I’ve been contemplating these questions deeply, especially after watching Charlie Kirk’s wife publicly express forgiveness to the person who murdered her husband. Her grace was extraordinary, but as I witnessed her pain still visibly raw, I wondered if what we were seeing was the beginning of a forgiveness journey rather than its completion.
This reflection isn’t about questioning her sincerity or spiritual capacity. Rather, it’s about uncovering a deeper truth many spiritual teachers hardly ever admit:
Premature forgiveness can create deeper wounds than the original injury.
In this week’s article, I’ll share why honoring where you truly are in your forgiveness journey isn’t just emotionally healthy and psychologically sound. It’s spiritually authentic and ultimately leads to the genuine healing and freedom most of us seek.
The Spiritual Pressure to Forgive
Across many spiritual and religious traditions, forgiveness is rightly held as a virtue. In Christianity, Jesus instructs his followers to forgive “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22). In Buddhism, forgiveness is seen as an essential practice for freeing oneself from suffering. In the Jewish tradition, the concept of teshuvah emphasizes reconciliation and repair. In Hinduism, forgiveness (kshama) is considered one of the great virtues that should be practiced regardless of circumstances.
In Hawaiian spiritual tradition, the practice of Ho’oponopono offers a powerful framework for forgiveness and reconciliation. This ancient practice, which means “to make right,” involves acknowledging wrongdoing, taking responsibility, making amends, and releasing the past. While beautiful in its intention, the modern popularization of Ho’oponopono sometimes oversimplifies the process, suggesting that simply repeating phrases like “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you” is enough, without the deeper inner work required.
Many Native American traditions view forgiveness as part of a larger communal healing process rather than merely an individual act. The emphasis is often on restoring harmony within the community and with the natural world. These traditions recognize that true forgiveness requires time, ceremony, and the support of the community. It is not expected to happen instantly or in isolation.
The wisdom in these teachings is profound. Yet when misunderstood or applied prematurely, even the most sacred guidance can lead to what psychologists now identify as “spiritual bypassing,” using spiritual practices to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.
The Forgiveness Formula
In my previous article on the three levels of forgiveness, I explored how true forgiveness unfolds through intellectual, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Understanding these levels helps us recognize that authentic forgiveness is not a single act but a process that honors the complexity of human emotions, psychological processes, and spiritual growth.
Through my work with the 12 Virtues of the Heart, I’ve come to understand a powerful formula for forgiveness:
Compassion + Understanding = Forgiveness.
When we cultivate these two virtues of the heart, compassion for the suffering of all involved (including ourselves) and understanding of the deeper context—true forgiveness can emerge naturally. But like any formula, it cannot be forced or artificially accelerated.
The Hidden Dangers of Premature Forgiveness
When we pressure ourselves to forgive before we’re emotionally ready, we often engage in what I call “spiritual performance,” going through the motions of forgiveness without the inner transformation that makes it real. This can create several significant problems:
- Repressed emotions that resurface in destructive ways. When we push down our authentic feelings in the name of spirituality, they don’t disappear—they go underground, often emerging later as depression, anxiety, or unexpected outbursts.
- Development of a spiritualized ego. Ironically, premature forgiveness can strengthen the ego rather than transcend it. We begin to identify as “the spiritual person who forgives,” creating a false self that judges others who struggle with forgiveness.
- Emotional disconnection. Forcing forgiveness can lead to a pattern of disconnecting from our emotional truth, making it harder to access our authentic feelings in other areas of life.
- Physical manifestations of unresolved trauma. Our bodies keep the score. When emotional pain isn’t processed, it often manifests as physical symptoms or illness.
- Blocked spiritual growth. Real spiritual development requires radical honesty. When we pretend to be more evolved than we are, we actually prevent the authentic growth that comes through acknowledging our human struggles.
As the psychologist Carl Jung wisely noted, “What you resist not only persists but will grow in size.” This applies perfectly to our attempts to bypass the natural emotions that arise when we’ve been hurt.
5 Signs You’re Not Ready to Forgive (And Why That’s Perfectly Okay)
How do you know if you’re genuinely ready to forgive or if you’re pressuring yourself prematurely? Here are five honest indicators that you might need more time:
1. Your Body Tells a Different Story Than Your Words
When you say “I forgive,” does your body tense? Do you feel a knot in your stomach, a tightness in your chest, or shallow breathing? Your body often knows your emotional truth before your conscious mind admits it. These physical responses aren’t spiritual failures, they’re your body’s wisdom telling you there’s more healing needed before forgiveness can be authentic.
