I know two people that I'll never forgive. I hope all their teeth fall out, they get bunions on both feet, smell like onions for the rest of their lives and lose their sense of taste.
Were you truly ever able to forgive anyone that wronged you or is it still like an open wound?
"Forgiving" and "festering" are not the only options.
Sometimes life hands you a bucket of undiluted compost and that may come at the hands of another person. I've had my share of those and there's absolutely no point getting knotted up about them. So I just put them behind me and although I'm not silly enough to "forgive" them, I don't forget. It's foolish to allow the same person to crap on you twice.
I gotta confess that in almost 80 years on this planet, there's only one person who really stands high in my memory. I would rejoice in her misfortune. Fortunately, she lives on the other side of the continent so she rarely enters my thoughts.
Some, yes; others will remain unforgiven, or got what they deserved, though I don't afford them the respect of occupying my thoughts. Life is too rich to brood over such deadweight.
In my view, forgiveness greatly depends on the worthiness of the offender. I hold my own standards of worth, well tested and thoughtfully applied.
It depends... There are a few i can never forgive, one just recently. One thing you do not do is screw with my money or my career or my family.
I have an ex boyfriend that cheated on me. I held that grudge for way too long. Then I realized by holding that grudge I was still giving him too much importance in my current life. So I just wrote it off and let it go. Best ting I ever did for me. I even saw him in a stre one day and went up to say hi. All I could think the whole time was why did I waste all that time and energy being angry at him, because he sure wasn't worth it. AND I ended up with someone SO MUCH BETTER!
Its taken years but I finally forgave my brother and my sister for never never having my back. I don't talk to them. Nothing to say 😦 and neither can be trusted.
As I've said before love and loyalty were only in my mind.
I'm not going to keep an open wound, that would give someone too much control over my life, he already had that for way too long....I might pee on him if he was on fire, then again....maybe not.
Keep your friends close ! Keep your enemies closer ! That's all I'm going to say about it.
Meh , I'm quick to anger but I'm also fairly quick to forgive .. Expect for the few times I wasn't. That's all I have to say about that:)
Some things are harder to forgive, especially those that can never have a resolution. I think forgiveness is a process that may never end, you just have days where you feel more accepting about what's happened simply because you cannot change it. You learn to live with it so it doesn't cause you pain or make you ill. They hurt you the first time, don't relive it hurting yourself the second, third and fourth. That's what resentment means "to re-feel" The good thing about how our brains work is that we can replay things over and over, the bad thing about our brains is that we can replay things over and over. I suppose in that way once the open wound has healed into a scab it's best not to keep picking at it. I just hope that if someone is an A-hole then eventually it will catch up with them, I have to hand it over to the universe to stop myself being consumed by it. No one said it was going to be easy, honestly some times I don't know if I would of signed up if I'd known some of the things that were going to happen. I hear myself saying "I didn't sign up for this! I don't remember reading this in the small print?" :)
I'm going to expand your "question" just a tad in my mind so that I can share some perspective that you might not have come across before.
If you step on my left foot by accident and my right foot on purpose, which one do you think doesn't hurt?
The point I'm making is that forgiveness deals with two separate things that must be addressed before you will be back to the "place" you were before you were injured.
Obviously, in this example, the intent of the person who harmed you will be either a mitigating or aggravating factor.
Then there is the actual damage that has been done to me physically---will I heal completely after a while or will I have chronic pain and future disability?
Those two issues are the "givens" in any situation that involves someone who has "wronged" you.
I point this out, because we are told we must forgive---for our own sakes---and that is actually true.
But if the wrong is severe enough, you must recover before you can fully forgive---and the recovery must occur in your deepest self; because severe physical harm has a spiritual component to it that attacks your very inherent value and to heal fully "inside" you must use that appropriate anger you feel to re-establish that "you were worth more than that, and the person who so wronged you had no right to do what he did."
Does my answer make it any easier to heal and forgive?---probably not---healing and forgiving is hard work that only you, the one who was wrong can do.
But perhaps I have saved you from trying to do the impossible.
(And it turns out that in cases of rape, women who "forgive" the rapist too quickly tend to slow down and / or compromise their recovery process.)
And to answer your question specifically: Yes I have been able to forgive and to do so completely.
Best of luck!