Once upon a time, I had to email an ex when moving out of our once-shared house. They’d left shit-tons of stuff behind when they moved out a year prior, and I wasn’t sure what the hell to do with it. At some point in this correspondence, I found the present email chain on this topic by searching for their address in my gmail — which is when I saw the apology email they’d sent me months ago. (I’d re-routed all of their emails to my archives as part of my Trauma Therapy Healing Journey) It stunned me, it twisted me inside out, and my god, I was so grateful for it.

Throughout the relationship, I’d been made to feel crazy for thinking [x] was happening as they insisted to me that despite all signs to the contrary, [y] was happening. The apology email put so much of that to bed — I wasn’t wrong, or crazy. Everything I saw and felt from them and suspected was completely true. I appreciated it, deeply.

But I know a lot of people who feel differently, who say apologies are more about the apologizer than the recipient, that they’re really about saving face or absolving oneself of guilt, that you shouldn’t ensnare an old flame in a present inferno, that it’s best to leave well enough alone.

Maybe because I’m a writer and a person who spends a lot of time analyzing and trying to understand my past — why the people around me made the choices they did, why I behaved the way I did — I’m always hungry for more information from said people. Even if it’s self-serving on their behalf! It’s general social etiquette to apologize to someone for doing something wrong, but somehow if it’s an ex… it becomes not ok? That’s interesting to me.

There is one ex and someone I sort of casually dated who I think about apologizing to every now and then but can’t sort out in my head if it would be appropriate or helpful to them or not. I fear it being read as self-serving. The ex is definitely a “clean break” person with breakups (they removed every pic from social media, don’t stay friends with exes, etc), so I don’t know if anything I said to them would be welcome. I think a lot about amends within the context of AA and other recovery programs — the guideline that you shouldn’t reach out if it would harm them more than it would help them, but also I’m curious why the personal growth one does to recover from addiction warrants amends but other forms of personal growth don’t. That’s interesting to me!

On a tangential note, one thing about the ex-girlfriend interviews we used to do was that I do think there was a benefit to processing these things many years after, to better understand ourselves and each other, to make memories more whole or full. But not everybody shares that desire for retroactive introspection that I do. I also love to forgive people. I hate holding personal grudges. I love forgiveness, and a reason to. Gimme one reason to forgive you, and I’ll turn right back around.

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“It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes—it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘Well, if I’d known better I’d have done better.’” ~Maya Angelou

I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between a mistake and a tragedy. Some of what I carry falls in between—moments I wish I could redo, things I said or didn’t say, relationships I mishandled, and opportunities I let slip through my fingers. They don’t scream at me every day, but they visit me quietly. The memory of my mistakes is like a second shadow—one that doesn’t leave when the light changes.

I’ve done a lot of good in my life. I’ve built meaningful work, taught students with heart, and showed up for people when it counted. I’ve loved deeply, even if clumsily. I’ve also failed—sometimes badly. And it’s the memory of those failures, more than the wins, that lingers.

The Woman on the Highway, and Others I Left Behind

I remember the woman on the side of a Mexican highway after our car ran off the road. She touched my forehead and looked into me with a deep compassion and mystical kindness—wordlessly holding space for what had just happened. I never thanked her. I left without saying goodbye, and I still think about her. I wonder if she knew how much that moment meant. I wish I could tell her now.

That moment wasn’t an isolated one. There have been many like her—friends, lovers, colleagues—people I walked away from too soon or too late. Some I hurt with silence. Others I lost because I couldn’t admit I was wrong. I see now that my pride got in the way. So did fear. So did the misguided belief that being clever or bold or accomplished could make up for emotional messiness.

It didn’t.

What I Thought Living Fully Meant

I used to chase experience and pleasure the way Zorba the Greek did—believing that living fully meant taking what life offered, especially when love or passion knocked. Zorba said the worst sin is to reject a woman when she wants you, because you’ll never stop wondering what could’ve been. There’s a strange truth in that, even if it doesn’t fit with modern ideas of love and consent and mutuality.

But I also know now: not every yes leads to peace. Sometimes you dive in and still end up alone, or ashamed, or with someone else’s pain on your hands.

And here’s the truth—I even failed at being a Zorba purist.

I missed a lot of messages and opportunities, not just because of bad timing or external circumstances, but because of my own blindness. Fear, shyness, and a deep lack of self-confidence got in the way more times than I can count. In that sense, yes, it’s a kind of failure. I didn’t always seize the moment. I didn’t always say yes. Sometimes I watched the boat leave without me.

But here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes not getting what you wished for is the blessing. I missed out on things that might have done more harm than good. And while I’ll never know for sure, I’ve come to trust the ambiguity.

My appetite for imagined memories—for playing out what might have been—can still guide me in unhealthy ways. It’s easy to get lost in nostalgia for possibilities that never were. But that too has become a teacher. I’m learning not to be burdened by those alternate timelines. I’m learning to live here, now, in this life—the real one.

I Will Not Be a Victim

These days, people talk a lot about not being a victim—and that’s become something of a mantra for me. Not in a tough, self-righteous way, but as a quiet practice. I don’t want to turn my past into a story where I’m the hero or the helpless. I want to see it clearly.

I’ve struggled in so many ways—emotionally, financially, spiritually. I’ve suffered through losses I couldn’t control and some I helped create. But I have to constantly stay mindful of my point of view. How I frame my life matters. Am I seeing it through the lens of powerlessness? Or am I recognizing my part, owning it, and doing what I can from here?

Finding that balance isn’t easy. I fall out of it regularly. But I return to it again and again: I will not be a victim. I have the power to respond—not perfectly, but consciously.

