Journal Prompts: Forgiveness & Trauma

I always try to keep the journal prompts that I write relevant to my healing journey.

Somehow, someway – the last couple weeks I have found myself exploring forgiveness. Not in regard to the whole of my childhood – mostly around the betrayals of my father.

After a few very emotionally overwhelming days of toying around with this idea I came to the conclusion, personally, that I am not there. And I refuse to qualify it with the idea that “eventually I’ll get there” because I may not – ever.

Forgiveness is SO personal. Every survivor heals differently, and whether forgiveness finds a place in someone’s journey is solely up to them.

Digging Into Forgiveness

In order to get to where I am right now, I wrote out some prompts for myself to dig deeper into what I was feeling and how it fit into my own journey.

I hope that the following few prompts will help you explore what forgiveness means to you and whether or not it fits into your healing.

The worst thing in the world that you can do to yourself is lose authenticity in your healing. Never push yourself into parts of healing that don’t feel right.

Journal Prompts

1. When you hear the word Forgiveness what does it make you feel and think?
2. Are there people in your life that you have forgiven for actions against you? Discuss specifically how you moved through forgiveness, or why you haven’t.
3. Discuss a time you chose not to forgive someone and why.
4. Do you believe that forgiveness is necessary for healing childhood trauma? Discuss why or why not.
5. Have you ever felt pressured to forgive someone? Discuss how you were pressured and how that made you feel.
6. How have you set boundaries with someone who is pressuring you to forgive? Or, how would you set boundaries in this type of situation?
7. Letting Go vs. Forgiveness: do you believe there is a difference? Please explain.

All Healing Journeys Are Different

I hope these prompts help you explore what forgiveness means to you as you move through your trauma healing and recovery.

I know my own journey around what forgiveness means to me is still evolving. The hardest part for me is patience with my process and knowing that I don’t have to have it all figured out right now.

Healing the hurt and betrayals of childhood trauma and abuse is seriously heavy lifting. Don’t let anyone pressure you to carry more than you are able.

Share Your Writing

As always, I enjoy reading pieces inspired by the prompts I write, so if any of these prompts speak to you feel free to tag them back to this post for all of us to share in and read.

If journal prompts are your thing – be sure to visit my journal prompts post index page.

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