Forgiveness 2026

 ©2026 BTMT - TJackson

There is an uncomfortable truth about harm that rarely gets named. The person who caused it often moves on long before the person who endured it. Memory settles differently depending on where the wound landed. One side resumes life. The other carries the imprint in their body, their thoughts, their relationships, and the way they scan the world for safety.

This is where forgiveness becomes complicated.

It is often presented as a moral milestone, something mature people are supposed to reach once enough time has passed. The message is subtle but persistent: forgiving means you have healed, and struggling to forgive means you have failed some internal test. That framing does not heal anyone. It simply relocates the pain and adds shame to it.

Forgiveness is not proof of virtue. It is not a shortcut to peace. It is not a performance of goodness.

Most importantly, it is not owed.

Forgiveness does not arrive because someone demands it or because it sounds spiritually correct. It unfolds slowly, often unevenly, sometimes reluctantly. Attempting to force it before the nervous system feels safe does not create growth. It creates anger that has nowhere to go.

What often gets overlooked is that forgiveness exists for the person who was harmed, not the one who caused the harm. It is not about softening the story or minimizing the damage. It is about no longer allowing someone else’s actions to occupy permanent residence inside your inner life.

Many people believe closure will come in the form of an apology. That belief can quietly keep them trapped. Words do not repair what trauma has altered. Remorse does not undo impact. Even sincere regret cannot reach into the body and restore what was lost. Waiting for acknowledgment often turns into another way of postponing your own healing.

Forgiveness does not mean removing accountability. It does not mean protecting someone from consequences. It does not mean allowing access to your life or pretending the lesson never happened. Forgiveness means choosing not to carry what never belonged to you in the first place.

This is not about fairness. It is about freedom.

The most difficult forgiveness is often the one directed inward. Especially if pain changed the way you responded to the world. Prolonged harm reshapes behavior. Survival creates reactions that may feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable in hindsight. That does not make you broken. It makes you human.

Self forgiveness does not excuse what happened. It acknowledges that you adapted under pressure with the tools you had at the time. That compassion is not indulgence. It is necessary.

You are not required to forgive what feels unforgivable. Healing does not demand emotional amnesia. Sometimes progress begins with something smaller, like the willingness to loosen your grip on the pain. Sometimes the first step is simply wanting to stop carrying it.

Peace is not achieved by erasing the past. It is achieved by refusing to let the past dictate the rest of your life.

Reclaiming your center means becoming selective about which voices shape your inner world. Attention is a form of power. Not everyone deserves influence over how you see yourself or where you are headed. Harm does not earn a permanent seat in your future.

Forgiveness is not about becoming a better person. It is about becoming freer. It is about removing the emotional weight that does not belong to you and placing it back where it originated.

Struggling to let go does not mean you are weak. Anger does not mean you are failing. It means something real happened.

You are allowed to heal without permission.
You are allowed to move forward without closure.
You are allowed to choose peace, even if accountability never comes.

.

. 

...and sometimes I like to draw and color...☯️tbp

No one prepares you for what authenticity actually requires

 

01-08-2026

©2025 BTMT-TJ

Carl Jung never offered easy answers. His work was layered, demanding, and often uncomfortable, shaped by nuance rather than simplicity. He understood the psyche as something wild and complex, not something to be reduced or neatly explained. Still, there were moments when his words softened, when he spoke with a surprising clarity that felt almost tender.

During a series of seminars in the nineteen thirties, while reflecting on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Jung offered a thought that has stayed with me far longer than many of his more technical ideas. He said that when a person fulfills the pattern that is peculiar to them, something profound happens. Self love becomes possible. Abundance replaces striving. Virtue is no longer forced, because it overflows naturally from a life that is lived truthfully. When a person lives from that place, they radiate.

When I first encountered those words, I immediately asked the question so many people ask. What is my peculiar pattern? What am I actually meant to be?

It is a question that has echoed through generations. Artists, philosophers, leaders, and seekers have all circled it in their own ways. In my younger years, I thought the answer would arrive as a revelation, something dramatic and unmistakable. I believed there would be a moment when everything clicked and the path became obvious.

Time has taught me something more difficult. My peculiar pattern is not a role I perform or a destination I reach. It is the ongoing practice of being authentic. Simple to say, incredibly demanding to live.

No one prepares you for what authenticity actually requires. It is not just about expressing preferences or speaking truth when it feels comfortable. It demands acceptance of the parts of yourself you would rather edit out. It asks for forgiveness of past versions who made choices with limited awareness. It insists that you look directly at your shadow rather than pretending it does not exist.

This process is not gentle. It can be heartbreaking to see yourself clearly for the first time. It can be exhausting to dismantle the identities you built to survive. It can feel isolating to stand in your truth when it no longer fits the expectations around you. Authenticity strips away illusion, including the illusion that growth is graceful.

There were moments when it felt like stepping into fire without any guarantee of survival. Choosing authenticity meant risking rejection, disappointment, and the loss of certainty. It meant trusting that something more honest would emerge, even if I could not yet see its shape.

That is the cost of becoming whole. There is no shortcut around it. The path of individuation is not about becoming exceptional in the eyes of others. It is about becoming real in your own eyes. When you live from that place, what you offer the world is no longer forced or performative. It flows naturally from who you are.

Jung understood this deeply. Abundance does not come from accumulation. It comes from alignment. When you live according to your own pattern, something settles. You stop grasping. You stop proving. You begin to radiate, not because you are trying to shine, but because you are no longer hiding.

That is the quiet truth behind his words. To fulfill your peculiar pattern is not to escape struggle. It is to choose meaning over comfort, honesty over safety, and transformation over stagnation. The fire is real. So is what waits on the other side.

 

.