Learning to Live With, Not Against, My Mistakes

I carry those memories not because I want to but because I’ve learned that regret has something to teach me. It’s not just a burden. It’s a mirror. And if I look at it with clear eyes, it shows me who I’ve become.

I’ve also learned that some mistakes don’t go away. They live in your bones. People say, “Let go of the past,” and I believe that’s a worthy aim. It’s consistent with the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism: suffering comes from clinging, and peace comes from release. But maybe some memories are meant to be carried—not as punishment, but as reminders.

Despite my tendency toward impostor syndrome—the whisper that I’m not wise enough, not healed enough, not even worthy of writing this—I know this much: I am learning to live with my mistakes rather than against them.

I no longer believe healing means erasing the past. I think it means letting it breathe. Letting it soften. Letting it speak—not to shame you, but to show you where the heart finally opened.

Sometimes I wonder—how could I have missed so much?

I don’t mean that I lacked intelligence. I mean I was often distracted. Caught up in my own ego, my longings, my fears. Sometimes I look back and shake my head, wondering how I didn’t see what was right in front of me. Not just once, but again and again.

There’s that old saying: Youth is wasted on the young. Maybe there’s a sharper version of that—Youth is wasted on the non-mindful. I see now how many years I spent reacting instead of reflecting, chasing instead of listening, trying to prove something instead of just being present.

And yet, maybe this is how it works. Maybe it’s necessary to go through the valley of mistakes before we can rise into any meaningful self-awareness. Maybe the errors—the cringeworthy ones, the silent ones, the ones we’ll never fully explain—are the curriculum.

Still, I have doubts.

Is mindful growth real? Or are we always just half-blind and half-deaf, hoping we’ve finally gotten it, only to be proven wrong again later?

Sometimes I think I’ve evolved. Other times I realize I’m repeating the same old pattern, just in more subtle ways. And yet… there’s something different now. A deeper pause. A longer breath. A willingness to admit I don’t know, and to stay in the discomfort.

Maybe that’s what growth really looks like—not certainty, but humility.

No, I wasn’t stupid. I was learning. I still am.

When the Weight Is Too Much

And then, just when I think I’ve made peace with the past, something happens that shakes me again.

This morning, I learned that someone I’ve known since high school—an artist and surfer, quiet and soulful—jumped off a cliff to his death.

It was the same spot where he first learned to surf, first fell in love with the sea, maybe even first became himself. A place filled with memory. And maybe, pain. Maybe too much.

We weren’t especially close, but I respected him. His art. His quiet way of being in the world. And now he’s gone.

I don’t pretend to know what he was carrying. But I do know this: memory is powerful. Returning to it can heal us, or it can crush us. Sometimes both.

So I write this with no judgment. Only sadness. And the reminder that what we carry matters. That being kind—to others and to ourselves—is no small thing. That sometimes the strongest thing we can do is stay.

What I Know Now

So what have I learned?

I’ve learned that tenderness outlasts thrill. That presence matters more than persuasion. That a goodbye spoken with kindness is better than a door closed in silence. I’ve learned that some apologies come too late for anyone else to hear—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say them.

I’ve learned that showing up—however imperfectly—is always better than disappearing.

And I’ve learned that even now, even at this point in life, I can still choose how I respond. I can meet the past with compassion. I can meet this moment with clarity.

To the ones I left too soon… to the people I failed to thank, or hear, or stand beside… to the ones I loved imperfectly but truly… here is what I can say:

I see it now. I wish I’d done better. I’m sorry. I’m still learning.

And I’m still here—still trying, still growing, still becoming the person I hope to be.

And if you’re reading this, carrying your own memories, your own regrets, know this: you’re not alone. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep showing up. That’s what I’m trying to do, too.

About Tony Collins

Tony Collins is a documentary filmmaker, educator, and writer whose work explores creativity, caregiving, and personal growth. He is the author of: Windows to the Sea—a moving collection of essays on love, loss, and presence. Creative Scholarship—a guide for educators and artists rethinking how creative work is valued. Tony writes to reflect on what matters—and to help others feel less alone.

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During the Sunday, September 21, public memorial service for the late Charlie Kirk, his wife, Erika Kirk (née Frantzve) publicly forgave the man allegedly responsible for her husband’s death.

“I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” Erika, 36, said during her husband’s service, held at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. “The answer to hate is not hate.”

During her remarks, Erika also urged those in attendance to follow her husband’s example as a wife and a husband.

“Please be a leader worth following,” she told the thousands of attendees. “Your wife is not your servant. Your wife is not your employee. Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper. You are not rivals. You are one flesh, working together for the glory of God.”

Charlie, a conservative activist and the founder of right-wing organization Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University. He was 31.

“Charlie loved life. He loved his life, he loved America, he loved nature which always helped him closer to God,” Erika said during an X livestream two days later, breaking her silence on her husband’s passing. “He loved the Chicago Cubs and my goodness did he love the Oregon Ducks.”

In addition to Erika, Charlie is survived by the couple’s two kids.

“Most of all Charlie loved his children and he loved me with all of his heart and I knew that everyday. He made sure I knew that everyday,” Erika added in her September 12 statement. “Everyday he would ask me, ‘How can I serve you better? How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father?’ … He was a such a good man. He still is such a good man. He was the perfect father. He was the perfect husband.”

Erika also revealed how her children had been coping with the news.

“When I got home last night,our daughter just ran into my arms and I talked to her and she said, ‘Mommy, I miss you,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘I miss you too, baby,’ and she goes, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ How do you tell a 3-year-old? And I said, ‘Daddy loves you so much, baby, he’s on a work trip with Jesus so he can afford your blueberry budget.’”

