Is there someone you still can't bring yourself to forgive? Maybe it's a friend who betrayed a confidence, a partner who broke your trust, or a version of yourself from ten years ago that you're still quietly punishing. If you've ever felt that holding onto that hurt is somehow keeping you safe, I'd like to offer you a different way of looking at it.
I recently sat down with Stephanie Puente, a transformational coach and professional speaker, to talk about the practice of forgiveness — and what struck me most was that word, practice. Not a decision. Not an event. A practice, like brushing your teeth.
Forgiveness Is Hygiene, Not a One-Off Decision
Stephanie offered an image I keep coming back to. Every day we shower and brush our teeth, because we move through the world and we pick things up along the way. Forgiveness, she suggests, does the same job for your emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing — it cleanses what you've accumulated so your channel stays open.
That reframe matters, because most of us treat forgiveness as a single heroic act. We expect to think it once and be done with it. Stephanie was honest that she wants it to work that way too — and that it simply doesn't. Forgiveness is something you live into over time, and the harder the hurt, the longer that takes.
Seeing it as daily hygiene takes the pressure off. You're not failing because the feeling came back this morning. You're just due for another pass.
Forgiveness Is a Shift in Perception
The second idea Stephanie shared comes from a well-known spiritual text, and it's this: forgiveness is a shift in perception that removes a block to your awareness of the good that's already here.
Think about what happens when your attention is locked on resentment. Whatever you focus on is what you see more of. So while you're rehearsing the wrong, the solutions, the opportunities, the small blessings sitting right in front of you simply don't register. They haven't gone anywhere — you just can't see them from where you're standing.
Stephanie pointed out that alongside our five senses, we have higher faculties: imagination, intuition, memory, will, reason, and perception. We can't control the facts and conditions of our lives. We can choose the perception we bring to them. That's the lever forgiveness pulls.
And this is the part people often need reassuring about: forgiveness is not agreeing that what happened was okay. You can't change the facts. What changes is your relationship with them — so the event can still be part of your story without having power over you.
Why Forgiveness Feels So Hard
I asked Stephanie why something so clearly good for us is so difficult. Her answer was about well-worn thinking.
We have familiar highways of thought, and underneath them, beliefs about who we are and what's possible for us. When something happens, it can light up those old beliefs — about what we deserve in relationships, in our health, in our finances. We reach for the events of the past as proof that the belief is true. Then, when we try to stretch into something better, the familiar thinking rises up to pull us back.
What I find useful here is that forgiveness isn't only backward-looking. It's what lets you dream beyond what has been. You are more than your mistakes, more than a failure in business or in love, and more than the level of vitality you've known so far.
The People Hardest to Forgive Are Your "Sacred Friends"
Stephanie shared a concept she attributes to the Dalai Lama's teaching. Some people are easy to love and some situations are easy to forgive. Then there are sacred friends — the people and circumstances that are genuinely difficult to forgive.
The invitation is to see those as a blessing, because the hard ones are what expand your heart. Every one of us wants greater fulfilment: in our health, our relationships, our work, how we spend our time. But while you're tuned to the hurt — often without realising it — you're not a match for that fulfilment. You can't see the ideas or openings that would bring it closer.
There's a related reframe Stephanie offered for the really difficult ones: consider that every act is either an expression of love or a call for love, however unskilfully it comes out. Perhaps that person was operating at the very best level of awareness they had in that moment. You're not excusing the behaviour; you're separating the being from the behaviour. In my experience that's where compassion starts to breathe — and compassion is what makes space inside you.
A Practice You Can Start Today
Stephanie shared a loving-kindness practice she attributes to the Dalai Lama, and it's beautifully simple. You say it first for yourself, then for someone easy to love, and only then for the sacred friend:
May I be truly happy. May I live in peace. May I live in love. May I know the power of forgiveness. And may I live in the recognition that my life has deep meaning and good purpose.
The instruction I appreciated most was her permission slip: it's completely okay if it feels like you're just saying words and don't believe them yet. Keep going anyway. Like brushing your teeth, it's the repetition that does the work. Over time you notice the charge has gone out of it.
Why This Reaches Further Than You Think
Here's where my own holistic lens kicks in. Stephanie made the point that you can't be constricted in one area of life and expect abundance in another — how you do one thing tends to be how you do everything.
I see this constantly. Someone's trust gets broken in a relationship and the protective layers go up — but they don't go up selectively. They show up when the next person offers them good advice. They show up in how willing someone is to be seen, to ask for help, to invest in their own health. And the person in front of them never gets to meet the real them, because there are so many layers of protection in the way.
Suppressed bitterness doesn't stay tidily in the mind, either. Chronically carried emotion shows up in the body — in sleep, in digestion, in how wired or how flat you feel. That's not an argument for forcing yourself to feel fine. It's an argument for doing the slow work of letting go, because the benefits don't stay in one compartment.
Key Takeaways
- Treat forgiveness as a daily practice, not a one-off decision you either succeed or fail at.
- Forgiving doesn't mean agreeing. You're not changing the facts — you're changing your relationship with them.
- Start with yourself. Forgive the late night, the skipped workout, the stumble — with compassion, but without letting yourself off the hook for tomorrow.
- Name your sacred friends. The hardest person to forgive is usually the one with the most growth attached to them.
- Separate the being from the behaviour. Assume the other person acted from the best awareness they had, then decide what you need.
- Use the loving-kindness lines daily — for yourself first, then someone easy to love, then the difficult one.
- Expect it to take time, and notice the shift rather than waiting for a switch to flip.
At me&my wellness, I work with people on the whole picture — nutrition, movement, sleep, stress and the mental and emotional load they're carrying. And I'll be honest: I've watched beautifully designed health plans stall because of something unforgiven sitting underneath them. You can eat well and train well and still feel stuck if your energy is going into holding someone hostage in your mind. Forgiveness isn't a soft add-on to a health plan. For plenty of people, it's the thing that finally lets the rest of it work.
So pick the easy one first. Practise on the stumble, the small slight, the thing from last Tuesday. Build the muscle there, and the sacred friends become possible.
Want to go deeper on this? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Anthony at meandmywellness.com.au