Forgiveness is not the condoning of a bad behavior or the justifying of an offense.
It is not dependent on apology, or whether the person will ever be talked to again.
Forgiveness does not imply turning the other cheek to allow the offense to occur again.
It does not demand reconciliation. Reconciliation, which is the coming together again of two upset parties, is not necessarily the outcome of forgiving. A person can forgive and choose to never see the person again to protect themselves from abusive behavior. However, for effective reconciliation to occur, forgiveness of the offense or offenses must have occurred.
It is not dependent on the person being alive or ever seeing them again.
Forgiving is not losing. Losing is having to deal with the stress of anger and hate in your body that ruins relationships, and can even cause physical problems. What kind of winning is that?
Forgiving is not the easy way out. It takes more courage, authenticity and integrity to let go of a justified upset and find peace. It takes courage to go through the wall of anger and resentment to the other side, the side of our highest possibility as a being.
The offenders apology is not necessary. In fact, they might not ever apologize because they have a different perspective of what happened.
Whether the person deserve forgiveness is not the question, they might not. Though forgiveness can be an act of compassion for another, it can also be mainly for the forgiver so that they are no longer tortured by hate and anger.
Even though they keep doing the offense, forgiveness can still occur, because forgiveness wipes away the effect of the past even if it was only 15 minutes before.
Out of sight out of mind or forgetting about it might not always be forgiveness but can be denial of the effect of the offending act. Forgiveness acknowledges what was done and chooses to let it go, but not through avoiding its impact on us. Avoiding just keeps the negative effects occurring below the surface of the mind.
These myths and misunderstandings about forgiving keep it from being done. I hope this summary has helped you to understand forgiveness and has moved you closer to forgiving.
