Best Self Magazine

The Liberating Power of Forgiveness

The Liberating Power of Forgiveness
Photograph by Noah Silliman

How I left my pain in the past, unblocked negative energies and regained creative control of my life following a 3-part forgiveness process.

I closed the door, backed out of the driveway and drove away. The house grew smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror as I repeated my prayer of forgiveness. I was ready to let him, and this part of my life go — I knew I had to. I drove around the corner and lost sight of the house and never went back… until eighteen months later, only days after his passing, when I returned to see a giant blue metal storage pod plonked on the driveway being filled with his belongings. He didn’t need them anymore. 

I nervously walked into the house, knowing he wouldn’t be there but wanting nothing more than to see

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Best Self Magazine

Best Self Magazine3 min read
How I Overcame Test Anxiety and Actionable Strategies High School Students Can Use to Ace Standardized Exams
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes My journey from an average SAT scorer to achieving a perfect score and eventually founding Prep Expert has been both challenging and enlightening. Along this path, one of the most significant hurdles I faced was tes
Best Self Magazine7 min read
How I Left: Reflections on My Journey into Marriage…and Out
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes — My grandmother was fourteen when a man in her Southern Italian village asked to marry her. He was twenty-eight, a stranger to Gramma. She said, No! But her mother told her, “Marry him. He’ll take you to America.”
Best Self Magazine6 min read
Success & Unworthiness: A Lifelong Struggle with Low Self-Confidence
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes — I have thought a lot about how I went from low self-esteem at age 15 to…well, low self-esteem at age 78. This admittedly does not make the kind of narrative arc that publishers respond to. But however little progr

Related Books & Audiobooks