Forgiving someone who has hurt you can be incredibly difficult. The pain they caused may still feel fresh, and you may be hesitant to let your guard down again. However, holding on to anger and resentment often does more harm to you than good. Forgiveness is a process that takes time, self-reflection and active effort, but it can lead to emotional healing, personal growth and freedom.
Why is it so hard to forgive?
When someone hurts you, it’s natural to feel angry, confused and betrayed. These feelings arise because:
- The hurt made you feel devalued and disrespected.
- Your trust was broken.
- Your sense of control and justice was violated.
As a result, you may resist forgiving someone because:
- You want the person to understand the depth of the pain they caused.
- You feel they need to earn your forgiveness first by apologizing and making amends.
- You want to protect yourself from further hurt by cutting ties.
- You don’t think they deserve forgiveness.
While these reactions are understandable, holding on to resentment often backfires. The anger eats away at you, not them. It causes stress, damages relationships and hinders personal growth. This doesn’t mean forgiveness is easy, but it’s worth exploring.
How do you start the forgiveness process?
Forgiveness takes time. Rushing through the process usually leads nowhere. You need space to work through complex emotions in order to release anger and hurt. Here are some ways to get started:
1. Commit to forgiveness as a process, not an event.
Forgiveness involves an active personal journey, not a single action. Don’t pressure yourself to “get over it” right away. Accept that it’s a process that unfolds over time.
2. Reflect on the situation.
Look beyond the initial anger and pain to better understand what happened:
- What was the context of the situation?
- What was the other person going through that may have driven their behavior?
- How did the dynamics of the relationship contribute?
- What role did you play in what happened?
- How did the situation challenge your own insecurities or triggers?
This introspection allows you to gain a more balanced perspective.
3. Recognize the power of choice.
You always have a choice over how you respond. This includes:
- Choosing to shift your perspective.
- Choosing to constructively process emotions rather than bottle them up.
- Choosing empathy while still holding people accountable.
Remember, you are not excusing the behavior by forgiving. Rather, you are releasing yourself from the anger caused by the behavior.
4. Be willing to connect again, when ready.
The ultimate goal is to restore the broken bond. But start small. You may initially only be ready to communicate from a distance before you feel comfortable with more intimacy again. Let your personal healing dictate the timeline.
What makes forgiveness easier over time?
While forgiveness is difficult initially, it gets easier once you:
See the nuance in the situation.
When you can adopt a balanced perspective, it helps humanize the other person’s actions rather than seeing them simply as a villain. This naturally leads to more empathy.
Learn to accept apologies and make amends.
Apologies and amends can meaningfully repair trust once you are open to receive them. This helps heal the relationship.
Gain emotional distance from the intensity of the pain.
While the memory remains, the rawness of the hurt fades over time. This naturally defuses the resentment.
Experience personal growth.
Healing often leads to new understanding of yourself, others and relationships. This can transform a painful experience into a meaningful one.
What are the stages of forgiveness?
Forgiveness doesn’t happen overnight. It progresses through stages1:
1. Uncovering Phase
This involves mourning the loss created by the offense and working through attendant emotions like anger, shame and sadness. Reflection and processing is key here. Suppressing emotions makes growth difficult.
2. Decision Phase
Here, you commit to the intention to forgive. It may arise naturally once you gain enough perspective from reflecting. Or you may have to force the conscious choice to forgive.
3. Work Phase
The real work begins by reframing how you think about the situation and person who hurt you. This could involve empathy, recognizing your own faults and developing acceptance.
4. Deepening Phase
In the final phase, you may experience increased understanding and purpose. Channels of communication reopen with the other person if applicable. Your identity is no longer narrowly defined by the hurt.
Forgiveness is rarely linear. Doubts and relapse into old anger can arise during each stage. Be patient and don’t avoid hard emotions when they surface. Ultimately, progress comes from sitting with discomfort.
What are some benefits of forgiveness?
While granting forgiveness is challenging, the benefits make it worthwhile:
Promotes emotional healing
You free yourself from corrosive anger and hurt by letting go. This makes room for positive emotions.
Deepens self-understanding
Traveling the journey of forgiveness fosters learning about yourself. How you React in hurtful situations offers insight.
Lightens emotional baggage
Resentment towards others weighs you down. Forgiveness lifts this burden so you can move forward unencumbered.
Opens possibility for reconciliation
Repairing broken bonds may not always be feasible or healthy. But forgiveness at least creates the potential for renewed connection.
Improves physical health
Chronic anger and bitterness manifest physically as things like high blood pressure and lowered immunity. Forgiveness relieves stress.
Allows focus on positive future
When you stop dwelling on the people and situations that hurt you, more energy becomes available for what matters now.
What are barriers to forgiveness?