Erika, who has been named the new CEO of Turning Point, has since been candid about the final moments she shared with Charlie.

“His eyes were semi-open,” Erika recalled of seeing Charlie’s body in a The New York Times interview published earlier on Sunday. “He had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smile, like, he died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven.”

Erika had told the outlet that she was supposed to accompany Charlie to Utah for the speaking engagement, in which Charlie was scheduled to debate kids on campus — the first planned stop on a nationwide tour. Instead, Erika stayed in her native Arizona to support her mother amid a hospital stay.

After getting a call from Charlie’s assistant, sharing the news, Erika quickly got on a plane to Utah.

“I’m looking at the clouds and the mountains,” she said to The Times, recalling the moment she learned mid-flight that her husband was declared dead. “It was such a gorgeous day, and I was thinking: This is exactly what he last saw.”

Days of Our Lives sees Xander Cook (Paul Telfer) and his wife, Sarah Horton (Linsey Godfrey), as we know, are so deep in love, but this is the furthest apart they’ve been in years. Still, I’m confident Xander is going to win back Sarah. Plus, a reliable leaker said their reunion is happening before the holidays. We’re going to talk about what it’s going to take to get Xarah back together again.

Days of Our Lives: Xander and Sarah’s Strained Relationship and Co-Parenting Struggles

We’ve seen the back and forth between Xander and Sarah as they both ignore their deep feelings for each other. And it’s been months. They will each give each other a lingering look. We can hear their hearts pitter-pattering, but neither one of them has been willing to swallow their pride and make amends as they keep butting heads while trying to co-parent little Victoria. It may take a legitimate miracle to push these former lovebirds back together.

It’s been frustrating because I am a fan of this couple to watch Xander and Sarah as everything gets worse and worse for them this summer. They both cannot seem to get over each other’s bad behaviors. Neither of them has clean hands in this situation.

The Root of Their Rift: Philip’s Forgery, Xander’s Rage, and Sarah’s Betrayal

Xander felt so betrayed because Sarah kept that lie going about Philip’s forgery that cost Xander half of Titan Industries. Sarah claimed it was for Xander’s own good, but all he sees is that his precious wife, Sarah, lied and took the side of Philip the weasel. That led Xander to beat his brother Philip to a bloody pulp, which led Sarah to be disgusted at his violence and turn her back completely on Xander, who was equally disgusted with her.

I do think Philip in that beating, was taking the brunt of all of Xander’s frustrations over Sarah fibbing to him and being disloyal. We all know Xander has deep-rooted mommy and daddy issues. And Sarah is his heart and soul, her and their daughter. That’s his whole world. So for Sarah to choose to be loyal to Philip, to somebody else over him, that’s just too much for Dandy Xandy to deal with.

Legal Separation, Lingering Love: Why Xander and Sarah’s Divorce is Unlikely

Sarah and Xander are legally separated and trying to learn how to co-parent their toddler, Victoria. But our leaker also says they will never be divorced, at least not as part of this scenario. Everybody in Salem knows that love is still there. All the fans know it.

Sarah has forgiven Xander for far worse than beating up his brother. Like when Sarah let it slide that Xander lied about her baby dying and stole another baby to put in Sarah arms because Xander hought that was the best thing for her. That’s kind of the same logic Sarah used when she let the whole Philip lie slide.

You’d think that Xander and Sarah could sit down and hash this out and talk about all the many mistakes of their past, but so far, they’re both just too hurt still and have such a dim view of each other. As mad as Xander is, Sarah has forgiven him much worse, so I think he needs to let it go. But again, I’m back to the mommy and daddy issues.

Who Will Make the First Move? Xander, Sarah, and the Brady Factor

In the end, the big question is, who’s going to cave first and realize we need to get back together? Will Xander’s therapy with Marlena Evans (Deidre Hall) lead him to realize he needs to make things right and win back his soulmate, Sarah. And then he goes out and does all the wooing and all this hard work. Will it be him that has the realization first?

Or could it be that Sarah is the one who sees that she needs to win back Xander because she can’t move on, because he is her person? In the meantime, Brady Blcak (Eric Martsolf) throwing himself in Sarah’s path more and more. That’s going to start happening a lot more. Brady is hoping for a romance with Sarah.

I think Brady being in her way could help Sarah see the light where Xander’s concerned. Maybe she figures out even though her husband can be a very bad boy, he’s also the only man for her. In that case, it could be Sarah putting in the work to rekindle things with her hubby.

Obviously, it would be more stereotypical if Xander’s the one doing the pursuing, so it would be new and different if it was Sarah working to win that reconciliation and to get Xander back in her house, her bed, and her heart.

Overcoming Trauma: Family Support and Alex’s Plan for Xander & Sarah’s Reunion

Over the past few years, Sarah and Xander have been through so much. There were kidnappings of both Sarah and Victoria. Plus, there was Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston) death that rocked the whole family. And then awful Fiona Cook (Serena Scott Thomas) showing up and running over Sarah while drunk and paralyzing her, then trying to kill her by throwing her down the stairs.

But still, people are rooting for them. Holly Jonas (Ashley Puzemis) is rooting for her Aunt Sarah to get back with Xander Plus, Alex Kiriakis (Robert Scott Wilson) was speaking to Sarah as well. He knows she still loves his cousin Xander, but when Alex told Xander that he told Sarah she was missed, that didn’t go over well.

When Alex talked to Xander, all he got was glares and pushback. Alex keeps working on Xander to legitimize Philip by assigning him the co-CEO position and thinks that could help things with Sarah. But Xander’s just so salty about it all still. If he keeps doing the anger management sessions with Dr. Marlena, that could help sway Sarah.

