The Protection Strategy That Kept Me Safe — And Stuck

On the hidden beliefs that make forgiveness feel dangerous

SUBSTACK POST 2 — Publish: March 21 or 22

If you’ve been reading my Substack for any length of time, you know my story. Or at least the first chapter of it.

Eighteen years ago, I experienced what I can only describe as a divine act of grace: I was freed from the unforgiveness I had carried since childhood toward the man who molested me when I was seven years old. That forgiveness — the circumstances of it, what it cost, what it gave back — is told in the first of my forgiveness posts, and I’ll link to it below for anyone who is new here.

That freedom was real: a burden lifted that I had not known I was carrying until I felt physically weightless, floaty. It changed my life in an instant. In eighteen years, there has never been more forgiving to do for that person. I do not minimize that impact.

But I’m writing today because that was not the end of the story.

It turns out that my seven-year-old self had filed charges against more than one party.

She had also never forgiven God. And she had never forgiven her twin brother.

I didn’t know this for a long time. How could I? The forgiveness toward the perpetrator had felt so complete, so transformative, that I assumed the wound had been fully addressed. And perhaps, on the level I was able to access at the time, it had been.

But the subconscious keeps its own records.

I came to ThetaHealing® not as someone seeking personal healing — or so I told myself. I came searching for tools I could use to help others find the same freedom I had found. I enrolled in the certification seminars, learned the techniques — and discovered, as the training requires, that the work begins with yourself. Somewhere in the middle of that training, in a healing session facilitated by another student, something surfaced that I had not gone looking for.

My seven-year-old self was still there. Still needing resolution. Still holding two people responsible for what had happened to her: the God — at that age, commingled with Mom and Dad — who was supposed to protect her, and the twin brother who had always been with her before but wasn’t then.

The logic of a seven-year-old is iron-clad in its own way. The all-powerful God/Parents should have protected me. Where was my Protector when I needed it most? And my brother and I had ALWAYS been together: we came into being together, woven from the same beginning, within touching distance for the first five years. He should have BEEN THERE with me.

These were not theological arguments. They were wounds wearing the clothing of belief. And they had been living in my subconscious, quietly unknown, for decades.

Once the unforgiveness was present and named, the usual tools weren’t reaching it. The student and the instructor tried several things, and I could feel myself up against a wall I couldn’t see around. And then my instructor asked me a question that changed everything.

“Kyle, what would be the worst thing that could happen if you were to forgive God and your brother?”

The answer came immediately. It just appeared — rising up from somewhere below thought, fully formed and certain:

“It would happen again.”

There it was.

Not a theological position. Not a reasoned conclusion. A belief — subconscious, primal, and completely logical from the perspective of a seven-year-old who had experienced something unbearable and was doing the only thing she knew how to do to make sure it never happened again.

Unforgiveness as a protection strategy. Unforgiveness as a magical contract with the universe: as long as I hold them accountable, I stay safe.

When I saw it that clearly — when I could recognize it not as truth but as a belief, held in my subconscious by a frightened child who was doing her best — something shifted. I could speak directly to my seven-year-old self. I could assure her: I am with you always. You are safe. I see you. I hear you. You are loved, and you are never alone again.

Once she was satisfied and content with those assurances, the ThetaHealing® tools were applied to the belief itself. The unforgiveness was transformed, and I was, once again, set free.

Not because I was told I had to forgive. Not because someone convinced me with theology or argument. But because the belief that had made forgiveness feel dangerous was finally seen, named, and gently, permanently changed.

I’ve thought about that moment many times since. About how many of us are walking around with a seven-year-old’s belief running the show — a belief that made perfect sense when it was formed, that served a real protective purpose, and that has long since outlived its usefulness. A belief we don’t even know is there, because it lives below the level of conscious thought, because it has never been asked the right question.

And because the child who holds it has never felt safe enough to be seen.

What would be the worst thing that could happen if you were to forgive?

I don’t know what your answer would be. But I believe, with everything in me, that the answer is there — and that it is not the final word.

More on what I’m doing with all of this — and an invitation — in my next post.

With Love,

Kyle

Here’s the link to the first part of my forgiveness story: The Forgiveness Factor