, and this memory now deafens the whispers that love makes, inviting you again to feel it.
Even if it promises a better shape this time. The one your heart truly deserves. You feel helpless. You haven’t yet healed from the past chapter.
Maybe someone betrayed you.
Maybe someone took you for granted.
Maybe someone left you unloved.
Maybe someone turned love into the scariest emotion for you.
You carry its weight unto now.
But the truth is, Love wasn’t the culprit.
Some chapters come as lessons of love before you truly understand and experience it.
In that hurt, you were exposed.
You saw yourself.
You found who you are and how deeply you feel things.
It showed what you lack, where you are weak, and above all, it pointed to all the expressions of love you hadn’t grown in.
You moved on from that hurt, but you still hold the anguish.
Maybe the hurt resides within; it’s just that you don’t visit it.
Now, if love wants to choose you again, something within pulls you away.
You fear going close to love.
Maybe you don’t feel ready.
But this time, love asks you to become ready.
Ready by choosing forgiveness, for everyone who was part of those painful chapters, including yourself.
You too want to run and give love a chance.
Because deep in your heart, you know it’s the same love that once hurt you will heal you.
The truth is, what stops you from choosing love isn’t the hurt it gave you in the past; it is that you haven’t embraced forgiveness.
Yoon Ha Lee says, “There are too many shapes of love to be counted. One of them is forgiveness.”
Without forgiveness, love will look like a struggle.
This happens because a part of you hasn’t yet allowed love in its entirety.
You cannot choose love again if you are coming from a place of emotional baggage and resentment.
You haven’t forgiven the chapter, the person, the experience, and love itself.
And when love invites you again, it is standing on the other side of forgiveness.
There are many shapes of love to be counted, but without forgiveness, all of them stand incomplete and meaningless.
You cannot create a new foundation of love if your heart has blocked the most essential part of it, forgiveness.
Only when you forgive, love chooses you.
Love will not make sense until you have chosen all the shapes it expresses through.
Before you let love come again, teach yourself what it needs you to become so that it not just stays, but grows and transforms you. Love sets you free only if you understand and embrace all the shapes of it.
Now that you want to allow love, but because forgiveness stands in the way, it points to a part of you that hasn’t chosen it fully.
Maybe you haven’t been able to choose forgiveness. This isn’t because you don’t want to, it is because you don’t know how to.
Hurt blocks forgiveness, and not being able to forgive blocks love.
This is the loop that needs to be broken, not just to receive love but also to heal yourself.
Forgiveness looks hard because you are ignorant of everything that it offers.
Because you remain tied to the hurt, choosing forgiveness feels cumbersome.
The very thing that heals the void within, you are pushing it away. Forgiveness is the ointment that will treat the pain, the hurt, the bruise in your heart.
Love cannot bloom through you if you haven’t tended to your hurt, and hurt lingers if you don’t forgive.
Forgiveness does not mean your pain and hurt were not big enough that you could easily let go of them; it means your hurt should not block you from healing.
Forgiveness releases the weight of hurt, and with this release, love finds a safe space to visit again.
If you are not releasing the past pain by allowing forgiveness, you will not be able to hold love in its truest form. Love grows from healed spaces.
When forgiveness feels difficult, remind yourself of the times you were given another chance—even after you had faltered more than once.
You champion yourself by coming back and doing things better than before.
It could be life goals, relationships, and everything you actively indulge in.
You know, you are not always your best in each of these areas; sometimes you make mistakes, other times you fail.
And when you ruminate over things in your head, you see many moments where you didn’t show up good enough, but you give yourself a favour, a chance to repair and make corrections.
It is only through these little favors you get a chance to return to the places where you once fell short and become a better version of yourself.
The world needs this chance, too.
Holding hurt and resentment somewhere keeps you stuck in negative emotions. Forgiveness not only releases people who hurt you but also sets you free to step into new chapters from a place of wholeness.
Forgiveness offers a chance, to ourselves and to others, to repair what was broken and become better.
And through it, we become ready for love.