She has been worried about Xander’s temper and violence ever since he threatened to take a baseball bat to Brady when Xander thought he ran over Sarah. Of course, Xander would never, ever lay a hand on Sarah or Victoria. But at the same time, Sarah doesn’t think that Xander’s temper and tendency to punch first and ask questions later is a good influence on Victoria. She thinks it’s a very bad thing on Days of our Lives.

Philip’s Redemption and Xander’s Path to Forgiveness: Overcoming Interlopers

We have heard from our leaker that Philip is going to be involved with efforts to help reconcile his brother Xander with Sarah because obviously, Philip’s whole thing played a really big role in their rift. So him making it right is a decent thing to do. That seems like a sure sign that Xander is probably going to cave and do what Alex and Stephanie Johnson (Abigail Klein) suggests: play nice with Philip, make him officially the co-CEO so that the forgery thing is off the table.

That would make sense then if Xander did that, why Philip goes to bat and tries to help the marriage. But we’ve got interlopers. Gwen Rizczech’s (Emily O’Brien) still hot for Xander and Gabi Hernandez’s (Cherie Jimenez) playing games with him and with Philip. And Brady is crushing on Sarah soon. So, if it’s Xander who’s doing the wooing to win back Sarah legitimizing Philip at Titan, I think, would help his case. So would getting an anger management achievement certificate from Marlena.

Xander Proves Himself to Sarah on Days of Our Lives?

Plus, maybe Xander does some deed to prove he’s a changed man. That would help, like if he protected Philip or he did something really nice for Brady or saved their daughter from a burning house or something. Or maybe Xander gets a chance to rescue Maggie Horton Kiriakis (Suzanne Rogers) or even Sarah herself. I think it’s going to be some combo of words and deeds that could help Xander get a new shot with Sarah.

However, if it is Xander who is the one getting wooed, I think Sarah ould make very short work of this. She could just tell Xander very sincerely, “I’m sorry. I was wrong for keeping that secret about Philip. I’m proud of all the hard work you’re doing to make yourself a better man for our daughter.” And then Sarah can show him she’s wearing lacy lingerie. And that should be the end of it. Marriage reconciled because men are much simpler creatures, am I right?

“Jerry, there is some bad in the best of people and some good in the worst of people. Look for the good!” ~George Chaky, my grandfather

I was seven when he said that to me. It would later become a guiding principle in my life.

My grandfather was twenty-one when he came to the US with his older brother, Andrew. Shortly afterward, he married Maria, my grandmother, and they had five children. William, the second youngest, died at the age of seven from an illness.

One year later they lost all of their savings during the Great Depression of 1929 when many banks closed. Two years afterward, my grandmother died from a stroke at the age of thirty-six.

As I grew older and learned about the many hardships my grandfather and family of origin had endured, his encouragement to look for the good in people would have a profound impact on me. It fueled a keen interest in trying to understand why people acted the way they did. In retrospect, it also had a lot to do with my becoming a therapist and author.

Easier Said Than Done

As a professional, I am able to objectively listen to my therapy clients’ stories with compassion and without judgment. However, in my personal life, I’ve often struggled to see the good in certain people, especially some elementary school teachers who physically and emotionally abused me and male peers who made fun of my small size.

In my youth I often felt humiliated, but not ashamed. I knew that for them to treat me that way, there must have been something wrong with them. But it still hurt.

I struggled with anger and resentment for many years. In my youth, I was taught that anger was a negative emotion. When I expressed it, certain teachers and my parents punished me. So, I stuffed the anger.

I Didn’t Know What I Didn’t Know

When I was twelve, I made a conscious decision to build walls to protect myself from being emotionally hurt. At the time, it was the best that I could do. Walls can give one a sense of safety, but walls also trap the pain inside and make it harder to trust and truly connect with others.

About that same time, I made a vow to myself that I frequently revisited: “When I get the hell out of this house and I am fortunate to have my own family, I will never talk to them the way my parents talked to each other and my sister and me.” I knew how I didn’t want to express my emotions, but I didn’t know how to do so in a positive and healthy manner.

Stuffing emotions is like squeezing a long, slender balloon and having the air, or anger, bulge in another place. In my late twenties, individual and couples counseling slowly helped me begin to recognize how much anger and resentment I had been carrying inside. They would occasionally leak out in the tone of my voice, often with those I wasn’t angry with, and a few times the anger came out in a frightening eruption.

“Resentment is the poison we pour for others that we drink ourselves.” ~Anonymous

I heard that phrase at a self-help group for families of alcoholics. After the meeting, I approached the person who shared it and said to her, “I never heard that before.” She smiled and replied, “I’ve shared that a number of times at meetings where you were present.” I responded, “I don’t doubt that, but I never heard it until tonight!”

The word “resentment” comes from the Latin re, meaning “again,” and sentire, meaning “to feel.” When we hold onto resentment, we continue to “feel again” or “re-feel” painful emotions. It’s like picking at a scab until it bleeds, reopening a wound.

Nowhere have I ever read that we should like being treated or spoken to unfairly. However, when we hold on to resentment, self-righteous indignation, or other uncomfortable emotions, it ties us to the past.

Holding onto resentment and grudges can also increase feelings of helplessness. Waiting for or expecting others to change gives them power over my thoughts and feelings. Many of those who I have held long-standing resentment for have died and yet can still have a hold on me.

When we let go of resentment, it frees us from much of the pain and discomfort. As author John E. Southard said, “The only people with whom you should try to get even with are those who have helped you.”

I’ve continued to learn how to set healthier and clearer boundaries without building walls. I’ve learned that I don’t have to accept unacceptable behavior from anyone, and I don’t have to go to every argument I am invited to, even if the argument is only inside my head.

