photo by iStockphoto.

This is probably a continuation of my previous article about forgiveness.

Truly forgiving those who have hurt us is for our own good. It’s not necessary for those who hurt us to literally ‘say sorry, and then we the aggrieved party forgive him or her’.

We can just do it alone, in our own personal time.

1. First admit to yourself that you were hurt. Honesty is the best policy for yourself. Some people pretends that they were not hurt, but at times you hear them speak words of hate to the people who hurt them.

2. Tell God that you were hurt. As a Christian, in my prayer time I would tell God what’s inside my heart. Honesty is also the best thing to do before God. I say it all if I can, a ‘no holds barred’ type of prayer.

Make sure to literally open your mouth, it helps.

3. Pray those who hurt you. I pray for blessings and good things for those who hurt me. I do this constantly, and every time I recall the hurt, I would pray again.

Again, it helps to verbally pray.

4. Refuse to speak ill about your enemies. In an ordinary conversation with your friends, or when your friends ask you about the status of your trouble or hurt, try to divert the conversation into a positive one. Do not attempt to ruin your enemy’s reputation to avenge the hurt.

You may respond ‘I hope we will be okay’ or ‘God bless him’.

Remember when Jesus prayed for those who hurt him? He uttered, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

It’s attainable, if we allow ourselves to embrace forgiveness.

I basically do the above, and it really helps me a lot. Although, I may miss it at times, but I try to follow those four factors.

Forgiveness is removing any emotions of hatred, resentment or grudge towards a person, experience, a thing, and even our own self.

Forgiving anything and anyone that we think have wronged will benefit us. Even a mass murderer should be forgiven. I’m not saying to release him from prison, but to emotionally forgive.

1. Forgiveness gives us freedom. He who does not forgive is actually emotionally imprisoned, and those we think that do not deserve our forgiveness are actually the ones who are free.

2. It will give us total control of our situation. If we don’t have forgiveness, we tend to do things that would make the situation worse. The worse that could happen is vengeance. We do something illegal in the process.

Take a deep breath, and forgive. It will give us total focus and decide things rightly.

3. I Pity those who hurt me. I’ve observed this with myself. When I truly forgive a person who hurt me, I tend to just pity him or her instead of let anger or hatred rule over me.

This way I can have total control of myself.

4. Healthy life. When there is grudge in me, it will increase my blood pressure. When I have a high blood pressure, it could affect my health. This can be harmful for my body.

I’m still not a good example of forgiving others. I still get through to some stages before truly forgiving somebody or something.