A Guide from a Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka!
There is a particular kind of prison that has no walls and no bars, yet it can be the most confining and soul-crushing prison of all. It is the prison of resentment. To live in this prison is to be chained to the past, to be tethered to a person and a pain that has already caused you so much harm. It is the experience of carrying a backpack filled with hot, heavy coals, a burden that you pick up every single morning and that burns you, and only you, throughout the day. It is the exhausting, all-consuming, and often secret work of keeping a wound open, of replaying a betrayal, of feeding an anger that, while righteous and justified, is ultimately consuming your own life force.
If you are carrying the heavy weight of a deep hurt or a profound resentment, you may be at a difficult and painful crossroads. A part of you, a wise and weary part, may be longing to put down the heavy coals, to be free from the exhausting burden of your anger. But another, equally powerful part of you, a part that is a fierce and loyal guardian of your wounded heart, may be screaming, “No! To forgive is to say that what they did was okay. It is to let them off the hook. It is to betray my own pain.” You may feel that your anger is the only thing that is holding the other person accountable, the only thing that honors the depth of the wrong that was done to you. And so you remain in the prison, believing that your suffering is the price of justice.
I want to meet you in that place of profound and painful conflict with a truth that is as liberating as it is radical: True forgiveness is not about them. It is not about condoning their actions. It is not about letting them off the hook. It has almost nothing to do with them at all. The courageous, difficult, and beautiful act of forgiveness is a profound and radical act of self-liberation. It is the most powerful gift you can ever give to yourself. It is the moment you realize that you are the one holding the key to your own prison cell, and you decide, for the sake of your own precious life and your own peace, to finally turn the key and to walk free.
This article is your comprehensive and deeply human guide to understanding this misunderstood and life-altering journey. We will dismantle the painful myths that keep us chained to our resentment. We will explore, with compassion, the true cost of not forgiving. And we will illuminate a gentle, non-pressuring, and empowering path toward the freedom that is waiting for you. With deep empathy and insights from the expert team at Mind to Heart, let’s explore this courageous path together. The best psychotherapist in Dhaka is not a judge, but a compassionate guide on this journey to your own freedom.
To truly begin this journey, we must first clear away the heavy, cultural debris that has made the very concept of forgiveness so painful and so confusing. We must, with a fierce and compassionate clarity, understand what forgiveness is not. A Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka from Mind to Heart would tell you that this is the most important and most liberating part of the entire conversation.
First and foremost, forgiveness is not forgetting. It is not a form of spiritual or psychological amnesia. To be asked to “forgive and forget” is a profound act of violence against your own reality. The wound you received, the betrayal you endured—it happened. It is a part of your story. It has shaped who you are. To forget it would be to erase a part of your own history. True forgiveness is not about deleting the memory file; it is about changing its emotional charge. It is the process of healing the memory so that it is no longer a “hot,” live-streaming event that can hijack your present moment, but a “cold,” integrated part of your past. It is the journey of transforming the memory from an open, bleeding wound into a healed, quiet scar. The scar is a testament to the fact that you were hurt, but it is also, and more powerfully, a testament to the fact that you healed.
Secondly, and this is the most crucial myth to dismantle, forgiveness is not condoning or excusing the other person’s harmful behavior. This is the great and painful misunderstanding that keeps so many of us locked in our resentment. We believe that to forgive is to say, “What you did was okay.” This could not be further from the truth. You can forgive someone while still believing, with every fiber of your being, that what they did was wrong, that it was harmful, and that it was inexcusable. Forgiveness is an internal process. It is about your relationship with your own heart and your own past. Justice, accountability, and consequences are external processes. They are about the other person’s relationship with their own behavior. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can forgive a person and still choose to press charges. You can forgive a person and still choose to end the relationship. Forgiveness is not about letting them off the hook; it is about taking your own heart and your own well-being off of their hook. A tBest Psychotherapist in Dhaka can help you to hold this complex but liberating distinction.
And this leads to the third essential truth: forgiveness is not reconciliation. You do not have to let the person who hurt you back into your life in order to forgive them. In fact, if the person is unremorseful, if they are still unsafe, or if the relationship is fundamentally toxic, then to reconcile with them would be an act of self-abandonment, not of healing. Forgiveness and boundaries are not enemies; they are powerful and essential allies. You can forgive someone from a great and safe distance. You can send them a quiet, internal wish for their own healing, while at the same time, you lovingly and fiercely bolt the door to ensure that they can never harm you again. The Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka at Mind to Heart are experts at helping people to build these strong, self-protective boundaries as a part of the forgiveness process.
