Forgiveness Isn't Saying It Is Okay

The memory returns without permission.

A sentence. A face. A room. A familiar tone of voice. Suddenly, the old injury is present again. Your body tightens. Your thoughts accelerate. The desire for justice rises.

You may wonder why healing has not arrived. You may believe forgiveness requires you to minimize the harm, restore the relationship, or pretend the pain has disappeared.

It does not.

Forgiveness is not saying it is okay. It is refusing to let the person who harmed you retain authority over your peace.

Forgiveness Begins Where Healing Begins

In Chapter 7 of I³: Information, Interpretation, Intensity – Unlock the Inner Strength Behind Your Negative Emotions, Dr. Greg Stewart presents healing through four columns.

1. The story.
2. The emotions.
3. The healing work.
4. Peace.

The story produces the emotions. The healing work produces peace. Columns two and four are results. Column three is where your participation matters.

Forgiveness is the gateway to that work. Without forgiveness, a person remains tied to the injury and to the person who caused it.

This does not mean the injury was small. It does not mean the offender deserves access to you. It means you begin releasing the authority to judge, punish, condemn, seek revenge, or personally execute justice.

You stop carrying the offender into every future room.

Research supports this distinction. Forgiveness is generally understood as a change in thoughts, emotions, and motivations toward the person who caused harm. It is not the same as excusing the offense, forgetting the offense, or reconciling with the offender (Weir, 2017; Liester, 2025).

What Forgiveness Is Not

The distinction must remain precise.

Forgiveness is:

• Not forgetting.
• Not waiting for an apology.
• Not ceasing to feel pain.
• Not a one-time event.
• Not trusting.
• Not reconciliation.
• Not losing.

It is winning.

Forgiveness does not require renewed contact. It does not require restored trust. It does not require a conversation, an explanation, or a second chance.

A person may forgive and still maintain permanent distance. A person may forgive and still report abuse. A person may forgive and still pursue lawful accountability. A person may forgive and still acknowledge that the harm was deliberate, severe, and unacceptable.

The forgiveness occurs within you. Accountability may occur elsewhere.

The American Psychological Association describes forgiveness as distinct from justice and reconciliation. It can reduce the burden of chronic anger and stress without removing appropriate boundaries or consequences (Weir, 2017).

Stage One: Release the Pursuit of Justice

Forgiveness stage one begins with a direct question:

Have I forgiven them?

The question does not ask whether the person deserves forgiveness. It asks whether you are willing to release the pursuit of justice from your own hands.

This is difficult because the mind often creates a private courtroom. It rehearses the offense. It imagines the offender exposed, punished, humiliated, or finally forced to understand the damage.

The vision can feel morally satisfying. It can also keep you emotionally attached.

Many films and television stories understand this instinct. A wounded character pursues revenge until the offender’s life is finally in reach. Then someone says, “Do not do it. It will not make you feel any better.”

The warning is accurate. Revenge promises relief but often preserves the relationship between the injured person and the offender. The offender remains central. The wound remains active. The future remains organized around the past.

Research on rumination reaches a similar conclusion. Repeatedly reviewing an offense tends to intensify anger and negative emotion. Compassionate reappraisal, by contrast, can increase forgiveness, empathy, perceived control, and emotional calm while reducing intrusive thoughts about the offense (Witvliet et al., 2022).

Releasing the pursuit of justice does not declare the offender innocent. It declares that your peace will no longer depend on the offender’s punishment.

Stage Two: Release the Need for Justice

Stage two is harder.

Stage one releases the pursuit of justice. Stage two asks what happens if justice is never served.

If your peace depends on the offender receiving the punishment you believe is deserved, then your emotional health remains connected to the no-control column. Your peace depends on the environment. It depends on another person’s choices, recognition, repentance, exposure, or punishment.

That is a fragile foundation.

The I³ framework separates the control column from the no-control column. You may control your interpretation, response, emotional goals, micro goals, and long-term direction. You do not control another person’s conscience, confession, consequences, or transformation.

Holding tightly to the desire for justice keeps you anchored to what you cannot control.

The chapter’s theological argument goes further. Justice means equal evaluation and equal scales of measurement. If we insist that justice must be executed on those who harmed us, we must also consider what equal justice would require of us.

This does not mean every person has committed the same acts. It means every person possesses a capacity for wrongdoing. We are often most biased against the sins and weaknesses we do not personally struggle with. We extend understanding to our own tendencies while demanding severe judgment for another person’s tendencies.

The doctrine of depravity addresses propensity, not identical behavior. It argues that every human heart requires grace. The issue is not whether everyone has committed the same wrong. The issue is whether anyone can claim complete moral superiority.

Dr. Stewart places this argument beneath Matthew 6:15: “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

He also points to Matthew 7:2: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

The theological center is not that the injury did not matter. The center is that God did not merely demand justice from a distance. God volunteered to take the justice of those who traumatized Him.

That is love.

Readers who do not share the author’s faith can still recognize the psychological movement. Complete freedom requires releasing the belief that your healing must wait for another person to suffer. Otherwise, the offender continues to govern your inner life.

The Panama Canal Rule and the Interpretation Gap

The I³ process follows the Panama Canal Rule. Each lock must fill before the next one can open.

