5 Common Blocks to Real Forgiveness (and How to Overcome Them)

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A major new study confirms that forgiveness is good for your mental health.

That’s not exactly a shocker for Christians, who have been hearing about the spiritual benefits of forgiveness from Scripture and the saints for two thousand years. But before we yawn and move on, consider how those spiritual benefits cascade into every aspect of our lives.

Led by researchers at Harvard and published in ​npj Mental Health Research, the study tracked more than 200,000 people in 23 countries and found that the real benefits come not from isolated acts of forgiveness, but from what researchers call “dispositional forgivingness” — forgiveness practiced as a habitual way of moving through life. People who forgive that way tend to report meaningfully better well-being across a range of measures, especially in psychological health: happiness, sense of meaning, and reduced depression.

Okay, so just like Jesus said, forgiveness is the way to go. Most Christians get that. Where we run into problems, though, is actually forgiving…much less making forgiveness a life habit.

When we run into roadblocks, how do we overcome them to find real forgiveness?

Forgiveness Roadblocks…and How to Overcome Them

Rachael Isaac is a pastoral counselor at the Pastoral Solutions Institute who regularly helps clients work through their difficulty forgiving others. She identifies five common roadblocks that often get in the way…and the strategies that help people overcome them.

1. When You Believe Forgiving Means Forgetting

By far the most common roadblock to forgiveness, she says, is the widespread belief that forgiveness means moving on as if nothing happened.

“A lot of people think that forgiving someone means forgetting everything that they did — being in a relationship and acting like everything’s fine,” she says.

But there’s a real difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness, she says, “doesn’t mean that I’m forgetting everything that they did and I’m relinquishing all of my boundaries and we’re in relationship again. But it does mean I’m not allowing the hurt, the anger, the resentment to dictate my choices anymore.”

In other words, forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. Forgiveness is about getting to a place where you can genuinely wish the other person well — even when you don’t feel like it. Reconciliation, on the other hand, means that the person who hurt you has done the work necessary to be safe around and build a relationship with.

We’ve covered the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation before; you can learn more in our blog archives.

2. When you feel like you need their permission

One of the most subtle and persistent blocks Isaac encounters is what she describes as a felt need for permission — specifically, the sense that you need something from the person who hurt you before you can forgive them. That “something” might be remorse, an apology, or a change of behavior.

“It comes from this place of powerlessness — like, I don’t feel like I have the power to do this on my own,” Isaac says. “I need permission from this other person.”

But when we delay forgiveness until the other person says the right thing or shows the right remorse, we’re really empowering them to control our interior life.

“I’m basing my choices for myself off of my resentment or anger or hurt,” Isaac explains. “I’m letting that other person decide for me rather than me deciding for myself.”

The path forward is recognizing that forgiveness is a choice that belongs entirely to you. Waiting for their “permission” makes you a hostage, emotionally yanked one way or another by the other person’s behavior. Forgiveness, on the other hand, frees you from the emotional control of the other person.

3. When anger feels like you’re doing something

A second block is the unconscious belief that holding on to resentment and anger is getting you somewhere.

“We hold onto anger and resentment because it feels like we’re punishing the other person,” Isaac says. “But really, we’re just punishing ourselves.” Even if the other person is aware of your anger, it almost certainly doesn’t affect them as much as it does you.

And the effect it has on you isn’t good. The Harvard study cited above found that unforgiveness results in higher rates of depression, anxiety, and the negative physical effects of a sustained stress response.

Isaac’s practical tool for cutting through this is a simple self-check: “Is this helping me, or is this hurting me?”

For people who still have difficulty letting go of anger and resentment, she sometimes recommends a “poison pen” exercise — writing a letter to the person who hurt you, saying everything you would want to say, and then destroying it.

“It allows you to process your thoughts and open the drain a little bit on the anger and resentment that’s building up,” she says.

