You tell yourself you’ve let it go.
You don’t bring it up anymore.
You’ve moved on.
But sometimes the silence isn’t peace.
It’s armor.
And the forgiveness?
It might just be avoidance dressed in spiritual language.
There’s a thin line.
Forgiveness is an opening.
Avoidance is a closing.
Forgiveness looks inward and says:
I release this for me.
Avoidance looks outward and says:
It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. I’m over it.
Even when you’re not.
Forgiveness is a process.
Avoidance wants a shortcut.
A clean story.
No mess, no memory, no confrontation.
But wounds don’t vanish just because you choose not to talk about them.
They wait.
They whisper.
They show up in your patterns, your body, your tone when something sounds just like that one thing.
Forgiveness softens you.
Avoidance stiffens you.
Forgiveness says:
I’m ready to feel the pain so it can pass through me.
Avoidance says:
I’m too tired to go there.
One clears the weight.
The other buries it deeper.
Ask yourself:
- Am I at peace — or just pretending not to be angry?
- Did I forgive them — or just stop trying to explain?
- Can I speak their name without flinching?
This is the Cushy way.
Soft truth.
Real release.
Not silence that shoves it down — but healing that lets it out, then lets it go.
You don’t have to relive it.
But you do have to face it.
That’s how you really leave it behind.
