Forgiveness – The Weight We Carry, by Georgia Karstens

Some of our greatest lessons are woven into the experiences that have hurt us the most. Yet if we continue carrying those experiences as though they are still happening today, they begin to define us rather than teach us. We stop living in the present because we remain tethered to the past. Growth comes when we allow the lesson to remain while gently releasing the suffering attached to it….

As winter sets in, we naturally begin to turn inward. As the days become colder and the world around us slows, we often find ourselves spending more time in the quiet of home. Winter has a way of inviting reflection. It encourages us to pause, take notice, and observe what we have been carrying through the busyness of everyday life.

 Life has a way of leaving its mark on all of us. I don’t think any of us reaches adulthood without carrying something, whether it is grief, disappointment, trauma, guilt or regret. What we don’t process doesn’t simply disappear. Whether we are aware of it or not, it continues operating in the background, like an app quietly draining our battery, influencing the way we think, feel and move through life.

 Let’s be honest—we don’t get it right all of the time. We all make mistakes. We all have the capacity to hurt others, and we have all been hurt ourselves. Sometimes we act from fear, sometimes from ignorance, and sometimes from our own unresolved wounds. That doesn’t remove responsibility for our actions, but it reminds us that we are all learning, growing and, hopefully, becoming wiser and more compassionate as we move through life.

 So can we forgive?

 It is a question I have wrestled with many times.

 Are there acts so cruel, so unimaginable, that they can never be forgiven?

 History is filled with events that challenge everything we believe about compassion, justice and humanity. Yet alongside unimaginable suffering, we also find extraordinary examples of reconciliation. Germany confronted one of history’s darkest chapters and, over time, chose a different path forward. None of this erases what happened or excuses the suffering that was caused, but it reminds me that peace is only possible when we stop carrying the vengeance of yesterday into tomorrow.

Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question.  Maybe forgiveness isn’t about whether another person deserves it. Maybe it is about asking ourselves whether we deserve to keep carrying what happened.

 Sometimes forgiveness isn’t directed towards the person who caused the harm at all. Sometimes it is about forgiving ourselves—for what we couldn’t change, what we didn’t know, the guilt we continue to carry, or believing we should somehow have prevented the unthinkable. Sometimes it is simply about making peace with the life we wish we had, rather than the one that unfolded before us.

Like many people, I have experienced loss and grief that left me carrying emotions I didn’t know what to do with. Avoiding, numbing and simply pushing through seemed easier than sitting with the pain. Yet over time I realised that what we suppress doesn’t disappear. It settles quietly beneath the surface, shaping the way we see ourselves, our relationships and the way we move through the world. As the saying goes, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

For me, forgiveness has never been about pretending something didn’t happen or saying that what happened was okay. In many situations, it wasn’t okay. Forgiveness isn’t about forgetting. It is about freeing ourselves from the burden we continue to carry.

Some of our greatest lessons are woven into the experiences that have hurt us the most. Yet if we continue carrying those experiences as though they are still happening today, they begin to define us rather than teach us. We stop living in the present because we remain tethered to the past. Growth comes when we allow the lesson to remain while gently releasing the suffering attached to it.

Before the COVID lockdowns, I was introduced to Hawaiian philosophy through a dear friend named Charlie, who had spent many years immersed in the practice of Lomi Lomi, a sacred Hawaiian healing massage that embodies the spirit of Aloha—unconditional love. Through Charlie, I discovered the beauty of Hawaiian healing traditions, including Ho’oponopono, an ancient practice of reconciliation, healing and forgiveness that has stayed with me ever since.

Many people know Ho’oponopono through four simple phrases:

I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

While these words have become familiar in the Western world, I came to understand that Ho’oponopono is far more than repeating a mantra. It is a practice of restoring harmony within ourselves—of making right what has become out of balance.

Through Charlie, I was invited to participate in a traditional Ho’oponopono healing session with a Kumu, a respected Hawaiian teacher. Secretly, I hoped forgiveness would arrive like a perfectly wrapped gift—that everything I had been carrying would disappear in a single moment.

Instead, I discovered something much quieter.

Forgiveness wasn’t a destination. It was a practice. Like peeling back the layers of an onion, each layer revealed something more tender beneath it. Sometimes the process was uncomfortable, sometimes gentle, but every layer offered another opportunity to soften, to understand, and eventually to let go. I realised that healing wasn’t about reaching a finish line. It was about meeting each layer as it appeared, allowing what was ready to be released to soften in its own time.

