The subject of forgiveness has been on my mind of late, and it felt like it needed to be talked about.  I am not a great philosopher, nor am I a shrink or a pastor, but I have been on both sides of this subject, and I feel like I have something to say.  So, without further ado, here are the rules:

1. Forgiveness is necessary -   That is to say, that if you want to be free of whatever it was that happened to you, you must forgive.  There is no freedom from something you refuse to let go of.
2. On the whole, forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person – Forgiveness is a self-centered act.  It is something you do for yourself to be free of a burden, not something you do to free someone else.  The other person does not necessarily gain anything from your forgiveness, but you have a lot to gain.  If you wait for the other person to ask for forgiveness, you are giving them the power in the situation, and abdicating your responsibility to yourself.
3. Bitterness is a self-inflicted wound - When you hold on to things that have hurt you, they fester.  They simmer inside you and become bitterness.  That bitterness colors everything else in your life to one degree or another.  You start looking for other reasons to be angry or hurt, and it becomes a vicious cycle of internalization and bitterness that you could have prevented, had you chosen to forgive and move on.  You may not realize this, but holding on to anger, hurt, bitterness, etc. can also have a profound impact on your health, mental and physical.  What you do not forgive and let go of,  will make you ill, tired, cranky, or all of the above.
4. Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling – I can only speak for myself, but I have never “felt” like forgiving someone, and I have never “felt” forgiveness for another when I did forgive them.  Forgiveness has always been a conscious decision for me, not a feeling.  I choose to forgive someone, and somewhere along the line that decision becomes a feeling of closure, a release of something that was holding me back.  I can not recall a time where the decision to forgive, and the reality of the forgiveness coincided.
5. Forgiveness doesn’t mean it didn’t happen – Forgive and forget are not synonyms.  You choose to forgive, but you may never forget.  Often, the act of forgiveness can not and should not be equated to forgetting.  There are times that “forgetting” is actually a detrimental thing.  As far as I know, God is the only one for whom forgiveness and forgetting are the same thing.
6. Rule #6, there is no Rule #6 – Really?  You expected me to get through this without a Monty Python reference?
7. Forgiveness doesn’t mean it’s OK – Yes this is quite similar to #5, but I think it bears its own thought.  By forgiving someone, you are not in any way saying that what happened is suddenly “ok”.  If you were truly wronged, forgiving the person doesn’t mean they had the right to do what they did in the first place.  You are releasing your grip on the wrong, not telling anyone it was right…
8. If you are still bitter or hurt by it, you haven’t forgiven it – That is not to say that a wrong done to you, once forgiven, will never cause you pain again.  However, if that wrong is still eating at you, still making you angry, you haven’t completely let it go and you are giving power to the person that hurt you.  This is part of the process of deciding to forgive.  You will have moments where it will crop up again, and you will need to mentally reenforce your decision to forgive.  The good news is that these moments will become fewer, and farther apart as you move forward.
9. Forgiveness doesn’t take away the hurt (right away) - Like I said above, it’s a decision, not a feeling, and it isn’t a light switch either.  You don’t flip the forgive switch and “poof” you’re all better.  You have been hurt, and like any physical wound, it will take time to heal, and like a physical wound, it won’t heal if you keep poking at it.  Hopefully, as you move forward, the wound will be lessened, and after a time, you won’t feel it anymore.
10. Forgiveness is hard – Making the decision to forgive, even a small thing, is never easy.  It goes against our nature to let go of a hurt that has been inflicted on us.  It is a hard thing, but then again, most things of merit are hard, and like other difficult things, the payoff is well worth the effort.

Well, that’s it, my ever so humble position on forgiveness.  You’ve seen my rules, what are yours?  What do you believe about forgiveness?