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Keke Palmer says forgiving her parents helped her forgive herself

Megan Sims
·3 min read
The actress started a conversation about forgiving your parents after they have hurt you drawing on her own experiences (Photo by Steven Ferdman/FilmMagic)
The actress started a conversation about forgiving your parents after they have hurt you drawing on her own experiences (Photo by Steven Ferdman/FilmMagic)

KeKe Palmer wants people to consider forgiving their parents.

On Friday, the 27-year-old actress sent out the poignant message to her social media followers. On Instagram, she provided more context, sharing that making amends with her own parents helped her realize she had a lot of things to work on in other areas of her life.

“When I turned around and realized how unforgiving I was to them, I realized I was unforgiving to friends and most importantly MYSELF,” she wrote. “I was actually holding myself back with resentment I didn’t know I was holding. Our first relationship and most intimate is with our parents. If we can not forgive them and learn to see them as imperfect yet still being worthy of love humans, how do we expect to be able to see this in ourselves when we make a mistake.”

Palmer also noted that it’s OK to forgive someone and still keep your distance if they are “too toxic” at the moment.

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Let’s talk about it! Forgiveness of your parents mistakes(which is normal that they have them as they are working through their own life experience, because let’s remember, they’re still forgiving THEIR parents 😅) is a huge part of maturing into adulthood. From my own experience, forgiving my parents created a path way for me to learn how to forgive myself. When I turned around and realized how unforgiving I was to them, I realized I was unforgiving to friends and most importantly MY SELF. I was actually holding myself back with resentment I didn’t know I was holding. Our first relationship and most intimate is with our parents. If we can not forgive them and learn to see them as imperfect yet still being worthy of love humans, how do we expect to be able to see this in ourselves when we make a mistake.. ‼️‼️ I’m sure you all know this already, but it’s just a dope topic to speak about because within that forgiveness is also boundaries & being able to say sometimes I forgive you, but you’re too toxic for my life right now. Respectfully. ‼️‼️ We can do that too while still doing the daily work to release their traumas, by releasing your own. Through kindness to ourselves, patience and compassion. Sometimes that work just includes only US and yoga, prayer, meditation, a therapist etc. We are all working through shit!! Where you at with it??? ❤️💖❤️💖❤️

A post shared by BIG BOSS 🔑🔑 (@keke) on

Fans had mixed reactions to Palmer’s message with some commenters agreeing with Palmer.

“No truer words. And as always, you’re amazing,” one fan wrote.

“I agree,” another person began. “And it’s not for THEM, it’s for you! Your own salvation. You don’t have to have them back your life or even forgive them in their face. But harboring unforgiveness can actually be damaging spiritually. Can block a lot of blessings as well.

There were many more that believed she should not have spoken on the subject.

“Everybody always wanna tell the kids to forgive and fix, but I don’t ever see anyone talking to the parents about learning how to apologize or even tell the truth,” someone commented. “Keke on this one you need to leave it to the therapists. You can’t tell people when or how to heal from trauma and toxic parents ought to be held accountable,” a different follower agreed.

While Palmer didn’t say exactly what she forgave her parents for, her mother has served as her manager since she got her start in Hollywood as a kid. The two even appeared on an episode of The Dr. Oz Show. “Keke’s always been an optimistic person and I’ve always been pessimistic,” Sharon Palmer said. “So her free spirit and her energy has rubbed off on me. And I would just look at this little kid with all this energy and I’d just say to myself I’ve gotta be better, I’ve gotta be a better mother, I’ve gotta be a better manager.”

She went on to say: “I’m so proud of you because I put you in this business not to cause you pain but to get money for college. I’m so sorry for any of the hardships or anything that you went through because I just wanted to do commercials so that we could save money for college.”

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