Still, for a long time, despite making significant progress, periodically the anger and resentment would come flooding back. And the thought of forgiving certain people stuck in my craw.

When people would try to excuse others’ behavior with statements like “They were doing the best they knew how,” I’d say or think, “But they should never have become teachers” or “My sister and I had to grow up emotionally on our own!”

Forgiving Frees the Forgiver

For a long time now, I have started my day with the Serenity Prayer: (God) Grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It has helped me try to focus on today and what I can control—how I think, feel, and act. Sometimes I get stuck, and all I can say is, “Help me let go of this anger.”

“When we forgive, we heal. When we let go, we grow.” ~Dalai Lama

I frequently hear the voices of many people who have helped, supported, and nourished me. I hear my wife’s late sister, MaryEllen, a Venerini nun, saying, “Jerry, the nuns treated you that way because that was the way they were probably treated by their superiors.” She validated my pain and planted another seed that slowly grew.

I’ve also heard that “hurt people hurt people.” At times, I would still lash out at innocent people when I was hurting. I desperately wanted to break this generational cycle. I’ve learned that I don’t have to wait for other people to change in order to feel better.

I am learning that everyone has a story, and I can practice forgiveness without excusing what they did or said.

Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving liberates me from the burden of resentment, helping me focus on connecting with supportive people and continuing to heal. Letting go of resentment cuts the ties that bind me to the past hurts. It helps me be present today where I can direct my time and energy toward living in the present instead of replaying old pain.

For the past year I have made a conscious effort to start each day by asking my Higher Power, whom I choose to call God, “Help me be grateful, kind, and compassionate to myself and others today and remember that everyone has their own struggles.” This has become one of the biggest turning points in my travels through life.

You Can’t Pour from an Empty Cup

I have learned that taking care of myself is one of the most effective ways to stop resentment from building up. When I neglect one or more of my needs over time, I’m quicker to snap, less patient, and more likely to take things personally. Who benefits from my self-neglect? Not me, and certainly not my spouse, children, coworkers, or others. When I am H.A.L.T. (hungry, angry, lonely or tired) or S.O.S. (stressed out severely), I usually don’t like being around me either.

Self-compassion also weakens resentment’s hold, making it easier to be compassionate with others. Remembering that we’re all works in progress helps me treat myself and others more gently.

I often think about my grandfather’s words, “Look for the good.” Self-care and self-compassion help me to see the good in myself as well as in others. I can dislike someone’s actions or tone of voice and also recognize they’re not really about me.

I actually have a Q-tip (representing “quit taking it personally”) taped on my desk to remind me that someone else’s actions or words are likely the result of their own struggles. It helps me to “catch myself,” and instead of taking things personally, I try to remember that everyone has a story.

Gratitude Puts Everything in Perspective

There are days when I am faced with great or even overwhelming challenges, when it would be easy to default to anger—with other people or with life itself. On those days, I might notice a beautiful sunrise or feel touched by the love and kindness of others. Practicing gratefulness helps me to see life as both difficult and good. It is like an emotional and spiritual savings account, building reserves that help me to be more resilient during the rough patches in life, even when I feel wronged.

Specifically focusing on what I am grateful for each day also helps me heal and gives me periods of serenity. It empowers me to try to approach my interactions with others in a warm and caring manner while respecting my and their personal boundaries, which keeps small misunderstandings from growing into resentment.

Gratefulness and compassion toward myself and others take practice. It’s not a one-and-done thing. It’s like learning any new skill—the more I practice, the more it becomes a positive habit and feels more like second nature.

Without repeated practice, old, undesirable thoughts and patterns can come back. When I neglect self-care, I am most vulnerable to quickly regress.

I also need to be vigilant when things seem to be going well within and around me. I can become overly confident, trying to coast along and slack off from practicing gratitude and compassion.

I have been unlearning many things that no longer work for me. I have unlearned “Practice makes perfect,” replacing it with “Practice makes progress, and I will do my best to continue to learn, grow, and be grateful, one day at a time.”

I don’t always get it right, but every time I choose compassion, understanding, or gratitude over resentment, I am more at peace and more connected to everyone around me.

About Jerry Manney

Jerry Manney is a long-time therapist and writer. His book, Why We Argue and How to Stop shows you how to navigate disagreements, manage emotions, and create healthier relationships. Jerry has written numerous articles on family distress, substance abuse, and communicating more effectively. He has also taught college courses for seventeen years and spoken at national conferences. Follow Jerry on tiktok @thebooktokshrink.

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Steps are events, experiments, miniature rebellions against gravity and chance. With each step, we fall and then we catch ourselves, we choose to go one way and not another. The foot falls and worlds of possibility rise in its shadow. Every step remaps the psychogeography of the walker. Every step in space is also a step in time, slicing through the twilight between the half-fathomed past and the unfathomed future — a verse in the poetry of prospection. We walk the world to discover it and in the process discover ourselves.

Craig Mod was nineteen when he moved from small-town America to Japan’s majestic Kii Peninsula and began walking, only to find himself face to face with the questions he had tried to leave behind — what it means to forgive, what it takes to constellate a family beyond biology, how to live with the ghosts that haunt the history of the heart and the history of the world. These questions quiver alive in Things Become Other Things (public library) — part memoir of the search for belonging, part love letter to his childhood best friend, who “bled out on a dirt yard under the stars” when the boys were teenagers, part record of alchemizing loss into a largeness of being by learning “to walk, and walk well, and witness the people along the way.”

