“Letting go is the key to happiness.” I recently read this sentence from you. But I just can’t do it,” a dear friend wrote to me a few days ago. Do you also feel like you can’t forgive certain people? In my experience, understanding is often a good way to make forgiveness possible.
In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), there are certain presuppositions. One of them states: Every person acts at all times with a positive intention. This means that you and I always act according to the best of our knowledge and beliefs—based on our perspective. Even a bank robber acts with a positive intention. No, not from the perspective of the employees, the customers, or the police. But from his own point of view, it might seem like the best or only solution at that moment to get money quickly. Most of us would never act this way, but we also haven’t walked the same path as that person.
If you want to forgive someone, take a look at their life. Do you believe that if you had lived exactly the same life as them, you might have acted in a similar way? There’s a saying from the wisdom of the Native Americans:
“Do not judge another until you have walked a moon in their moccasins.”
Everyone has their own model of the world. This model is based on their beliefs, experiences, values, and perspectives. That’s why each person thinks differently about life. To understand why someone acted a certain way, you need to completely set aside your own worldview and focus only on theirs. It’s not about justifying their actions—it’s simply about understanding them.
If you don’t know the person’s backstory, you can still try to understand their actions. Ask yourself: What terrible things must have happened to this person for them to act this way? What kind of pain, dependencies, or emotional wounds have they endured? This understanding won’t undo what happened, and it’s not about approving their actions. It’s purely about comprehension. I’ve told myself in such personal experiences that this person has likely already paid a thousandfold price for what they did to me. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been capable of such behavior.
Finally, let me share this: Whatever happened, it’s never really about you. In fact, it has nothing to do with you at all. If everyone acts with a positive intention for themselves, it’s all about their own needs—whether it’s to feel more powerful, appear more important, or something else entirely. At the end of the day, they want to be seen, heard, or respected.
Take initiation rituals in gangs as an example. A new member might smash a window to earn the group’s respect. It’s not about the window. It’s not about the shop owner behind the glass. It’s solely about the recruit’s desire to belong to the group and be respected as a full-fledged member. As long as you believe that their action was aimed at you, you remain stuck.
Think about it this way: It’s as if you drink poison every day and hope that the person who threw the stone at you dies. Meanwhile, they are living their best life as a gang member. They don’t even think about the window or the consequences anymore. Do you really want to give that person the rest of your life by allowing them so much power over your feelings and thoughts that you keep holding on to the story? Or can you see that, through greater understanding of the fact that the person was acting in what they saw as their own best interest, you can slowly start to let go?
You don’t have to forget or forgive. Just let go. And gradually shift your focus to the things that enrich and beautify your life. Cultivating the habit of focusing on the good things is your most important task to achieve better feelings. Over time, this habit will become stronger than your old anger toward the stone-thrower. But as long as you talk to everyone about the broken window and let it upset you, you pour energy into something that has nothing to do with you—and, in the worst case, it will paralyze your life indefinitely.