Is there something particular one can do to forgive someone? Someone that you don’t trust or want to interact with in the future and someone who is very unlikely to apologize?

I feel like I meet all of the criteria for forgiving this individual, but I still get flashes of anger when something comes up that relates to the infraction. The anger makes me feel bad, hence not a successful forgive (?). I do know the good of this person. I don’t want revenge, I don’t even want an apology; the crime has been it’s own punishment and that poor soul suffers…

Is “time” the only thing left or is there an exercise for me to work on?

CD George: I think being able to forgive comes from divesting ourselves of the beliefs that block our way to forgiveness, i.e., justice=vengeance, our anger=someone else’s punishment. Divesting ourselves of these beliefs requires, I think, replacing them with compassion for those who’ve offended. That, in turn, comes from establishing an emotional understanding that everyone really wants to be happy and in committing offenses are simply and significantly misguided in the ways they think they can achieve it. As to how we can activate that compassion—I think by engaging in a practice that has the power to shatter delusional beliefs, whether that’s therapy, meditation, chanting, etc. As none of these have been definitively and objectively proven to work, we each must make an experiment out of the one path that impresses us as most likely to work. Hence, I chant (while others meditate, etc.).

Alex

And the process is about the same. Part of the anger is directed toward ourselves, often by questions like, “How could I be that stupid or that blind? How could I allow this to happen to me?”

Forgiving yourself for following your values or for doing/feeling what it seemed to be the best course of action in that particular moment—that is the key to first step. Then, being able to feel forgiveness for our own being, it is far easier to feel it for others.

I find it is easier to forgive others because I can remember my own various transgressions. The most difficult task for me is forgiving myself. How does one do that?

Lorna: I think it’s often even harder to forgive ourselves, knowing first hand just how flawed we are better than anyone else does. However, I’d suggest you try to forgive yourself using the same suggestion I gave in the post for forgiving others. Focus not on your flaws but on your humanity, on the inherent dignity of your life that exists untouched by any of your flaws. All humans make mistakes. If you regret them, try to learn from them, and try not to make them twice, what more could anyone ask of you? You should always try to improve but always recognize the end-point of that process isn’t perfection.

Alex