Craig considers the primal nature of “this simple impulse to traverse dirt, to push on the edges of what’s known to us,” the strangeness of being impelled “to walk and walk alone and do so for days and weeks and months at a time”:

I’ve come to crave the solitude and asceticism of these solo walks. There is no quieter place on earth than the third hour of a good long day of walking. It’s alone in this space, this walk-induced hypnosis, that the mind is finally able to receive the strange gifts and charities of the world.

In a sentiment evocative of Nabokov’s insistence that “an active and creative reader is a rereader,” he adds:

I’ve come to realize the only true walk is the re-walk. You cannot know a place without returning. And even then, once isn’t enough. That’s why I’m back. Back on the Peninsula. Walking these roads I’ve walked before. It’s only through time and distance and effort — concerted, present effort, controlled attention, a gentle and steady gaze upon it all — that you begin to understand old connections, old wounds. That the shape of once-dark paths becomes clear.

Over and over he confronts the old wound of his origins — carried by “someone nameless, faceless, someone pregnant at thirteen,” raised by a mother whose husband left her shortly after the adoption to become a halfway father flitting in and out of Craig’s childhood, too absent to be a parent, too present to be a stranger. Looking back on the longing to break free from his addiction to anger and blame, Craig writes:

How could I be sure I was free? So I walked. I walk. I walk and I walk and I walk and feel the air of our town leave my cells and be replaced by the air and ideas of a different time and place. The more I breathe this Peninsula air, the more I realize that it would have been so easy to have elevated my father as a child. This shocks me, the first time I feel this on the road: the space in my heart for forgiveness — forgiveness! The moment I felt that was like getting hit in the head with a basketball — a freakish pang, a dull ache in the skull. I almost fell into a bush. I was hyperventilating — realizing my heart had expanded in some immeasurable, beyond-physics way that hearts can expand, and in that expansion I had new space. There’s a word in Japanese that sums up this feeling better than anything in English: yoyū. A word that somehow means: the excess provided when surrounded by a generous abundance. It can be applied to hearts, wallets, Sunday afternoons, and more… This extra space, this yoyū, this abundance… carried with it patience and — gasp — maybe even… love?

Rising from the pages is a prayer for abundance against the backdrop of all that is taken away, an insistence on the possibility of finding beauty amid the ruins of our hopes. As he walks, Craig encounters “moss lush enough to lie down on naked and wilt in reverence”; he watches mountain crabs move like Claymation as they emerge from the wet forest at sunrise “as if birthed by the light of day”; he comes face to face with the unblinking kamoshika — the Japanese goat-like antelope, exuding “an aura of magic in how fast and sure-footed it is,” this most alien and holiest of forest animals; he feels the primal consolation of his own animal nature, this biped whose peripatetic balance has been honed by myriad exquisite evolutionary adaptations, tiny structures shaped over eons to do one thing perfectly, elaborate chemistries mixed in the cauldron of time to translate the laws of physics into flesh:

I think about how a walk begins, with balance, in the ear, vestibular, a few feet above the earth… Endolymph, a potassium-heavy fluid, oozes inside the so-called bony and membranous labyrinthine canals of the inner ear…. inside [which] gelatinous bulbs called cupula, attached to stereocilia, detect the sloshing of our endolymph. The body moves, the endolymph splashes, heeds the laws of gravity. The stereocilia bend and transmit details of the bend — how far, how quickly, which orientation — to the cerebellum, the brain-nugget secreted at the back of the noggin. The cerebellum decodes the signals, translates, makes a follow-up microsecond game plan.

The great reward is that each step can be such a cosmos of complexity and at the same time lead to such simple, elemental truths. Having distilled the core tenet of a good walk to “real-time observation of unfiltered life,” having observed the core tenet of life in the Kii Peninsula — “a pervasive care throughout generations, a sense of knowing your happiness and health are intertwingled with those of your neighbor” — Craig captures an evanescent moment shimmering with the eternal:

Silent morning, abundant sunlight, abundant life. Thinking about this care. Water in the fields rippling in the wind. Mountains of Kii all around, a silent sloshing in my head, keeping the sky up and the ground down.

Traversing these enchanted landscapes via historic routes and backroads, passing through small towns vanishing before his eyes with depopulation, staying in thousand-year-old temples, he meets and walks with people who end up becoming family — father-figures, brother-figures, elderly innkeepers who put the hardest truths in simple words annealed in the hearth of living. One tells him of the young woman who wandered in years earlier looking for work and turned into a daughter. “Time passes, life moves, and that’s what happens,” the old man tells him. “Things become… other things.” Looking back on half a lifetime of walking his own way to belonging, Craig reflects:

Somehow as an adult I’ve managed to attract and surround myself with these people, these beacons of good… I love them so much that my bones ache — ache because I know I’ll lose them someday. I will follow them anywhere. Together we walk in the near-frozen morning air and the sun rises. Light works its way across the rippling peaks of the Peninsula. Feeling returns to hands, to feet, to hearts. The mind moves once again. We carry our lives on our backs and traverse the spine of the world, no humans for miles, no routes down, just forward or back, the beast below always shifting, always ready to heave us off.

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In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Jane turns down St. John’s offer of marriage. She can go with him as a fellow laborer on the mission field to India, but not as a wife. There exists no romantic love between them – not like the love she had experienced with Mr. Rochester. Unsurprisingly, St. John does not take the refusal well. Despite his statement that he had forgiven Jane, St. John distances himself from her and lets her know that he will remember what she had said. As Jane stated in the book, “he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them” (Jane Eyre, Barnes & Noble, 2020, p. 479).   

It is unlikely that St. John had truly forgiven the heroine at this point in the story. Yet, even if he had, Brontë portrays an evident difference between forgiving, forgetting, and reconciling, which is true to life. Just because a person has extended the hand of grace to another does not necessarily mean the relationship can continue as normal. In the case of Jane and St. John, their friendship could never be the same as it was before his proposal of marriage.  