4. When forgiveness feels like surrender

Perhaps the most widespread misunderstanding Isaac encounters is the belief that to forgive is to forget — to lower your guard, drop your limits, and silently signal that what happened was somehow acceptable.

It isn’t. And God himself doesn’t model it that way.

“God doesn’t call us to forgive and forget,” she says. “Yes, he calls us to forgiveness — but so that we get unstuck and can move towards meaningfulness and intimacy and virtue.”

This circles back to our earlier discussion of the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is about freeing yourself from your desire to hurt the person who hurt you. That desire for retribution is replaced by a desire for the other person’s well-being.

But here’s the key: wanting the other person to be well doesn’t mean letting them off the hook. Instead, it means helping them, when possible, to take accountability for their actions. That’s the only way they will find healing and wholeness.

5. When the hurt keeps happening

In Matthew 18:21-22, Jesus tells Peter to forgive others not just seven times, but “seventy times seven” (or seventy-seven times, depending on the translation).

This can be misinterpreted, though. Jesus isn’t asking us to give the other person permission to keep hurting us over and over. Remember, forgiveness only requires us to let go of our impulse to hurt the other person back.

“Forgiveness is not wishing that person ill,” Isaac says. “But I’m also not going to let you keep treating me that way.”

That might mean requiring certain conditions for the relationship to continue, significantly reducing contact, or in some cases ending the relationship altogether.

These actions could be retaliatory if your reason for taking them is to punish or hurt the other person. But healthy boundaries are sometimes necessary not only for your own well-being but for the other person’s as well. Placing limits on a relationship in order to prevent the other person from sinning against you is entirely consistent with forgiveness.

Isaac recalls working with a client whose husband was so persistently and intentionally harmful that no amount of good faith or effort on her part could change the dynamic.

“You can’t do anything with that, because he’s not willing to do the work it takes to be in a healthy relationship,” she says. “It’s not on her for walking away from that situation. That’s on him.”

Through all of it, Isaac encourages clients to bring God into the ongoing work of forgiveness — actively, not passively. She suggests praying along these lines: “Lord, what’s going to give me clarity? What’s going to help me move towards the healing that you want for me?”

Getting unstuck

Isaac’s clinical experience backs up the findings of the Harvard research on the benefits of forgiveness. When her clients stop giving resentment power over their choices, she says, real change tends to follow.

“Forgiveness opens that door to healthier relationship,” she says. “Forgiving and saying I’m not going to let this person have power over me and my actions definitely leads towards increased mental health.”

For more help working through the practical and spiritual dimensions of forgiveness, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts! and Rachael Isaac’s digital journal Not Me First, But Me Too — a simple system for honoring your own needs without guilt. And for one-on-one support, reach out to Rachael Isaac or another pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com.

Here’s How to Set Healthy Boundaries with the People You Love

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Shauna’s mother had been watching her young children a few times a week, but things kept going wrong: the four-year-old was left outside unsupervised; Grandma showed them a horror movie that gave them nightmares; and she fed them sugary snacks, despite Shauna’s instructions.

Not surprisingly, the children regularly come home wired and dysregulated. “They’re just a mess when I pick them up,” Shauna explained on a recent episode of More2Life, the live radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak on the EWTN Radio Network.

She knew she needed to set some limits, but she worried about damaging her relationship with her mother if she said that her mother couldn’t watch the kids any longer.

Her dilemma is a common one. When it comes to people we love, setting boundaries feels scary. It feels mean. And for many of us, it feels impossible.

Are boundaries “mean”—or loving?

The Popcaks spend a lot of time helping people understand that boundaries are a tool for better relationships. “Setting a boundary is not really about cutting somebody off or punishing somebody,” Dr. Popcak explained. “Don’t think of a boundary as a wall or an electrified fence. Think of a boundary as a door. 

“You put this door so that people can walk through it but they have to knock first, or they have to do something before they come through the door,” he continued. “It’s not just, you’re not being mean by having doors in your house. You’re just saying, well, I need you to do something before you can come into this room.”

