Overcoming the “ Good Person Complex ”
Everyone wants to be a “ good person ” and this vague life aspiration is almost always accompanied by the desire to be a forgiving person . Forgiving , to us , has become a prerequisite to becoming worthy and valuable human beings .
After all , only bad people refuse to forgive others , right ? And we don ’ t want to be bad people . No .
Putting aside this 5-year-old logic was difficult for me to do growing up . As the first born child of my family , I was always trying to be the “ good ” and “ responsible ” person who obeyed what was “ right ” both in the eyes of my religious parents and God . Inevitably , a large part of being a “ good person ” was about forgiveness ; was trying to forget the manipulative , hurtful and aggressive behaviours of others that spread around like poison .
Deep down I truly believed that forgiveness was like a magical wand that was waved to make everything better . Unconsciously you might believe the same thing .
How many times , for instance , have you thought , “ If I forgive , I will feel better and everything painful will go away ”? If you ’ re like most people , you ’ ve likely thought this more than once in your life .
And so , like me , you might have tried and tried to be forgiving . You might have thought “ Yes ! I ’ ve forgiven that person ,” but found yourself secretly resenting them to their very core . You might have even thought that forgiving someone in your life would help them to heal , but later found them unchanged and just as miserable .
The truth is that we carry around such deep misunderstandings and twisted ideals of forgiveness that we never genuinely feel mended and we never authentically find closure .
We make forgiveness into a duty ; a box on a checklist to be ticked . But the reality is that forgiveness is nothing like what we have been taught . And forgiveness really has nothing to do with being a good person .
5 Myths You ’ ve Been Taught About Forgiveness
It took me a long time to discover what forgiveness wasn ’ t and I thank my guide Sol ( https :// www . facebook . com / qero . sol ) and the shamanic journeying I ’ ve done for helping me to become more awakened to reality .