So, if forgiveness is not about them, why is it so important for us? To understand this, we must look with clear and compassionate eyes at the profound and often hidden cost of not forgiving. To hold onto a deep and chronic resentment is not a passive state; it is an incredibly active, and incredibly depleting, physiological and psychological process.
On a biological level, to be in a state of resentment is to be in a constant, low-grade “fight” response. Every time you ruminate on the past hurt, every time you replay the betrayal in your mind, you are sending a fresh jolt of stress hormones—adrenaline and cortisol—into your bloodstream. Your nervous system is perpetually simmering in a state of high alert. This is not a metaphor; it is a physiological reality. A Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka understands this deep mind-body connection. This chronic state of stress has a devastating, corrosive effect on your physical health. It can suppress your immune system, it can increase your blood pressure, it can disrupt your digestion, and it can contribute to chronic pain and fatigue. To hold onto anger is, as the famous quote says, like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. The only person being harmed by the poison of your resentment is you.
Psychologically, the cost is just as immense. The anger and the resentment consume a colossal amount of your precious mental and emotional energy. It is energy that is being spent on the past, and is therefore unavailable for your present or your future. It can prevent you from being truly present with the people you love. It can tether you to a story of victimhood, robbing you of your own sense of agency and power. And it can become the very foundation of a clinical depression or an anxiety disorder. The work of forgiveness is the work of reclaiming all of that precious, wasted energy and bringing it back home to your own life.
So, what does this courageous and liberating journey of forgiveness actually look like? It is not a one-time decision, but a process, a journey with its own gentle and powerful steps. A Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka will not rush you through this process, but will be your patient and compassionate guide. While the journey is unique for everyone, it often involves a few key movements, as beautifully articulated by leaders like Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The first step is always to Tell the Story. The wound must be seen, it must be heard, and it must be validated. You must have a safe and compassionate space to tell the whole, unvarnished truth of what happened and how it has impacted you. This is not about blame; it is about acknowledging the reality of your pain. This is often the first and most powerful work you will do with a therapist. To have a skilled professional, like one of the Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka at Mind to Heart, listen to your story with unwavering belief and non-judgment is a profoundly healing experience that is the antidote to the silence and the invalidation you may have endured.
The second step is to Name the Hurt. This is the courageous work of allowing yourself to feel the full spectrum of the pain that the event caused, without judgment. It is about making space for your rage, for your grief, for your deep sadness, for your fear. For so long, you may have been suppressing these feelings or believing they were “wrong.” In the safe container of therapy, you can finally allow these powerful emotions to move through you. This is not about wallowing in the pain; it is about honoring it as a necessary part of the healing process.
The third step is the act of Granting Forgiveness. This is a profound and personal choice, and it has no timeline. It may happen months or years after the hurt. It is a conscious and intentional decision to release the burden of the resentment for your own sake. It is the moment you decide that you are no longer willing to drink the poison. It is the moment you choose your own peace over your righteous anger. This is often not a one-time event, but a practice, a choice you may have to make over and over again.
And the final step is to consciously Renew or Release the Relationship. This is a choice that is completely separate from the internal act of forgiveness. If the person who hurt you has taken genuine responsibility for their actions, if they are safe, and if you both desire it, you may choose to work on rebuilding a new, more honest relationship. But if the person is unremovable, if they are still unsafe, or if the trust has been irrevocably broken, then the final act of forgiveness is to release the relationship with peace, to lovingly and firmly close that door, and to walk forward, unburdened, into your own new life.
The journey of forgiveness is one of the most courageous and life-altering you can take. It is the path from the prison of the past to the wide-open landscape of your own present and future. You do not have to, and you should not have to, walk this path alone. If you are looking for a guide to help you find the courage to forgive, the Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka is one who can hold both your righteous anger and your deep hurt with profound, unwavering, and non-judgmental compassion. Mind to Heart has the Best Psychotherapist in Dhaka. Our top online and offline counsellors are deeply committed to guiding clients through this delicate, sacred, and life-altering process. The best psychologist in Bangladesh at our clinic, a top counselling psychologist at Mind to Heart, will be your steadfast ally as you find your way, at your own pace, to your own freedom. Let the best therapists at Mind to Heart help you to put down the heavy, burning coals you have been carrying. Forgiveness is not for them. It is for you. It is the final, beautiful, and most powerful act of reclaiming your own precious heart.