Examples from daily life:
- You say you’ve forgiven a friend for breaking your trust, but you avoid being alone with them
- You claim to have moved past your spouse’s harsh words, but your jaw clenches whenever the topic arises
- You insist you’ve forgiven your parent, but you get a headache before every family gathering
- You tell others you’ve let go of workplace resentment, but your sleep is disrupted the night before team meetings
During a recent seminar I led, a participant insisted she had forgiven her father for childhood neglect. Yet every time she spoke about him, her shoulders hunched and her voice tightened. When I gently pointed this out, she began to cry, admitting, “I want to forgive him, but I don’t know how.” This honest acknowledgment became the beginning of her true healing journey.
2. You Feel Relief When You Admit You’re Not Ready
Pay attention to what happens in your body and emotions when you give yourself permission to say, “I’m not ready to forgive yet.” Does a weight lift? Do you feel a sense of authenticity and relief? This is often a clear sign that you’re honoring your truth by not rushing the process.
Examples from daily life:
- Finally admitting to your therapist that you’re still angry about your divorce brings unexpected tears of relief
- Telling a trusted friend you can’t yet forgive a betrayal makes your shoulders drop from your ears for the first time in months
- Writing in your journal about your unresolved hurt allows you to sleep soundly that night
- Acknowledging to yourself that a family wound still feels raw brings a surprising sense of peace
A client once told me, “When I finally admitted I wasn’t ready to forgive my business partner for betraying me, I felt like I could breathe again. The pressure to be ‘spiritually advanced’ was suffocating me.” This breathing room became the space where her genuine healing could begin.
3. You’re Still Making Sense of What Happened
Forgiveness requires understanding, and understanding takes time. If you’re still processing the events, still uncovering layers of impact, or still realizing how deeply you were affected, premature forgiveness can actually interrupt this important sense-making process.
Examples from daily life:
- You’re still discovering new information about what occurred in a relationship breakdown
- You find yourself repeatedly explaining the situation to others, each time with new insights
- You wake up with new realizations about how an event has affected your life
- You’re still connecting dots between past wounds and current patterns
- You continue to uncover ways the betrayal impacted areas of your life you hadn’t initially recognized
In the words of the psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” When something painful or traumatic happens, we need time to process the experience before we can authentically move toward forgiveness.
4. Your Anger Feels Fresh and Legitimate
Despite many spiritual traditions cautioning against anger, this emotion serves important functions in our healing. Anger, for example, often protects a deeper wound we carry within. Anger can also be clarifying, protective, and energizing. It can help us establish boundaries and recognize injustice.
Examples from daily life:
- You still feel a surge of righteous indignation when recounting the story
- The injustice of what happened still fuels your desire for meaningful change
- Your anger helps you maintain necessary boundaries with someone who hasn’t changed harmful behaviors
- The intensity of your emotional response hasn’t significantly diminished over time
- Your anger still provides clarity about what values were violated in the situation
If your anger still feels fresh and legitimate, it may be serving a purpose in your healing. As the Sufi poet Rumi wisely observed, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Sometimes our anger is illuminating aspects of the situation that need our attention before forgiveness can authentically emerge.
5. You Haven’t Yet Created Meaning From Your Suffering
At the highest level of forgiveness, what I call spiritual forgiveness in my three-levels framework, we experience a profound shift in perception. We begin to see how even our most painful experiences have contributed to our growth, learning, and evolution. It’s all part of a larger plan for the development of our consciousness.
Examples from daily life:
- You still see the painful event as random and meaningless rather than part of your larger life journey
- You can’t identify how the experience has contributed to your growth or understanding
- When asked what you’ve learned, your mind goes blank or fills with bitterness
- You don’t yet see how this experience connects to your larger life purpose or spiritual development
- The pain still feels like it happened “to you” rather than “for you”
If you can’t yet see any meaning or purpose in what happened, if the pain still feels senseless and pointless, you may not be ready for this level of forgiveness. And that’s perfectly okay. As the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck noted in “The Road Less Traveled,” meaning-making is a process that cannot be rushed.
A More Authentic Path to Forgiveness
Instead of forcing yourself to forgive others prematurely, consider this more honest approach:
Be Radically Honest With Yourself
The spiritual teacher Ram Dass once said, “The spiritual journey is not about acquiring something outside yourself. Rather, it’s about surrendering the ignorance and apparent separation in your own self.” This surrender begins with radical honesty about where you truly are in your healing journey.
