Yikes this is a hard one.  Forgiveness should be, perhaps must be, included in the positive processes that lead to happiness.  I have colleagues who have written about and struggled with forgiveness in personal relationships as well as in fields such as spiritual direction and restorative justice.  For me, this word is almost repulsive.  (I know I’ve just told you more about me than about the word.)  The aversion to the word is a part of my own turning away from the difficulty of forgiveness.  At some times in my life, I seem to have been more willing to carry a burden of anger or self-pity than to explore the positive possibilities of forgiveness.  At a minimum, forgiveness means a “cessation of hostility, [and] the forswearing of revenge,” according to Boston University’s Charles Griswold, author of Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration.  At best, forgiveness has the potential to change the person who did the injuring, as well as the person injured.  Asking for forgiveness requires that the person who injured commits to not injuring again, making the act more than an apology.  Forgiving implies that the person injured believes at least in the honest intention of the person who injured that she will not injure again, making the acceptance more than a momentary reconciliation.

What are your thoughts on this?