Pain from past wrongs can ruin lives because people spend endless time and energy focusing on the anger and pain associated with the story of the event. Wrongs can scale from small, like a boyfriend or girlfriend leaving you, to very large like rape. Although the intensity of the wrong varies, one thing remains constant. You must forgive the other person for the wrong to heal from the pain.

It can feel impossible to forgive some of the wrongs done to us by others, or even wrongs you feel God did to you, like getting really sick, being raped or being impacted in a natural disaster. People hold on to anger and bitterness like it will protect us from more pain, but what we don’t realize is the anger and bitterness is harming us. It affects how we feel about ourselves and damages our relationships at work and at home. In many cases, anger can become uncontrollable and truly destroy your life. You carry the baggage around with you, and when you least expect it, there is a gap between your expectations and reality and you explode. During these highly emotional times, you are in danger of ruining your life the most and making rash decisions. That’s why it’s so important to do the personal work you need to in order to heal and have more normal life and emotional center, and the only path to healing is forgiveness.

In order to forgive, you can do the following things:

1. Understand the difference between the event and your emotions about the event.
2. Write in a journal or talk to someone about to help you get clear what your story is.
3. Acknowledge the wrong, your feelings, and that there is nothing you can do about the past, but that there is something you can do in the future. Acknowledge if you played a role in the bad thing happening.
4. Choose to release the other person of the burden done to you.
5. Repeat as much as needed to allow yourself to grieve and heal.

Keep in mind that forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling or a decision basted on criteria, although with time a feeling of peace will take over. Your relationships will improve and you’ll no longer isolate yourself from a segment of the world due to your anger and bitterness. Choose forgiveness because you need to and you can!