As I delved more deeply into Lomi Lomi, one teaching stayed with me above all others—the story of the Bowl of Light (Ka Ipu Kukui).

It teaches that we are each born with a bowl filled with light, representing our true nature—our innocence, joy, love and connection to the Divine. As we move through life, every hurt, disappointment, betrayal, regret and resentment becomes a pōhaku, or stone, placed into that bowl. At first the stones seem small and insignificant, but then another is added, and another, until eventually we forget we are carrying them at all. One day we wonder why life feels so heavy, why relationships become difficult, why our bodies feel tense and why joy no longer comes as easily as it once did.

The invitation isn’t to deny those experiences or pretend the stones were never there. It is to begin laying them down, one by one, allowing the light that has always been within us to shine through once again. Our experiences remain part of our story, but they no longer have to become the burden we carry.

That teaching changed the way I understood forgiveness. It wasn’t about changing another person or waiting for an apology. It was about gently removing the stones I had placed into my own bowl. It was about restoring balance within myself so I could move through life with greater peace, compassion and Aloha.

I’ve also come to realise that the lessons we avoid have a way of returning. Different faces. Different relationships. Different circumstances. Yet somehow they carry the same feeling. Life has a way of inviting us back to the very place we’re resisting until we’re ready to respond differently. Whether we call that karma, a repeating pattern or our ancestral lineage, the invitation is the same—to stop carrying yesterday’s pain into today’s relationships.

In many spiritual traditions, karma isn’t seen as punishment but as a lesson that remains unfinished until it is understood. It asks us to become aware of the patterns we continue to repeat so we can respond with greater wisdom rather than reacting from old wounds. It asks us to see through another person’s eyes, recognising that every one of us is shaped by our experiences, our conditioning and our pain. When we choose forgiveness, we interrupt that cycle. We stop feeding the story, loosen our attachment to the past and create space for something new to emerge.

One of the greatest lessons I have learnt is that when we hold onto resentment, we remain connected to the very person or experience we long to move beyond. Many traditions describe these as energetic cords—unseen ties that continue to bind us to people, experiences and emotions from the past. Every time we replay the story, revisit the hurt or wait for an apology that may never come, we strengthen that connection and continue living inside that moment.

Forgiveness isn’t only about releasing ourselves. It is also about releasing the other person from the role we’ve continued asking them to play in our story. Once we let go, we no longer need them to apologise, understand or become someone different before we can find peace. Whether we see this as an energetic cord, an emotional attachment, a repeating pattern or simply a neurological pathway that is no longer being reinforced, the experience feels much the same. We become lighter, freer and no longer bound to carrying yesterday into today.

My understanding of forgiveness deepened even further as I explored the neuroscience behind it. What fascinated me was that modern research echoes what many spiritual traditions have taught for centuries—that forgiveness benefits the person who chooses to forgive. Neuroscience researcher Dr James Kimmel Jr. suggests that practising forgiveness can reduce activity in the brain’s pain networks, interrupt the cycles that keep us replaying hurt and seeking revenge, and strengthen the areas of the brain responsible for emotional regulation, perspective and compassion.

Perhaps the most powerful finding is that these changes occur within the person doing the forgiving. The other person doesn’t need to apologise. They don’t need to acknowledge what happened, and they don’t even need to know they have been forgiven. Our healing doesn’t depend on their response. It begins the moment we choose to release what we’ve been carrying.

Over the years, I’ve come to realise that forgiveness is one of the greatest acts of self-love. So often we wait for someone else to change before allowing ourselves to move forward, yet the person most in need of our compassion is often ourselves—for what we didn’t know, for what we couldn’t change, for the mistakes we’ve made, and for continuing to carry a burden that was never ours to hold forever.

There comes a day when you notice the situation no longer occupies your thoughts. It no longer sits quietly in the shadows waiting to be triggered. The lesson remains, but the suffering has softened. The weight has lifted.

For me, that is forgiveness. It isn’t forgetting nor condoning and it isn’t weakness.

It is the quiet courage to lay down one more stone, trusting that with every stone we release, we become a little lighter, a little freer, and a little closer to the person we have always been beneath the weight.

by Georgia Karstens