Forgiveness is a word that seems fairly simple, even if the action of forgiving is nearly ten times harder. According to the dictionary, forgiveness is defined as "The action or process of forgiving or being forgiven." So even the definition is fairly simple and straight forward, so why is it that people still struggle with this idea?

The ability to forgive is something that one has to learn, as children we forgive our siblings for stealing our toys, as teens we learn to forgive those who hurt us, and as adults well, I'm not there yet so I'm not sure what we learn to forgive.

Sometimes forgiveness can be hard, you don't want to forgive those who hurt you, pain makes us fear trusting people again. But does that mean that you have to trust everyone you forgive?

Fortunately, you can forgive someone and still not let them back in your life, you are more than welcome to forgive and then forget the person. You don't need to let people back into your life, but for your own sake, I would encourage forgiving them.

Forgiving someone is a healthy process, and sometimes it can take years to happen and other times it takes all of just ten minutes of deep thought. But until you forgive you will always struggle to move on with your life.

With that in mind, you can't always wait for an apology before forgiving someone, there are times in your life where you will never receive one and it will hurt. When this happens you need to know that you can forgive without one, and it is hard and it hurts especially when it has to be very one sided but knowing you can do it will be a reward in and of its own.

So how do you forgive? Do you just say "I forgive you" till you mean it?

Sadly no, it isn't always that easy. Sure sometimes on the petty things that you know you aren't even really that upset about it is easy to say it and mean it. But what about the things that hurt and go deeper? Sometimes it takes a lot of self-reflection to forgive. And that's okay.

You are allowed to take your time with forgiveness.

Think of it this way, if someone seriously broke your trust you are allowed to take time away from them to refocus on yourself and decide what you need to do to be able to forgive that action.

You can't make anyone forgive you, and you also need to know that other people are allowed to take their time with it.

It will hurt. But a lot of things in life hurt.

And sometimes the best thing to do is to look at life that way, do you spend all your time being angry and hurt? Or, do you realize that life will be that way and just try to better about it?

C'est la Vie "That is life"

If you can live your life with the idea of forgiveness, then I can almost guarantee you that you will find it a little easier to forgive, and even easier to love and move on. So forgive and live life and just think of the favor you are doing yourself by being so open.