Healing Beyond Forgiveness: A Lesson from My Father’s Spirit

In 2020, I stood beside my dad’s hospital bed and watched him take his last breath.

This heartbreaking moment plunged me into the deepest grief I had ever experienced. As I stood there at the moment of his passing, I wasn’t entirely sure what I believed about the afterlife or what would happen next for my dad. Just five years earlier, I had begun deconstructing my religious beliefs, and I was still navigating my evolving understanding of death and spirituality.

I also at the time had no idea that all the strange spiritual and paranormal experiences I’d had throughout my life were because I was connecting with spirits, and I was a medium.

It wasn’t until after my dad’s passing that I realized I could communicate with spirits and could still communicate with him. 

When I first became aware of our continued connection, I began inviting him into my healing journey. At that time, I was doing deep inner child healing, energy clearing, and reprogramming of my mind. One day, as I was meditating—releasing old beliefs, energy, and trauma—my dad’s spirit came through and said to me, “Ang, forgive me.”

I immediately responded, “Dad, I already forgave you before you even left the earth.”

But then he replied with something that shifted my entire perspective: “Ang, there is a difference between forgiveness and healing. You can say you forgive something, but until you heal what caused you to need to forgive, you truly haven’t let it go.”

In that moment, I realized I had never addressed how my dad made me feel growing up. How I had felt invisible to him. I had spent years saying I forgave him, but I had never truly healed from the wounds that needed that forgiveness in the first place.

Then he said something even more profound: “When you heal, your vibration rises, and so does mine. Because when you let go of that energy and pain I caused you, you also help me to release that energy. We break the karmic line that had been passing from me to you.”

His words opened my heart to a deeper understanding of forgiveness. It wasn’t just about saying the words; it was about facing and feeling the pain I had carried, allowing myself to process it fully so I could truly let it go.

Through this healing, my dad and I grew even closer. He explained that as I healed and raised my vibration, it allowed his to rise as well. And because of this, he could connect with me more deeply and clearly—not just as my father in spirit, but as a guide helping me align with my soul’s purpose on Earth.

True Forgiveness is Healing

This experience with my dad taught me that forgiveness isn’t just about letting someone off the hook. No longer thinking about the event, or just saying "I forgive you" in hopes that it is solved. 

It’s about setting ourselves free. We can say we forgive, but until we do the inner work—until we process and release the pain that caused us to have to forgive in the first place—we are still carrying the weight of what happened.

Healing is what truly dissolves karmic cycles, not just for us, but for those who came before us.

When we release pain, we rise the energetic vibration for ourselves, our ancestors, our descendants, and even the collective.

My dad’s passing was not the end of our relationship—it was the beginning of a new one. And through that connection, he continues to guide me, reminding me that healing and self-realization, is the path to true freedom, love, and higher consciousness.

If you are on your own journey of healing, know that the impact you are making is beyond your own healing—it is for those who came before you and those who will come after you. The time you invest in healing is clearing karmic cycles, raising the vibration of your family line, and increasing the collective consciousness of all humanity. 

True forgiveness is found in doing the work to heal, and in doing so, we set ourselves and others free.