Hi everyone. I have been wanting to share my song “Help Me to Forgive” for a while, but I wanted to explain what I mean by forgiveness because it can be such a confusing and guilt-inducing concept. For myself, forgiving was something I kept trying to do because I thought it was the right thing to do.
As highly sensitive people (HSPs), we want so badly to be compassionate, fair, and kind. I kept forgiving and forgetting the past. I pretended like everything was going to be okay if I just forgave and moved on but I continued to let myself be walked on. I ignored my feelings and kept telling myself I was forgiving and that was the right thing to do. For me, it was the wrong thing to do and the pattern continued until I felt so hurt one day by blatant disrespect for my feelings–when I made a simple assertion that was not to this person’s liking and then they said they were going to do it anyway whether I liked it or not.
I could not deny my feelings any longer. My rage shocked me–I knew it was from childhood and way out of proportion to the event at hand. But I listened to my feelings and it felt good to feel this truth–it was how I had always been treated me and I kept giving out the benefit of the doubt. The anger awakened something in me that needed to come alive–my assertiveness about my needs and feelings and about the boundary that kept being crossing and I kept letting it happen all because I felt it important to forgive and forget.
Now this anger fueled me in a healthy way for a while. It felt good to feel instead of being numb and self-doubting for so long. I wrote a lot about it and found myself in my journaling to have a lot of wise insights and a lot of reasons to be completely fed up with the insidious and mean things that were said to me with a smile.
But I was still so angry, it scared me how angry I was because it was so intense I felt hatred. And this makes sense really when, as highly sensitive children, our trust in ourselves and our spirits feel consistently stomped on until we give up and repress and hide our true selves and feelings away so completely–this is a trauma!– not feeling safe to express our intense anger we hide our true selves away. Now for the first time, I was so angry but I felt alive, I knew it was the truth I was feeling. I was somehow grateful for everything that had happened to me to give me the self-awareness to finally know the truth! Writing my feelings out helped me make sense of it all. I was able to see actions from my childhood which were the cause of much pain and self-doubt. It was very clear! I will never forget this moment in my whole life when I realized there was absolutely nothing wrong with me and that I had just been the victim of a person that I wrongly trusted with my heart and soul. So I made myself a promise not to trust this person with my private feelings (a healthy detachment) and set some boundaries for time and space to heal and it has been a very important decision in my life.
All these emotions coming up helped me connect to this wonderful aliveness–a connection to my true spirit and a connection to God and that he was there with me all along. I know it sounds strange–how could all that pain be so awakening in a positive way but it was. In the midst of the pain, I felt bliss and freedom and truth and so I knew it was right to stop trusting this person. And after a long period of intense anger, pain, grief, and then acceptance, I finally understood what all the talk and importance of forgiveness was all about–I needed to forgive God/The Universe and stopped blaming Him/It for “giving me” such a painful childhood. And I needed to forgive myself because I knew I did the best I could at figuring out a very confusing situation and for blaming myself as a child out of survival. I needed to forgive the whole situation and all the pain it caused me because I had ME again. I do not have to forgive a person who is not sorry to their face and never will be–but I do forgive what they did. I had been holding onto a lot of resentment which I didn’t realize was hurting me and taking a lot of energy.
And that is when I sat down and wrote the song “Help Me To Forgive”. I’ll never forget writing it. It was a very spiritual and pivotal moment in my life. It helped me to start the process of trying to forgive God, The Universe, and me, and the whole situation, and my pain. That is what forgiveness really means for me. Then, a few weeks later, I wrote the song “This Too Shall Pass” with a newfound ability to comfort myself through the worst feelings of rejection and betrayal.
Yes that was quite a month–September 2007. And I am glad I have these two songs to commemorate that special time when I reclaimed my true self and found inner peace and acceptance. And I also discovered a way to let God’s love in my life and really feel it and believe it. As the saying goes, ” The truth will set you free,” but you must feel your feelings to get there.
But in all my writing just now about forgiveness, I don’t want to forget my reasons for writing this post. It is to support you, the highly sensitive child with childhood wounds, from not feeling guilty that you cannot forgive yet. And that trying to forgive even God and yourself before you have gotten through all of the anger and all the repressed emotions from your childhood can leave you feeling guilty and beating yourself up. Please do not feel guilty if you are not ready to forgive anything yet. Please be kind to yourself and love and comfort the wounded child inside for all the feelings you were denied being allowed to express. That is the first step and it takes a long time to tell your whole story–to let out the entire truth. The song “Help Me To Forgive” is meant to comfort you on those times you are filled with anger and resentment about the past–and you are realizing how strong you are because of the pain you’ve been through and you are ready to stop holding on to blame. I share the lyrics with you with the utmost compassion and love in my heart.
