Forgive

If someone hurts you and you find that you cannot forgive, it might be because you are focused on what they did, the action or deed.  As long as this is your focus, you will not forgive, and you will go on suffering because you will relive the event every time you think about it.  I don't care to suffer forever because of what someone did to me.  So I try to focus on the person rather than what they did.  It takes time to make the shift, but I can only heal me, not them.  Again, it is empathy that helps me.  I begin to feel or think about what that person might be suffering from their past that made them become the hurtful person they were or are in my life.  We all start out as innocent little babies.  At least for now. Who knows what science will create someday.  As innocent babies, stuff happens.  That stuff shapes us.  Though someone has hurt me, I believe that they are suffering too and their life is a response to what happened to them when they were growing up.  Or maybe something happened to them when they were an adult, and they cannot get beyond it.  Maybe they cannot forgive either.  Anyhow, I seem to have healing in my own life when I can forgive, rather than live with feeling over and over the pain of a person or event in my life.  The memory can hold onto past happenings, but the heart needs to let go.