Several roadblocks can stall the forgiveness process:
Seeking perfection from yourself or others
Holding yourself or the person who hurt you to an impossibly high standard creates resentment. Accept our shared human fallibility.
Believing the offense is unforgivable
Concluding that the pain caused must forever prevent forgiveness usually reflects unchecked anger. But no act is unforgivable with enough work.
Demanding an apology
Wanting validation of the hurt is fair. But if the other person is unwilling or unable to apologize, ultimately you must move forward regardless by processing the pain.
Expecting total absolution from anger
Healing means anger naturally becomes less intense over time. But elements may always remain. Complete elimination of feelings is an unrealistic aim.
Confusing forgiveness with reconciliation
While forgiveness makes reconciliation possible, you may determine that renewed closeness is unwise or unsafe. Forgiveness does not require reestablishing contact in every case.
Wanting to punish or get even
If you hold on to a sense of vengeance, it will crowd out empathy and stall forgiveness. Release the desire for payback. Justice may happen, but your wellbeing should take priority.
What if the person is unapologetic or unworthy of forgiveness?
A common barrier is when the offender is unavailable, unwilling or unworthy of forgiveness in your eyes. In these cases:
Separate the person from the event
You have trauma related to a specific event. That event remains troubling regardless of the person associated with it. Forgiveness is about healing your pain, not validating them.
Avoid giving them power over you
Carrying resentment and anger towards another person, even if they seem to deserve it, grants them influence over your present emotional state. Forgiveness allows you to regain power over yourself.
Release need for reciprocal exchange
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, not to them. You do not need the other person to earn it or even know about it. This is about your freedom, apart from them.
Replace anger with compassion
Anger makes forgiveness difficult. Compassion for why people sometimes hurt others – whether due to their own damagedness, ignorance or blind spots – creates openings for forgiveness.
How do you know when you’ve forgiven someone?
Forgiveness brings subtle changes in your thought patterns and feelings2:
- You feel less controlled by the pain – it becomes simply part of your history rather than consuming your present.
- Empathy increases towards not just their actions but their overall humanity.
- You have moments of goodwill and benevolence towards the person.
- Revenge and punishment no longer drive you.
- You rediscover shared values.
- The memory loses its power to cause distress.
- You rehumanize the person separate from their actions.
- The meaning behind the event shifts from solely violation to something more nuanced.
- You recognize your own capability to make similar mistakes.
How do you start rebuilding trust after forgiveness?
If attempting to reconnect with the person who hurt you, rebuilding trust happens slowly through3:
Honest communication
Have open talks about what happened, how it made you feel and how to move forward constructively.
Respecting boundaries
You may need certain boundaries respected to feel safe opening up again. Articulate these clearly.
Small gestures of goodwill
The other person demonstrating consideration through small acts can signal changed intentions.
Honoring promises and commitments
Trust deepens when the person proves their reliability through keeping their word consistently.
Sincere amends and apologies
Efforts to make up for past behavior and apologize demonstrate commitment to change.
Changed behaviors
Ultimately, the most convincing factor is changed actions over time showing they learned from the experience.
What should you do if you can’t move past anger?
The intensity of anger sometimes makes finding forgiveness feel impossible. In those cases:
Seek counseling or therapy
Mental health professionals are trained to help people work through anger and traumatic violations constructively.
Practice letting go through meditation
Meditation teaches techniques for releasing painful emotions and thoughts rather than suppressing or avoiding them.
Express anger through writing
Writing can help purge and process anger so it becomes less raw. Some find forgiveness flows more easily in its wake.
Focus anger into activism and justice
Channeling strong emotions into constructive efforts to prevent future harm can be a healthy outlet on the path to letting go.
Give it more time
There is no statute of limitations on forgiveness. Revisit it periodically. Future life experience may provide the wider perspective needed.
How do you forgive yourself?
Just as necessary as forgiving others, self-forgiveness is key to emotional growth and lifting shame. Try:
- Practicing self-compassion – treat yourself as you would a friend.
- Making amends if your actions harmed another.
- Reflecting to take lessons from the experience.
- Letting go of perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking.
- Making forgiveness a daily practice through meditation.
- Focusing your identity on positive traits.
- Surrounding yourself with supportive people who see your humanity.
Forgiveness takes courage, resilience and deep intention. But with time and work, you can find freedom. Ultimately, it is a gift you give yourself. Your power lies in choosing how you move forward.
References
- Enright, R. D. (2001). Forgiveness is a choice: A step-by-step process for resolving anger and restoring hope. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
- Fincham, F. D. (2000). The Kiss of the Porcupines: From Attributing Responsibility to Forgiving. Personal Relationships, 7(1), 1–23.
- Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Collins, N. L. (2006). Optimizing assurance: The risk regulation system in relationships. Psychological bulletin, 132(5), 641.