How to Forgive Someone

It's likely you've felt hurt by people in your life by something they said, did or did not do to you. Most probably, you have not always forgiven these people. In fact, you have probably harbored a deep resentment toward them for the way they hurt you. But now, you recognize that it's not good for you to harbor such resentments since they tend to bring you down and depress you. The way to deal with the situation is to revisit and resolve it and that entails forgiving the person who hurt you. Unsure how to do it? Sure you are. But it's not as difficult as you might first think. Here's how to go about forgiving people for something they did in the past-possibly something they don’t even remember doing or saying to you.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Recognize the people against whom you harbor resentments: When you are with a person, be it a family member, friend, work colleague, neighbor or associate, and you feel an inner repulsion or negative impulse to avoid and negate them from your space, you can be sure you're resentful towards this person for some reason.

2. Recognize what the person did that causes you to harbor a resentment: Scroll through the history of your life to identify just what it was that this person you hold a resentment for said or did that hurt you so badly. See TIPS below for identifying what could be the thing that holds your resentment to this person.

3. Identify for what you are forgiving this person in a script: Now that you have identified the person you want to forgive, you need to get down in writing a “script” which you will follow as you tell this person that you are fogriving her for what was done. See TIPS below for writing a forgiveness script.

4. Make an assessment as to whether the person is able to receive being forgiven: You need to be sure that if you take the risk to forgive this person that the person will accept it the way it's intended. If the person does not accept your forgiveness in the right way there is a good chance that you will be hurt again-but this time in a more destructive way because your “good intentions” were not accepted in a healing way. If your gesture gets ignored or “played down” then you will feel devalued, unloved, and dismissed all over again by this person. Even if the person is not ready to accept your forgiveness you still need to go to the next step.

5. Proceed to forgive the person in your heart for the hurts from the past: Once you have scripted out what you are forgiving this person for, do this forgiveness script over and over again in your mind so that, in your heart of hearts, you have forgiven this person for the past hurt.
   Continue to work on the forgiveness within your heart over and over again if, by chance, you fall back into hurt and resentment towards this person in the future. Now, however, if in Step 4, after assessing the potential of this person’s ability to hear your offer of forgiveness, you recognized that this person was indeed capable of accepting an open statement of forgiveness from you, then you move on to the next step.

6. Proceed with forgiving the person face to face: Contact the target of your forgiveness to set up a time to meet. Let the person know that you would like the meeting to be held in a quiet setting with no interruptions so that you can share a heartfelt and private concern with the person. Once the person and you are alone in an appropriate environment, proceed to tell the person your script which you prepared in Step 3. Use the TIPS below for how to conduct yourself at this meeting. Also check out the Warnings for what not to expect from this meeting.

Tips & Warnings

• How to Identifying the Source of Resentment: Try to figure out: was it an act of commission (meaning the person did something to you directly) or was it an act of omission (meaning the person did not do something to you directly which you wish they had done for you – like accepting your offer to a prom, accepting your offer of engagement, recognized your value and worth as a human being, giving you the job you wanted, etc).
• How to Prepare a Forgiveness Script To prepare your script you need to consider the following: 1. Identify the situation: "When you did such and such to me..." 2. Identify how you felt about it: "I felt such and such ..."(put in how you felt at the time and still feel in some cases). 3. Identify that you now want to forgive this person for what the person did: "When you did such and such, I felt such and such. I want you to know that I forgive you for this and hope that from this point on that we can have a healthy and productive relationship with no harboring of ill will or resentment over this past offense."
• What to Assess if a Person is Able to Accept Your Forgiveness These are some things to look for to determine if a person is ready to receive your heartfelt forgiveness: 1. Does this person have an addiction problem (such as alcohol or drug dependency; gambling; sexual addiction; etc) and is incapable of understanding your offer of forgiveness? 2. Is this person open to “psychologically or spiritually minded” discussions, or is this person so narrow minded that your offer of forgiveness will be handled in a mean spirited way by being put down or diminished? 3. Does this person have an open mind to hear what you have to say or is this person so closed minded that anything you did say in the process of forgiving would be turned around to make you “look stupid” for bringing this issue up in the first place? If the person you want to forgive fits any of the above categories, then you need to forgive this person in your heart but not in an open communications process.
• What to Do in Your Face to Face Forgiveness Meeting • Allow the person to feel your sincere feelings of forgiveness. • Let this person see that your words are coming from your heart and that no one has coerced or forced you to take this step. • Help this person recognize that you do not need this person to accept your forgiveness for you to forgive this person. • Let this person know that from this point on in your life you want transparency and openness with him or her. • Let the person know that if in the future, something is said or done in an hurtful way in your dealings together, let the person know that you want to honest, assertive and straight forward and let this person know on the spot. • Make sure the person is clear that at no point in this forgiveness process are you trying to inflict guilt or shame on the person for what that person did in the past • Help the person see that your heart is in need of healing and the best way for you to do this was the pathway of forgiveness of others.
• What not to expect from a Face to Face Forgiveness Meeting • Do not expect anything else from this meeting. • Do not expect the person to fully understand the importance of why you have just done what you did.

Resources

• Coping.org: Tools for Coping with Life's Stressors
• Handling Resentment
• Improving Assertive Behavior
• Handling Forgiving and Forgetting
• Creating a Healing Environment