Ask yourself: “Where am I really in the forgiveness process? Am I at the intellectual level, understanding that forgiveness would be beneficial but not yet feeling it? Am I working through the emotional level, beginning to feel compassion for the person who hurt me? Or have I reached the spiritual level, experiencing a shift in perception about the entire situation?”
This kind of honest self-assessment isn’t unspiritual; it’s the foundation of authentic spiritual growth.
Pray for the Capacity to Forgive
If you recognize you’re not ready to forgive, try this powerful alternative: pray not for immediate forgiveness, but for the capacity to forgive when the time is right. This might sound like:
“Divine Spirit/God/Source, I acknowledge I’m not yet ready to forgive. My heart is still too wounded, my understanding too limited. Please give me the wisdom, compassion, and understanding I need to forgive others in the same way that you always forgive me.”
When I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I’ve modified the section on forgiveness to reflect this deeper understanding: “Give me the compassion and understanding to forgive myself, others, and all of life in the same way that Thou forgives me.” This small change acknowledges that true forgiveness requires the development of heart virtues that may take time to cultivate.
This prayer honors where you are while opening to where you hope to be. It’s both humble and aspirational, a perfect spiritual stance.
When Someone Asks for Your Forgiveness
One of the most challenging situations is when someone directly asks, “Can you forgive me?” This creates immediate pressure. They’ve shown vulnerability by asking, and social norms often push us to say “yes” regardless of our true feelings.
In these moments, remember that authentic forgiveness cannot be rushed or forced, even when requested. Consider these more truthful responses:
- “I appreciate you asking for forgiveness, and I’m working toward that. I’m not fully there yet, but your acknowledgment means a lot to me.”
- “Thank you for having the courage to ask. I need more time to process what happened, but I value your willingness to address it.”
- “I’m still healing from what happened. Can we continue this conversation as I work through my feelings?”
These responses honor both their request and your authentic process. They create space for genuine forgiveness to emerge naturally, rather than forcing a premature “I forgive you” that doesn’t align with your heart’s truth.
Remember that being honest about where you are in your forgiveness journey isn’t unkind, but the foundation for authentic healing and potentially deeper connection in the future. True reconciliation requires truth from both parties, not just the person seeking forgiveness.
Focus on Your Own Liberation
In “A Course in Miracles,” forgiveness is defined not as pardoning sin but as recognizing that what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. Not because it didn’t happen, but because the perception from which you see the situation is limited. This profound teaching points to the ultimate spiritual understanding that forgiveness is about freeing ourselves from the prison of our perceptions rather than absolving others of wrongdoing.
Yet this advanced spiritual perspective can only be authentically realized by journeying deep into your feeling heart. You have to let your heart crack open, be willing to truly feel the pain, and allow it to move through you until it has run its course. We cannot leap to this understanding through intellectual gymnastics or spiritual performance. We must walk the path step by step, with integrity and truth.
This is where the heart virtues of compassion and understanding become essential. As we gradually develop these qualities through practices like my 12 Virtues of the Heart Guided Meditations, we create the inner conditions where forgiveness can emerge naturally, without forcing or pretending.
Honoring Those On The Forgiveness Journey
When you witness others expressing forgiveness after profound injury, like Erica Kirk following her husband’s murder, honor their process without expecting it to be your own. Her public expression of forgiveness may reflect where she is at this moment in her journey, perhaps at the intellectual level of understanding the importance of forgiveness, even as she continues to process the emotional dimensions of her loss.
Similarly, when the Amish community publicly forgave the shooter who killed five schoolchildren in 2006, or when family members of the Emanuel AME Church victims expressed forgiveness to Dylann Roof in 2015, these were deeply personal spiritual responses. While these expressions of forgiveness were profound and moving, they don’t establish a universal timeline or process that applies to everyone.
Rather than seeing such examples as the standard to which you should immediately rise, recognize them as unique expressions of individual spiritual journeys. You walk your own path toward healing and forgiveness, at your own pace, with your own challenges and breakthroughs. The authenticity of your process matters more than its speed.
Final Thoughts
If you find yourself struggling to forgive, know this: Your inability to forgive right now isn’t a spiritual failure. It’s an invitation to go deeper into the depth of your heart, the place where spiritual battles are fought. By acknowledging where you truly are, you create the conditions for authentic forgiveness to emerge naturally when the time is right.
The spiritual master Jesus taught forgiveness as a path to freedom, but he never suggested it should be inauthentic or premature. True forgiveness, the kind that liberates you, cannot be rushed or forced. When you pressure yourself to forgive prematurely, you often create more suffering and delay our authentic healing process.
From my hearat to yours,