Sometimes, Christians are too quick to equate forgiveness with these other actions, which has led to misunderstandings. Individuals may think they must reenter a relationship with everyone who has offended or hurt them. Or to act as if a sin had never occurred. But to forgive is different than forgetting or reconciling with another. We see this evidenced in the Bible with how God has chosen to deal with us. And if we are wise, we will take note of our Lord’s actions and seek to imitate Him in our daily lives while at the same time recognizing that human relationships, like the ones shown in Jane Eyre, are complicated.    

God’s Mercy and Our Relationship to Him 

The basis for our understanding of forgiveness should come from the merciful character of our Lord. Before any person had ever experienced the pain of being hurt by another, humans caused the Lord grief by turning away from His command and sinning against Him (Genesis 3:6-19). This action caused Adam and Eve, and all humans since, to be separated from God. No longer would He walk with them companionably through the Garden of Eden. They were exiled from the garden and cut off from a close communion with the Lord because of sin (Genesis 3:23).  

If humans were the ones who caused a rift in their relationship with the Lord, then they should be the ones to fix it, right? Well, no. The gulf is too wide, and all the good deeds we try to do pale in comparison to the severity of our wrongdoings (Isaiah 64:6). On our own, there is no way to make things right with God.  

But that is where the Lord has most shown His mercy and grace. Although He is not to blame for the fractured relationship, He took it upon Himself to amend it. God the Father sent the Son to die for our sins on the cross (John 3:16). Through Jesus, we are forgiven of our sins because He endured the punishment that we rightly deserve (see Colossians 1:13-14).  

In addition to receiving forgiveness, we also receive the promise that God chooses not to remember our sins anymore (Isaiah 43:25; 2 Corinthians 5:19). Scripture tells us that “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12, NLT). If our past was a messy whiteboard, then Jesus is the eraser that has wiped it clean and made us new.    

Not only that, but the Lord has made the erring rebel into a precious child. When we trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are reconciled to the Lord and enter an everlasting relationship – the one for which we were created (John 17:3; Romans 5:10). The great chasm has been crossed, and we are brought near despite our former positions as outcasts and enemies of God. We are now beloved sons and daughters tasked with the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).   

Based on the biblical evidence, forgiveness, the  decision to forget sin, and reconciliation are closely related. God forgave and reconciled us to Himself, choosing not to count our sins against us. We are accustomed to hearing about the Lord forgiving us and bringing us into a relationship with Himself. However, we should not confuse these different functions, especially when we apply them to our daily lives, for they are distinct acts, even if the Lord has accomplished all of them through Christ’s death and resurrection.     

What Does it Mean to Forgive?

The Lord has forgiven us because of His grace, and He calls us to deal with others in the same way. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesian Christians, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32, NIV; see also Colossians 3:13). We should be people known for mercy, offering forgiveness to others just as our loving Lord showed us grace by forgiving our sins. Withholding forgiveness does not fit who we are as followers of Jesus (Matthew 18:21-35).  

Of course, this is easier said than done. Forgiveness is difficult because of the mix of emotions and events that have passed between people. For example, someone who has been deeply hurt by the actions of another will struggle to stop harboring anger and bitterness towards that person. The offense seems too severe, and justice is desired.  

Yet whenever we are wronged and deeply hurt, we need to remember our Lord on the cross. Jesus died for us while we were still sinners – we had not tried to change or make amends, and He still endured death for our sake (Romans 5:8). And as the Savior hung on the cross, He forgave those who put Him there (Luke 23:34).   

None of us deserve forgiveness, but the Lord gives us grace. We can forgive because of what Christ did for us. As we do, justice is not neglected, for we entrust our hurt and pain to the One who judges justly, like our Lord did (1 Peter 2:23). Vengeance belongs to Him, not us. By forgiving those who wrong us, we let go of the bitterness and hatred in our hearts – things that can destroy us if we allow them to remain in our lives.    

What Is the Difference between Forgiving and Forgetting?

It is common to hear people say, “Forgiving is forgetting.” The idea is that a person’s wrongdoing has been wiped away and no longer has a bearing on the relationship. To forgive, however, is not the same as choosing not to remember an offense. Forgiving involves letting go of bitterness or hatred. The person knows what has happened and acknowledges it as wrong but chooses to extend grace.  

Forgetting is associated with forgiveness but is distinct in that it involves not counting a person’s wrongdoing against him or her. God gives us forgiveness and decides not to remember our sins anymore. He knows what we did – it is not as if He developed amnesia. He has, instead, chosen not to hold our sins against us. As the Bible tells us, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12, NIV; also see Jeremiah 31:34). 

In considering the difference between these two acts, though, we do not want to downplay the evident biblical closeness between forgiving and forgetting. A believer who insists they have forgiven someone while in the next moment vowing never to forget the harm done to them conveys a paradox. Yes, there are actions and words that will continue to affect us in the future and on which we may sometimes dwell. It is not as if the hurt will be wiped from our memory. Neither does this mean we should ignore or overlook abuse or remain in a dangerous situation? However, if we are unable to lay aside an offense after extending grace, then a remnant of unforgiveness may still be nestled in our hearts. 

The loving presence of the Lord enables us to not only forgive someone who has wronged us but to move on and not count the sin against the person. God does not deal with us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103:10). As imitators of Him, we should strive to do the same by the power of the Spirit.       

What Does it Mean to Be Reconciled?

