What is forgiveness?

"Please, forgive me." People say that very often.

"I forgive you." And that as well.

But what does it actually mean? It seems to me that people only say those things because they want the conflict to be already over. So they say "I forgive you" and that's it. But they very rarely do, right? They forgive someone and a month later, when they start arguing again, they mention the thing they forgave. I think everyone knows the saying: "I forgive you but I will never forget what you did." To me, this saying is just so wrong. You can feel the anger in there. The sadness. The disappointment. And is that really forgiveness?

The question: What is forgiveness?

The answer: In my opinion, forgiveness is a state of being in which one completely understands what the other one did and also understands why. One feels no anger towards that person, nor he wants a revenge. He accepts everything that was done and can move on with nothing but peace and reconciliation in his heart.

Which is very hard. It's hard to embrace all the bad things that one did to you and forgive him. And it's a very long process. I mean, right now, I feel like I finally forgive someone who hurt me a year ago. I couldn't forgive him before. And now I do. But how?

The question: How do you forgive someone?

The answer: At first, you have to fully understand what led his actions, which reasons he had to cause you pain, in summary, you have to see WHY he did it. When did it start? And where? What happened inside of him? And isn't there something that you did wrong? (You certainly cannot blame yourself, that would be very bad if you're not the only one to blame, but you're not perfect as well.)

I think that my forgiveness began when I started realising my own mistakes and faults. I realised what I did wrong and what was the trigger of the person's behaviour. And now I fully understand. And I forgive. And frankly? It's a very good feeling. You suddenly shake all the anger off and you become so much calmer. You feel alright.

Of course, there are many people in this world who are just jerks and it's not easy to forgive them like EVER but there's always something that causes the things they do. Always. And when you notice the source and you observe all the actions afterwards, you realise that it's not entirely the person's fault. I mean, of course it IS but in a way it's not.

I hope it's not too confusing. Please, let's not waste the phrase "I forgive you" if we don't truly mean it. It's not easy to forgive someone and if we're not really sure that we've reached this state, we should not use it. Because in that case, it's just an empty phrase with no meaning.

Denisa x