• Lock 1: Information. What happened.
• Lock 2: Interpretation. What you believe the event means.
• Lock 3: Intensity. The emotional energy produced by that meaning.

Lock 3 cannot fill correctly until Locks 1 and 2 are secured.

Trauma often widens the interpretation gap. You know what happened, but your mind adds conclusions:

• I am permanently damaged.
• No one is safe.
• People always betray you.
• I will never have peace unless they pay.
• My future depends on their regret.

These conclusions may feel like facts. They are interpretations.

Forgiveness does not erase information. It does not falsify the story. It challenges the interpretation that says the offender must control your future.

Ask better questions.

• What is true about what happened?
• What am I adding to the story?
• What remains under my control?
• What emotional goal reflects the person I want to become?
• What is one micro goal I can practice today?

The RHWR grid can guide this examination:

• Is this interpretation Rational?
• Is it Healthy?
• Is it Wise?
• Is it Right?

A desire for safety may be rational, healthy, wise, and right. A desire to remain consumed by revenge may feel justified while failing the other three tests.

Make Peace the Emotional Goal

Forgiveness does not require emotional numbness. Pain may return. Anger may rise. Memories may remain.

The goal is not to become indifferent to injustice. The goal is to stop making peace contingent on justice.

Set a macro goal: I will become free from the offender’s control over my inner life.

Then establish micro goals:

• Do not rehearse the punishment scene tonight.
• Name the emotion without obeying it.
• Separate the offender’s behavior from your worth.
• Maintain a necessary boundary without adding hatred.
• Pray, reflect, or write a release statement if those practices fit your convictions.
• Return your attention to the present moment.

This is interior mastery. It is not denial. It is disciplined ownership of your response.

A simple statement may help:

What happened was wrong. It mattered. I will not excuse it. I will not surrender my peace to it. I release the authority to execute justice myself.

Forgiveness may need to be repeated. The return of anger does not mean the first decision was false. It means healing is a process.

Research on posttraumatic growth distinguishes intrusive thinking from deliberate reflection. Intrusive thinking repeatedly pulls a person back into distress. Deliberate reflection can help a person reconstruct meaning and develop a stronger, more coherent view of life (Eames & O’Connor, 2022).

Do not force growth. Do not call the trauma a gift before you are ready. Begin with truth. Continue with safety. Move toward freedom at a sustainable pace.

Peace Is Column Four

The final column is peace.

Peace does not mean the offender received what you believed was deserved. Peace means your healing no longer depends on that outcome.

You have moved from the no-control column to the control column. You have stopped asking the pre-event question, “Why did this happen to me?” and begun asking the healing question, “What will I do with what happened?”

This is the fork in the road after trauma.

One path leads toward bitterness, entitlement, self-righteousness, addiction, and endless review. The other leads toward responsibility, emotional goals, internal strength, and interior mastery.

Forgiveness is not saying it is okay.

It is saying the harm will not receive the final word. The offender will not occupy the center of your identity. Justice may remain in the hands of God, the courts, the community, or the consequences of life.

Your peace can begin before the verdict.

Continue the I³ Conversation

Dr. Greg Stewart explains the I³ framework, pronounced “I cubed,” in his TEDx talk.

Read the full framework in the revised edition of I³: Information, Interpretation, Intensity – Unlock the Inner Strength Behind Your Negative Emotions.

If trauma continues to affect your safety, relationships, sleep, or daily functioning, seek support from a qualified mental-health professional. Forgiveness should not be forced, rushed, or used to silence the need for protection.

References

American Psychological Association. (2017). Forgiveness can improve mental and physical health. Monitor on Psychology, 48(1). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/01/ce-corner

Buju, S., & Jugrin, D. (2021). A Christian model of forgiveness: An analysis from the perspective of modern psychological theories. International Journal of Education and Psychology in the Community, 11(1–2), 47–71. https://www.marianjournals.com/files/IJEPC_articles/Vol_11_no_1_and_2_2021/Buju_Jugrin_IJEPC_2021_1_2_47_71.pdf

Duc, T. (2025). Mindfulness and forgiveness as catalysts for stress reduction and social cohesion: A mixed-methods study in multicultural Binh Duong, Vietnam. The Open Psychology Journal, 18, e18743501415887. https://doi.org/10.2174/0118743501415887251010112959

Early, K. E., Holloway, A. L., & Welton, G. L. (2005). A look into forgiveness: The roles of intentionality, severity, and friendship. Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research, 10, 54–59. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.psichi.org/resource/resmgr/journal_2005/summer05_early.pdf

Eames, C., & O’Connor, D. (2022). The role of repetitive thinking and spirituality in the development of posttraumatic growth and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272036. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272036

Liester, M. B. (2025). The healing science of forgiveness. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-leading-edge/202506/the-healing-science-of-forgiveness

Weir, K. (2017). Forgiveness can improve mental and physical health. Monitor on Psychology, 48(1). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/01/ce-corner

Witvliet, C. V. O., Blank, S. L., & Gall, A. J. (2022). Compassionate reappraisal and rumination impact forgiveness, emotion, sleep, and prosocial accountability. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 992768. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.992768

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