Good Therapy San Diego
+1 (619) 330-9500
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intake@GoodTherapySanDiego.com
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  • Locations
    • North County - Encinitas
    • San Diego - Sorrento Valley
  • Our Team
    • Staff Summary
    • Ashley Fecteau, LCSW
    • Camille Mansour, ASW
    • Caroline Maehler, LMFT
    • Catie Peters, ASW
    • Deema Kanbaragha, AMFT
    • Eli Recht, AMFT
    • Hannah Schweizer, LCSW
    • Ilana Molkner, LCSW
    • Katie Brooks, LCSW
    • Katie Greasby, LMFT
    • Laura Baird, LMFT, LPCC
    • Laura Gonzales, AMFT
    • Leila Atiyeh, LPCC
    • Lindsey Cieslak, AMFT
    • Maggie Hollinbeck, LMFT
    • Millicent Sykes, APCC
    • Min Choi, LMFT, APCC
    • Sean Berkshire, AMFT
    • Shaghayegh (Sheri) Ameri, LMFT
    • Tiffany Triplett, LMFT
    • Whitney Molitor, LMFT
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      • How Social Media Can Affect Body Image and Self-Esteem Issues in Adolescents
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      • Predictors of Divorce- The Four Horsement
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      • Appearance on Channel 6 News!
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      • Improving Your Relationship
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      • How Trauma Has Impacted YOU
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      • Trauma: Discovering the Differences Between Explicit and Implicit
      • The Hidden Trauma of The Pandemic
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    • Wellbeing >
      • 7 Tools for Coping with Difficult Emotions
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      • Balance
      • Busting the Myths of Self-Compassion
      • Chronic Pain
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      • Living is a Choice
      • Mindfully Responding to Life's Challenges
      • Nature Nourishes the Mind
      • Not Sleeping?
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      • Self-Esteem VS. Self-Compassion, What’s the Difference?!?
      • Sleep and Mental Health
      • The Enemy of Connection
    • Yoga >
      • What is Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy?
      • Demystifying Yoga
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Forgiveness by Crystal Duncan, LMFT

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Something changes within ourselves when we are able to come to a place in our journey when we genuinely and authentically forgive someone who has caused us pain. It’s as if the heavy weight of shame, doubt, and self-blame is lifted from us and becomes weightless.  Where before there was resentment and anger there is now space for compassion and understanding.
 
The journey of forgiveness does not have a timeline, this is not something that has to happen right away or before you are ready. Forgiveness comes when you are truly ready to forgive. Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. You do not have to be ‘back together’, become friends again, or even be in that persons life to forgive them. Your forgiveness does not mean you condone the

​hurtful act as somehow being right or justified. Forgiveness means that you are no longer tied to another through their anger, pain, sadness, and resentment. You are now able to find within yourself the capacity to have empathy for the offender.
 
The ultimate antidote to un-forgiveness is empathy. As Gandhi said, 'The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.’ The most courageous thing you can do is to look inside yourself and find a way to see where the other person was coming from. What caused them to act in harmful ways, what path or hurts led them to that place, this is empathy.
 
Once you can create empathy you then have the capacity to free yourself and forgive. The forgiveness does not let the other off the hook; it frees you from the suffering! Forgiveness therapy improves your' sense of well-being by promoting feelings of peacefulness toward yourself as well as others.
 
No longer are you a victim of someone else’s unfortunate circumstances, but you become truly a survivor. 

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