I used to be a HUGE grudge holder. I'm sure you can tell where that led me- I blamed everything on my family, my friends, the world, etc.

Life's what you make it. It's up to you to decide how something affects you. I heard a great quote once, "Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die."

It doesn't matter if someone deserves forgiveness, either. When you forgive you do it for yourself- because just like your hatred towards them won't destroy them, your forgiveness will not help them either. It helps you.

There's so many people, who see the world and life so differently, who have been through so many different things... I do think most people really do try their best. For example... I have always been sensitive and I had a friend who tried to 'toughen me up'. I ended up becoming very hurt and quit talking to them. But, should I hate them or hold a grudge? They really did want to help and honestly thought they were.

We just have to learn to accept that we all don't see things the same and not everyone believes in the same things or wants the same things. Some believe life is a test and some believe life's just a ride.

I'm still not perfect, I do pass judgement... but I do try to forgive and let live as much as I can.

People say hurtful things and we all make mistakes. But these things always stem from our own pain and depression. Why do I believe their are people in the world who do evil things? Because I believe they are hurting very deeply and they don't know how to handle it. Now, I'm not saying it's an excuse- just that some are so far lost in their own darkness.

"You'll never really understand a person until you walk a mile in their shoes."

Jealousy, hate, grudges... ugly emotions that never solve a damn thing. These feelings never fix a relationship or make someone apologize. They just make it worse. Let them go.

Give your attention to life and it's glory. It doesn't matter what happens to you- it matters how you react and how you choose to feel.

Question: How do I let go of my hatred of another's actions towards me?

Answer: Forgiveness

It is the only thing that can release hatred and anger, even though it seems so unfair that this action on our part has not been earned by the one being forgiven by us.

But unfortunately, forgiveness is an important life lesson.

The amount of anger we have within ourselves towards others is a good indication of our ability to forgive and un-hinge our attention from this inner obsession of injustice.

When we do not forgive, we notice injustice in even the tiniest insignificant event.

We get hurt by simple things like the waiter forgetting to bring cream for the coffee while all the tables around us have everything they need.

We are upset by having to come out of our comfort zone and call the waiter, and appear to be an irate customer in the eyes of the other diners.

This type of inner suffering over tiny insignificant things has much to do with un-resolved anger that has been accumulated over a lifetime.

It is an attempt to protect one’s self from getting hurt any further.

But unfortunately, instead of being protected from pain, the individual interprets everything from the perspective of disrespect by others.

There is a way to trick the mind to start the process of forgiveness.

The best place is to begin with selfishness by using any variation of the following words (silently)

"I am choosing to forgive you for my own selfish needs to be free from the memories of the pain you have caused me"

"I am releasing your hold upon my consciousness because you don't deserve the right to continue to cause pain and suffering within me, therefore I forgive you so that I can be free from what you have done"

Unbelievably, the more anger we have the more selfishness we need to bring to the process of releasing that anger.

And the best part is that as the anger is eventually neutralized with forgiveness the selfishness is also automatically gone with it.

Excellent answers here, hope I can add to it by sumitting this Bashar quote on forgiveness I came across.

"Forgiveness" is not an "action". It is the cessation or stopping of the continuous action of continuously blaming someone for something. Since blaming requires energy, and forgiveness is the stopping of this action of blaming, it actually is easier to forgive, than to continuously be blaming another. So be lazy! Forgive!

I'm terribly confused by this question. Forgive what and who?

The need to forgive anyone for anything is self-created emotional disease.

Forgiveness doesn't break the chains, it binds you in them. How's that? Just look at the concept behind that act of forgiving. I can't think of a single case where I could forgive someone else and I was not to blame myself for whatever happened I'm forgiving them for. And if I were not part of whatever happened, thus cannot take responsibility for it in any way, then there's nothing to forgive from my side.

If you feel the need to forgive someone, it's because your expectations of some sort were not met by them. But if you have expected a different result than what happened, then you really don't accept things as they are. And moreover, "you would ask no-one to be different, so that you can feel good. If you knew, your potential to feel good. - Abraham-Hicks."

Which only tells you, forgiveness is a way to justify your own inability to feel great. So you forgive others for it, as if they were to blame for your unhappiness. Nobody's to blame. Thus nobody needs to be forgiven anything.

Yes, every time we do not forgive is like we are attaching a chain to that person and ourselves. We are chained to what we hate by our not forgiving and releasing. These chains are very real. Have you seen how people get weighted down; they look like they have big weights on their shoulders. They are depressed, sick, tired, and you can see them dragging along through life carrying all that resentment and anger. All of that pain and resentment really literally does weigh them down.

Now when they come to us for a healing and they are sincere that they really want absolution, you tell them they need to forgive everyone that ever hurt them in any way shape or form whether purposely or not and they do. Then they offer apologies to all that they offended and pray for them it is like God comes with giant chain cutters and cuts them free! They get up and feel like they are walking on a cloud, they feel like a huge weight was lifted from their shoulders, they stand taller, and smile where before there was frown. Once they just give all of it up, it is gone and when they ask Jesus in their hearts the joy is lifted even higher.

We are the ones that create the chains. Forgiving others is as simple as saying I forgive you and release you, God bless you in your life as I let you go. We don't need to personally go to each person in person. We just need to be sincere in saying out loud I forgive you even if we are by ourselves. Even if the one we are forgiving died and we can't say it to them in person. The forgiveness is for us as much as it is for the others we are forgiving. The same holds true for the opposite with our apologies to everyone we hurt. We are the ones releasing. We can do this by ourselves in private as well if we are truly sincere.

We need to forgive to be happy, I agree. :-)

The one you need to forgive is yourself. It would be the first link in @Wade Casadli chain. The feelings are yours you have them you created them and it is you that shall release them so forgive yourself first and the rest will follow .
peace