All too often, the pressure to “be nice” and accommodate everyone can make us feel selfish for saying no to anything. This pressure can be even more difficult for Christians who are concerned about prioritizing love in relationships.

But look at what typically happens when we avoid setting boundaries: resentment builds, unsafe patterns continue, and we enable behaviors that hurt not only us, but the people responsible for those behaviors.

The theology of healthy boundaries

In order to understand how healthy boundaries can actually enable more authentic love, let’s take a look at what St. John Paul II says in his Theology of the Body.

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that God, who is one, exists as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is fully united in love, yet each remains unique and distinct. Because we’re made in God’s image and likeness, we too are called to live in unity without losing our individuality.

Healthy boundaries help us live this divine pattern. They’re not walls that keep people out. They’re doors that help us decide when and how best to give ourselves fully to each other and to ensure that we are treating ourselves and each other with dignity and respect.

“Love isn’t about losing ourselves in another person,” Dr. Popcak explained. “It’s about giving ourselves freely and responsibly. Boundaries protect the freedom that make genuine love possible. Without them, love becomes distorted. It can become either controlling or enabling.”

As St. Paul reminds us in Galatians 6:1, we are called to correct one another in a spirit of gentleness. Boundaries help us do exactly that, Lisa Popcak said.

“With those who’ve hurt us, setting boundaries can actually be—brace yourselves—an act of mercy, not rejection,” Lisa Popcak said. “Failing to set limits when someone sins against us doesn’t help them. In fact, it often enables harm.”

Authentic love, Dr. Popcak said, is always ordered to the true and good. “Setting boundaries tells the other person, ‘I love you too much to pretend that that particular behavior is okay.’ It’s not a punishment. It’s an invitation to conversion and healing. And when we set healthy, godly boundaries, we create the conditions that allow authentic communion.”

Three steps to setting boundaries that stick

If you’re ready to set a boundary but you’re not sure where to start, here’s a practical framework.

1. Name the specific behavior and its impact

Don’t speak in vague complaints like “you’re too much” or “you don’t respect me.” Name the concrete behaviors that are causing problems and explain how they affect you or your family.

For example, Lisa suggested that Shauna could tell her mother, “Mom, you think that the kids are having a great time. They’re coming back just a mess. I appreciate you trying to be a caregiver to them, but I also need you to be a caregiver to me. I’m your daughter and when my kids are coming back scared, wired up on sugar, not able to do the next steps of their day, you’re not giving me any care.”

This frames the boundary not as an attack on Grandma, but as a request for care. It’s honest about the impact without shaming or blaming.

2. Offer a pathway forward

Don’t just tell someone what you don’t want—give them a clear picture of what would work better. “Tell me what you’re trying to do by acting this way,” Greg suggested. “Let’s figure out a better way to do that.”

In Shauna’s situation, the pathway forward might be: “I know you love spending time with the kids. Let’s do that together—family dinners, supervised visits, activities where we’re all present. But right now, unsupervised childcare isn’t working for any of us.” This preserves the relationship while protecting the children.

The key is framing boundaries as an invitation, not a rejection. If the person can respect the boundary, they can be fully present in your life. If they can’t, they can still be in your life—just in a more limited way.

3. Enforce with clarity and consistency

Once you’ve set a boundary, you have to maintain it. We don’t toss the ball into the other person’s court and hope they maintain the boundary, it’s up to us to keep the boundaries that we set. 

If someone can’t respect your boundary, they can’t be in that part of your life. That’s a door, not a wall. You’re not cutting them off forever—you’re saying, “This particular way of relating isn’t working, so we need to do it differently.”

Sometimes you can’t enforce boundaries fully. Dr. Popcak suggested that if Shauna’s mother is her only childcare option, she should focus on mitigation: prepare the kids ahead of time, identify what works better on good days and encourage those behaviors, and build in decompression time after they’re picked up.

Creating space for real love

In short, when we set healthy boundaries, we create the conditions that allow both people to flourish. We stop enabling harm and start inviting growth. We move from confusion and control to authentic communion.

