ELIZABETH ELLAMES

I came across a quote today by Margarita Nazarenko that stopped me in my tracks:

“Closure is not real. There is no conversation with the person who hurt you that will un-hurt you. Stop chasing it from them. Be the wall for your inner child and say: you hurt us, get out, I’ve got this.”

I understood it straight away.

From my own experience, I can see how there have been times when I have had to become that wall for myself. Not because I wanted to hold on to anger, resentment or bitterness, but because I eventually understood that my healing could not depend upon the person who had hurt me.

There is something quite liberating about recognising this.

We can spend an enormous amount of emotional energy hoping that someone will finally understand what they did, acknowledge the pain they caused, apologise in the way we need them to, or give us the explanation that somehow makes everything make sense.

But sometimes that conversation never happens. And even when it does, words cannot change what has already happened. An apology may be meaningful. Accountability can be important. A genuine conversation can sometimes bring understanding. But none of these things can go backwards in time and remove the experience itself.

That is where I have come to see forgiveness differently.

I am able to personally forgive.

For me, forgiveness is not saying that what happened was acceptable. It is not excusing someone’s behaviour, denying the hurt, or pretending that the relationship can return to what it was.

Forgiveness is something I can choose to do within myself.

I can acknowledge what happened. I can acknowledge that it hurt me. I can acknowledge the impact it had on me and the parts of myself that needed protection. And, eventually, I can choose to stop carrying the emotional weight of what someone else did.

But forgiveness doesn’t mean I have to have closure with them, sit down with them, have to explain myself again, to hear their version of events and it certainly doesn’t mean I have to give them access to me again.

This is where forgiveness and discernment meet.

There was a time when I might have thought that being compassionate meant keeping the door open. Now I understand that compassion can include boundaries.

I can understand someone’s history without excusing their behaviour.

I can have compassion for their wounds without allowing those wounds to become permission to wound me.

I can forgive someone and still recognise that being around them is not healthy for me and I can wish someone well and still walk away.

And perhaps most importantly, I can become the person who protects the part of me that once needed someone else to do it.

That is what I hear in the words, 

“Be the wall for your inner child.”

There is something deeply nurturing about being able to say to that younger part of ourselves:

I see what happened.
I know it hurt.
You didn’t deserve that.
You don’t have to keep trying to make them understand.
I’ve got you now.

That is not about becoming gardened; it’s about becoming trustworthy to yourself.

Sometimes the greatest healing comes when we stop asking the person who hurt us to give us something they may never be capable of giving.

We stop asking them to validate our experience, stop waiting for the perfect apology, stop believing that one more conversation will finally make everything right.

And instead, we begin to give ourselves what we were hoping they would give us.

• Understanding.
• Protection.
• Validation.

Permission to leave, grieve and move forward.

For me, this is part of the movement from kindness into discernment.

Kindness says, “I understand.”

Discernment says, “And I understand what I need to do with that understanding.”

There is a difference between carrying resentment and carrying wisdom. Resentment keeps us emotionally tied to what happened.

Wisdom allows us to learn from it without allowing it to define the rest of our lives.

So perhaps closure is not something another person gives us after all. Perhaps closure is the moment we realise we no longer need anything from them to move forward.

We can forgive without forgetting, understand without excusing, love without remaining available, and release someone without reopening the door. 

And we can say, with compassion and certainty:

I forgive you, I’ve learned from this, and I no longer need you to make it right. And you no longer have access to the parts of me that I now know how to protect.

And you no longer have access to the parts of me that I now know how to protect.

That, for me, is not bitterness.

It is self-respect and the presence of discernment. And perhaps it’s one of the deepest forms of healing we can give ourselves.

Heart to Heart, Elizabeth