Forgiveness as an Act of Service

“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world” - Marianne Williamson

I’ve come to believe Marianne is onto something. My own journey with forgiveness has taught me that it isn’t just about letting go—it’s about coming home to myself. When I used to hear phrases like, “Holding a grudge is like letting someone live in your head rent-free,” I understood the logic, but the wisdom never truly landed. I saw forgiveness as something I should do for my own peace, yet it always felt incomplete—like I was intellectualizing it rather than embodying it.

That changed when I realized forgiveness isn’t just about me. It’s an act of service to the person I’m forgiving. The moment I shifted my perspective, I saw that my resistance wasn’t about logic at all—it was about protection. I had been convincing myself that certain things were just better left alone, but really, I was avoiding, suppressing, and numbing. And as I’ve learned time and time again, what we suppress doesn’t disappear—it just takes another form.

Unprocessed resentment has a way of embedding itself in us, distorting the way we see the world. It leaks into our relationships, shapes our self-perception, and colors our emotional landscape in ways we don’t even recognize. We tell ourselves stories about why we feel stuck, why we’re disconnected, why certain patterns keep repeating. But often, we’re just circling the same wound, avoiding the very thing that could set us free.

Crossing the Bridge First

Thomas Fuller once wrote, “He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.” I see forgiveness as that bridge—a connection between me and the person I want to forgive. And bridges require movement. Someone has to go first.

In Rewilding Your Soul, I often talk about how healing isn’t about fixing ourselves—it’s about remembering who we are underneath all the layers of conditioning, trauma, and survival strategies. Forgiveness is the same. It’s not about granting someone a pardon or pretending the harm didn’t matter. It’s about stepping outside the ego’s narrative—one that keeps us separate and guarded—and remembering that, at our core, we are all shaped by forces beyond our control.

And that brings me to the paradox of forgiveness: it’s both an act of service to the other person and an act of returning to ourselves. Gandhi’s famous words, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” remind us that the work always starts within. If I want to bring more compassion into the world, I must first embody it. And the first step in forgiving another is often forgiving myself—for the ways I’ve judged them, for the ways I’ve held onto my pain as a form of identity, for the ways I’ve mistaken my protection mechanisms for truth.

Seeing With Soul-Centered Eyes

Forgiveness isn’t just a mental process; it’s an experience, a shift in perception. The moment we stop seeing someone through the lens of their mistakes, their personality, or their wounds, and instead see them as a soul—just as imperfect, just as conditioned, just as tangled in their own fears as we are—everything softens.

If you struggle to forgive someone, try this: picture them as a child. Not just in a sentimental way, but really see them as that small, wide-eyed version of themselves before life left its imprint. Can you judge them? Can you resent them? Most likely, no. Because you can see that they didn’t arrive here as they are now. None of us did. We are all shaped by the worlds we grew up in, by the need to belong, by the pressures to conform, by whatever survival strategies we developed to cope.

And yet, beneath it all, the child is still there. The soul is still there. Our fears, our insecurities, our reactions—they are all just layers wrapped around something deeper.

Forgiveness, then, isn’t about excusing behavior or pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s about seeing through those layers, through the pain and the conditioning, and recognizing the shared humanity underneath.

The Moment Forgiveness Becomes Real

You’ll know when you’ve truly forgiven someone. It won’t be because you said the words “I forgive you.” It won’t be because you convinced yourself to move on. It will be because, one day, you’ll think of them or see them, and something will feel different. The weight will be gone. The story will dissolve. You won’t feel pity or superiority or the need to explain anything. You’ll just see them—maybe as you once did before the hurt, or maybe in a way you never have before. You’ll recognize them not as an enemy, not even as a person defined by what they did, but as a soul.

And that moment, when the walls drop and you see through soul-centered eyes, is when you are in your highest service to the world. Because when we see others in their fullness, free from judgment, we create space for them to return to themselves too.

Forgiveness isn’t just about what we release—it’s about what we make possible. It’s about healing the fractures that keep us disconnected. It’s about remembering that we are all walking each other home.