When we place faith in Jesus for salvation, we are reconciled to God. The separation that formerly marked our position to the Lord changes so that we are brought near to Him. Reconciliation was always part of the plan of salvation because God wants to be in a relationship with us. And that is the blessing all believers receive.  

The Lord desires all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9). But not everyone will be restored to a right relationship with the Lord because some will remain in their unbelief and reject Him. They will continue to be separated from God. Thus, Jesus has provided a way for people to receive forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with the Father. However, that does not mean everyone will accept these gifts.  

Similarly, in human relationships, reconciliation is not always possible or wise. For example, a woman in an abusive marriage can arrive at a place where she can forgive her husband, but she does not have to remain in that relationship. Trust has been broken, which makes reconciliation an unwise and unsafe option. Or, in the case of a person who lost a parent because of the recklessness of a drunk driver. Over time, with the help of Christ, the individual will be able to forgive the offender – but that does not mean he or she should seek to connect with the person.  

A restoration of a relationship does not always happen after forgiveness. We need to recognize this reality as we work through issues with others. There will be situations in which we should reconnect with those we have forgiven, like what we see modeled in the Bible through Joseph’s life. His brothers expressed remorse over what they had done, and Joseph forgave them and treated them kindly (Genesis 50:15-21). Other times, though, the relationship is too far gone for any hope of reconciliation. Forgiveness is still possible, but reconnecting with the person who sinned against us is not a choice in every circumstance.  

We should strive to forgive others as the Lord has forgiven us while also knowing that it is not always possible to reconcile with them.  

Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Evan Kirby

Sophia Bricker is a writer. Her mission is to help others grow in their relationship with Jesus through thoughtful articles, devotionals, and stories. She completed a BA and MA in Christian ministry, which included extensive study of the Bible and theology, and an MFA in creative writing. You can follow her blog about her story, faith, and creativity at The Cross, a Pen, and a Page.

This article originally appeared on Christianity.com. For more faith-building resources, visit

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“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
Herman Hesse

I often write about finding lightness in life.

It can come from an unhurried but effective day at work or from uncluttering your home.

Or from learning how to let go and move on in life.

Learning to let go of a relationship, of something else in your past, of something that is just an unimportant distraction or of trying to control what you cannot control can free up huge amounts of the energy and the time you have to use for something better and more fulfilling.

It is not always easy. But it can be life-changing.

In this article you can find five steps that have made it easier for me to let go over the years.

I hope they will help you too.

Step 1: Know the benefits of not letting go.

Why is it sometimes hard to let go of something?

Well, to be honest, there are advantages and benefits to not letting go. At least for instant gratification and in the short run.

• You get to keep feeling like you are right. And like the other person is wrong. And that can be a pleasant feeling and way to look at the situation at hand.
• You can assume the victim role. And get attention, support and comfort from other people.
• You don’t have to go out into the scary unknown. You can cling to what you know instead, to what is familiar and safe even if it’s now just a dream of what you once had.

I have not let go of things in the past because of these reasons. I still sometimes delay letting go of things because of those benefits above.

But I am also conscious of the fact that they are something I get out of not letting go. And I know that in the end they are not worth it.

Because…

• What will the long-term consequences be in my life if I do not let go?
• How will it affect the next 5 years in my life and the relationships I have both with other people and with myself?

The mix of knowing how those benefits will hurt me in the long run and of knowing that there are even bigger benefits that I can get from letting go become a powerful motivator that pushes me on to let go for my own sake and happiness.

Step 2: Accept what is, then let go.

When you accept what is, that this has happened then it becomes easier to let go.

Why?

Because when you’re still struggling in your mind against what has happened then you feed that memory or situation with more energy.

You make what someone said or did even bigger and more powerful in your mind than it might have been in reality.

By accepting that it simply has happened – that you were rejected after a date for example – and letting it in instead of trying to push it away something odd happens after a while.

The issue or your memory of the situation becomes less powerful in your mind. You don’t feel as upset or sad about it as you did before. You become less emotionally attached to it.

And so it becomes easier to let go and for you to move on with your life.

Step 3: Forgive.

If someone wrongs you then it will probably cause you pain for a while.

But after that you have a choice.

You can refuse to let go of what happened. And instead let it interfere with your relationship and replay what happened over and over in your mind.

Or you can choose to forgive.

First accepting what happened can be helpful to make it easier to forgive.

Another thing you can do is not to focus on forgiving because it is “something you’re supposed to do”.

Instead, if you like, find the motivation to forgive for you own sake. Do it for your own well-being, happiness and for the time you have left in your life.

Because, as Catherine Ponder says:

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

And that you forgive does not mean that you have to stay passive towards your future.

You may for example choose to forgive but also to spend less time or no time in the future with someone who has hurt you.

Step 4: Focus on what you CAN influence in your life.

By reliving what happened over and over in your mind you aren’t really changing anything.

Unless you have a time-machine you don’t have any control over the past.

And being distracted or worried by things that you cannot control in your life in any way right now doesn’t help.

So ask yourself:

• What CAN I focus my time and energy on instead to actually make positive progress or a change in my life?
• And what is one small step I can take today to get started with that?

My experience has been that by switching my focus from what I cannot influence to what I actually have influence over and by doing that over and over again – by using questions like the ones above – it becomes easier and easier to stop worrying and to let go of what has happened or what I cannot control.

Step 5: Let go again (if necessary).

If you let go of something that happened or some distraction in your life then that might not be the end of it.

Life is not always that neat. The issue or distraction might pop up again.

Then let it go once more.

I have found that each time I let something go it pops up less and less frequently and it has less power over me.

Plus, this extra practice will make it easier to let go in the future. Letting go is something you’ll get better at over time just like for example keeping an optimistic mindset during tough times.