For more help setting healthy boundaries in your relationships, check out Dr. Greg Popcak’s book, God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts. And for more in-depth, personalized help, reach out to a pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com.

“I Can’t Believe You Said That!”  How To Respond When Words Hurt

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Sharp words can cut deep. Sometimes when others say hurtful things to us, we can feel so hurt or be so caught off guard in the moment that we don’t know how to respond. Why are words so powerful and how do we respond effectively in these difficult moments?

The Theology of The Body reminds us of the power of words by pointing us back to Genesis and how God created the world. Specifically, God spoke the world into being. Words have creative power, and God shares that power with us in the hopes that we will use it to build each other up and be co-creators with him as we work to cooperate with his grace and encourage each other to be the whole, healed, godly, grace-filled people we were created to be. But we can also use those words to destroy each other and we often do.

As Christians, we are called to use words carefully; to have a well-trained tongue. That involves both making sure we are using words to build others up and setting appropriate boundaries when someone we are in relationship with is using words destructively. Good boundaries begin trying to explain what are and what aren’t healthy ways to engage you. But if that fails, setting good boundaries means trimming back the relationship to the point where you can still feel safe if the other person is going to continue to act as they have been. Sometimes figuring out what that looks like can be difficult, and we need to seek to figure out what that looks like in practice. But as long as our goal is to work for our good, the other person’s good, and the good of our relationships, it is never wrong to set a boundary to encourage healthier and holier interactions.

Although setting boundaries is healthy, it can certainly be difficult. Here are a few practical steps to setting effective boundaries:

1.  Be Confident And Be Clear–No one ever deserves to be spoken to disrespectfully or hurtfully. Even if the other person accuses you of doing something that they found hurtful or offensive, no matter what you may or may not have said or done, you don’t deserve to be spoken to cruelly or disrespectfully. Be clear about this and be confident in your right to insist that, while you are willing to listen to anything the other person wants to say, you cannot listen to anything that is said in a cruel or hurtful manner. Being clear about this doesn’t only benefit you, it benefits the other person and your ability to address whatever the problem might be. If there is a problem that needs to be discussed, it deserves to be discussed respectfully and effectively. Be confident and clear about the need to insist that “respect is the price of admission” to any conversation a person may want to have with you.

2.  Use Do-Over’s--If you feel attacked in a conversation, resist the temptation to just lash out or shut the conversation down completely. Instead, assume that, given the chance, the other person will be able to say what they are trying to say respectfully.  Give them that chance by asking for a do-over. Say something like, “I’m feeling really attacked right now. I want to hear what you’re trying to say, but I need you to be less aggressive about it. Tell me again what you’re trying to say.” Often, when we hold up a mirror like this, the other person will appreciate the opportunity to see how they are coming across and adjust their behavior. Do-overs allow you to reset the conversation and move forward in a more respectful and productive way.

3. Don’t Feed the Troll–If someone is saying cruel or disrespectful things to you, don’t defend yourself. Don’t try to talk them out of it. Don’t argue back. Any attempt to argue someone out of their unkind view of you will inevitably backfire as the conversation will begin going in circles with new accusations being hurled and as the previous defenses are overcome. The best thing to do in this situation? Don’t feed the troll. As before, stop the conversation and give the person as chance to do a do-over. If that fails, simply say, “I’m really sorry you feel that way. I hope you can get past it. If there’s something you’d like to talk through when you’re feeling a little less angry I’m happy to hear whatever you have to say, but I can’t talk about this with you this way.” Then be done. If you have to say anything, simply repeat that formula, “I’m sorry you feel that way. I hope you can get past it. I’d love to talk to you when you’re in a different place, but I can’t do it like this.” Trolls don’t like to eat broken records. If that’s all you serve them, they’ll look for other places to feed.

Explore more resources for setting healthy boundaries at CatholicCounselors.com

 

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God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts!

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