It is said that to forgive is divine. Till date, I used to firmly believe that the statement is about forgiving someone who has done something bad, mean, shabby and unacceptable to you. And after countless attempts to forget, get back, crib and back bite, probably someday you can forgive that person. But recently when I read the saying un-forgiveness is the poison you drink everyday thinking that the other person will die soon. And I couldn’t agree more. Someday or another, we have all felt like shit; when someone has said something unpleasant to us and we have felt too tongue-tied to react or express our emotions. Sadly, the invalidation and criticism, or whatever other negative emotion invariably stays with us till we deal with it completely.

Holding on to the vengeance gives us some sort of deluded power, which makes us feel that if we let go we will lose the battle for good and will become victims again. So we try our level best each day, everyday to remind ourselves of how crappy we felt because of someone else. The point is that it is not the other person we are afraid of forgiving, it is “us” we want to reprimand for every single bad behaviour we put up with waiting in queue for our turn to come. It is like literally tying yourself with ropes and chains and then blaming someone else for your miserable state. How could he speak to me like this? What does she think of herself? I will never forgive you? How could you treat me like this? Sounding familiar?

Most sacrifices are made for some selfish reasons that our giving nature will get us somewhere special and everything will be rosy once again. But making a special one count what you have done for them only undoes the so thought kind act. That’s why most people play the game of ice-spice their entire life and majority of the marriages break when one person stops participating in the game or starts playing with someone else.

So if you find it really very hard to forgive someone else, who is still in your life for something they did to you once upon a time, then rethink the matter. Why are you not ready to forgive and start afresh? Is it because the person has not realized what he or she did to you? If that’s the case then stand up and be true to your feelings and express why you are still mad! And if the person is deeply regretful of their past acts then stops drinking the poison and killing yourself.