The sooner we heal our traumas, the sooner we liberate ourselves from the people who hurt us. By hating them, we hold onto them. We cannot heal.

To extend compassion to a so-called villain, to forgive those who have wronged you, and to find common ground with someone who has been awfully isolated are not acts typically met with fireworks and swelling violins. More often than not, they are pushed away. To love, really love, is to do them anyway.

This is, perhaps, the greatest challenge of our time – to love in the absence of any immediate rewards for our love.

Compassion does not have to be a face-to-face relationship. Forgiveness does not imply friendship. Understanding why someone has inflicted pain on us is how we set ourselves free of the past, not how we excuse someone's behaviour so they can continue to abuse us.

When you slip up and let yourself back into old, toxic patterns of thinking, forgive yourself before you try to fix yourself.