31 Ways to Find Forgiveness

Learning to Live and Let Live

Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting about something or someone’s actions that hurt you a great deal. Forgiveness is a lifelong tool that is constantly practiced as we travel through life and encounter all of its roller coasters and rocky roads. When practiced it doesn’t make everything go away overnight, but it can help you get through your days a bit easier and move you towards stronger relationships. Here are 31 ways to find forgiveness and move forward to happier days:

1. When you forgive, realize that you are making a healthy choice for yourself. Holding onto anger can only make us sick from the inside out. We forget sometimes how much our emotional well-being effects our physical well-being and if we hold anger inside for a long period of time we could become vulnerable to illnesses.

2. When you have been hurt by someone who is not remorseful or who is unwilling to apologize, you can still take action to heal yourself. It may take a lot of work, but if you can learn to heal the wounds that were left behind you could be on your way to happier, more fulfilling days.

3. Sometimes we need to lower our expectations. If someone who hurt you apologizes, but not to your expectations, you may be setting the bar a little high. Realize that we all have different ways of expressing ourselves and apologizing might be harder for some than others. If the person who hurt you says wholeheartedly that they are sorry and shows you they want to make amends, you might want to open your mind a bit.

4. If the one who caused you pain is remorseful and taking action to heal the relationship between you, the trust that you once had might be able to return. Give yourself time and allow this person to show you they are sorry.

5. While we can’t re-write history and erase hurtful moments in our lives, we can create brighter futures. Work on what happened with a close friend or therapist and express all of your pain. If you can find it in your heart to forgive this person over time, you will not only have more positive moments, but you will have grown as an individual.

6. If you feel as though an individual was able to hurt you because your defenses were down, don’t punish yourself for it. Learn to forgive yourself for what happened as well. Sometimes we may not notice that we are in fact hoarding guilt and shame after a painful event.

7. It is important to remember that we all make mistakes, regardless of age, gender, race or social status. Humans make mistakes and only evolve by making them in the first place. The people who learn from their mistakes have personal growth and awareness under their belt.

8. If the person who hurt you is reaching out to you to talk and discuss what happened, be open to giving them a little of your time. The more closed up you are, the longer you will feel deep pain. Don’t be afraid to listen to what they say.

9. The art of forgiveness requires a lot of internal and external work and effort. It requires someone accepting responsibility for what they have done, understanding why the event occurred in the first place and a lot of talking, listening and feedback. Both people trying to forgive and trying to heal the relationship have to want to make an effort to move towards the forgiveness process.

10. Take a spiritual enlightenment class of some sort or start meditation or yoga classes. By taking yourself away from everything that reminds you of a painful event, you just might be able to heal. If you are living with the person who hurt you, make sure you get out into the fresh air and ask for some boundaries while you are in the healing process. Your mental health needs come first if they were in the wrong.

11. Avoid getting into revenge tactics. Sometimes after we have been hurt badly we feel the anger and then turn it into revenge. Revenge is a no-win situation and can only lead to more pain and heartbreak. Step back and take a look at how you are planning to deal with the situation at hand. What is rational and what is irrational? Be calm.

12. If you can let go and leave the past events behind you, then you are lucky. As long as the painful event was recognized, discussed and some answers were provided, then you may be able to enter the forgiveness zone. After the matter is closed and if you are working on mending your relationship, avoid bringing up the event over and over again in the future.

13. Realize it is not by any means your fault. Everyone gets hurt in life and sometimes it is a mistake, a misunderstanding or intentional. There is no need to put yourself down for getting into that type of scenario. If you play the blame game and end up blaming yourself, you’ll never be free.

14. Time is one of the most essential factors in healing and forgiveness. Give yourself time to let go and time to forgive the individual who harmed you. By leaving the pressure behind and allowing yourself as much time as you need to feel healthier, you will eventually get to a place of harmony.

15. Try to remember that you are forgiving this person so that you can feel better and healthier in mind, body and spirit. Forgiveness is not meant solely for the perpetrator and is mainly for the person who was hurt.

16. Remind yourself of a time when you hurt someone and how much their forgiveness meant to you. If a person is remorseful and cares about you, chances are that they will be sitting with a lot of pain of what they did to you. If they are someone extremely important to you, you may want to look at talking it out.

17. if someone hurt you years ago and you are still sitting with the pain of that event, you need to let go. Stop wishing things could have been different because you can’t change what was done. You can only work on a brighter, more stable future so stop living in the past.

18. Live with positivity. Usually people who are positive on a daily basis have compassion. They tend to be able to forgive easier and within shorter spans of time because they value what they have in the present moment.

19. If you are feeling angry about what happened, don’t take it out on your loved ones. Join a gym, take a kick boxing class or get involved in a boot camp. Get rid of that anger through fitness!

20. Get a journal and write in it all of your thoughts about what occurred the day you were hurt. Get it all down on paper.

21. Try writing a brutally honest letter to the person who harmed you. Read it out loud, acknowledge it and then burn it. This can be a great stress reliever and you can do it as many times as you need to for healing and forgiveness.

22. If you are not ready to forgive yet, stop yourself from reacting in other damaging ways. Don’t blurt out in anger, take care of yourself and do something nice for yourself every day.

23. If this person enters your mind frequently, don’t send out hateful, negative messages into the universe. Instead, send love. In time, you’ll find forgiveness.

24. Realize that it takes an enormous amount of energy to feel anger and hate every day. It takes less energy to forgive someone and stop carrying around the grief.

25. If you have no idea how to forgive someone, talk it out with friends and family members. Even discussing it might bring you closer to forgiveness.

26. Forgiveness becomes easier to achieve when you can think of a time where you were in need of forgiveness. It makes your heart softer and more understanding about the scenario.

27. Take a vacation and get away from the immediate pain. This is not to say you should escape from the pain, but take a break. A timeout is much needed when someone is feeling bullied, bruised and hurt.

28. Take the painful event and dissect it. What have you learned from what happened? How can you use this information to grow and develop other life skills?

29. Go at your own pace and even if you need a year to forgive, so be it. Realize that there isn’t a time limit on how long you can stay angry and you don’t have to rush into forgiving. The more kind you are to yourself, the easier it will be to find forgiveness.

30. Know that when you finally do feel like forgiving someone, your relationship with them won’t be the same as it was. Relationships constantly keep changing and your will have to as well. Just accept that and build with the new tools you have learned.

31. Lead a life full of love and you will always find a way to forgive someone. Positive people who are kind and respectful to others generally have a way of overcoming obstacles and may find forgiveness sooner.

“Trust is so important in relationships and it can be a deal breaker when trust has been broken,” says Psychic Deejay ext. 5435.

It won’t be easy and there may be a lot of tears in between, but forgiving someone for painful acts offers more personal freedom than you could ever imagine. Learn the art of forgiveness and know that you have achieved one of the most important life tools one could ever need.

Most of all, Psychic Rivers ext. 5273 makes sure we remember: “Be kind and forgiving of yourself. We are all human, and we all make mistakes.”