With love,
Roxanne
Hope and Healing Haven 
Thank you for your post. I’m 28 years old and only just now have I been enlightened to the fact that my whole life i was raised by a mother with narcissistic personality disorder. I’m reeling through all the emotions and I don’t know what I would do without the words of others like you. I have been feeling all the stages of grief…sadness, anger, depression, wishful denial… I am retracing my entire life. Because she is the one person that was there from the start and that I thought loved me the most. I’m praying god will help me thru this. Thank you for your courage in sharing
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I’m a 56-year old HSP and just realized that my mother was NPD due to a family situation. On one hand, it explained a lot. On the other, I began realizing the horrible trauma I’d been through and I’m trying to deal with that. I’m definitely having to retrace my whole life in light of what I know now. I’m dealing with feelings of guilt about allowing my family to humiliate me over and over again. I’m not ready to forgive yet, but hopefully I’ll be able process what happened so that it doesn’t continue to rule my life. After years of talk therapy, I’m now working with someone who was able to test my physiological response to various situations, and it’s become clear that past trauma have affected me physically. Now I’m trying biofeedback. Thanks for listening.
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Its so hard to forgive, isnt it?
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Pam, Thank you so much for your comment and for sharing your story of healing. With warmest wishes of comfort, love and light, Roxanne
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K, Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your comment. Sending you comfort and healing wishes of love and light, Roxanne
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Hi Roxanne Please explain what u mean by saying u forgive God. It’s not possible, because He is perfect and he never changes. Thanks
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Hi Ana, What I mean is that I had to acknowledge that I was “unconsciously” blaming God and I had to bring that forth into my awareness and then consciously stop blaming God (forgive). This allowed me to trust and surrender to the fact that God is love and that I am loved by God unconditionally–which finally gave me inner peace. I didn’t even realize I was not trusting God until I released the repressed emotions. Those in emotional recovery from narcissistic abuse often are mad at God unconsciously–they hide their true selves because at their core they do not believe the Universe is a safe place. This is the horrible trauma of spiritual abuse in childhood–it splits you off from believing and loving your self which splits you off from receiving comfort from the source of Love (God). When you realize that God was loving you all along (The Universe is a safe and supportive place) and it was the absence of love and light in the people who abused you that did the damage to you then you can fully recover. This takes time with highly sensitive, gifted souls–we need consistent compassion, gentleness, and soothing comfort over time to trust the Universe (and God) again.
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Im almost 51 and can not free myself from not being able to forgive my “mommy dearest” and older brother from hurting me emotionlly as well as pyshically-was beat up by both of them. This so called mother comes and goes in my life-over 30+ years. My older brother? He has nothing to do with me lol. She turned him against me many, many years ago. He was my best friend growing up but mommy dearest put a stop to that. I just can not forgive the hate, beatings, ect from them both-everyday is a survial. I drink and take meds because of this and want to forget. I can not get the hurt out of my heart. Can not wait till the day this women dies for what she has done to me..Bye Mommy dearest and brother ED. My heart is so broken. I have never blamed GOD..just asked him to help me through this. So tired of crying esp this time of year-no family-no friends. She is such a evil women
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Im sorry, there is so damn much that has happen in my life that I find it so hard to post everything-beatings (VERY sever!) mom cheating on my dad and dragging me a long, showing me how its done??, showing my older brother Ed how to drag me by my hai and call me a slut and everything else she told him about me (Im now getting sick and cryingI hate this life)-this list can go on and on. Once again. Im sorry. GOD I hate my life now, but i do love and trust GOD. Im here for a reason. I can NOT forgive them for what they have done and put me through! I HATE THEM
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Pam,
Wow. I’m sorry you went through that. You were a strong child to have endured all that. You know that God knows everything that happened to you and cares about you and loves you very much. “God is near to those that are broken at heart; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.” Psalms 34:18
Tara
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Thank you, Pam, for your comment and for sharing your story. I’m so sorry about the horrific things you endured. Wishing you comfort, inner peace and healing, and so much love and light, Roxanne
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Hello Roxanne!
Thank you very much for writing this article.
My situation is very similar to yours, and you wrote EXACTLY how I feel!
Reading your site is like finding a REAL compass in a world full of fake ones.
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Alec, Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your story! Wow! Yay! So happy to help! 😀
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Reblogged this on sarahwritingblog.
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