Forgiveness can be difficult, particularly when someone has caused serious harm, betrayed your trust or refused to accept responsibility. You may also feel pressure from family, religion or society to forgive before you are ready.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending that nothing happened. It does not remove the other person’s responsibility. It does not require you to trust them, resume the relationship or allow them another opportunity to hurt you.
Forgiveness is better understood as a personal process through which you gradually reduce the hold that the experience has over your thoughts, feelings and choices. It may allow you to remember what happened without reliving the same level of anger or distress each time.
What does resentment do to you?
Resentment often begins as a reasonable response to unfairness, betrayal or mistreatment. It tells you that something important happened and that a personal boundary may have been crossed.
Problems can develop when your mind repeatedly returns to the event. You may replay conversations, imagine what you should have said or continue hoping that the other person will finally understand the harm they caused.
Each reminder can trigger another stress response. Your heart rate may increase, your muscles may tighten and your breathing may become quicker. You might feel restless, unable to sleep or unable to concentrate on other parts of your life.
Research has linked lower levels of forgiveness following interpersonal betrayal with greater blood pressure and heart activity when recalling what happened. Greater forgiveness has also been associated with lower stress and better emotional well-being (Lawler et al., 2003; Lawler et al., 2005). These findings show an association rather than proving that forgiveness directly improves physical health.
Resentment can also affect new relationships. You may become more guarded, suspicious or sensitive to signs that another person might behave in the same way. This can allow the person who hurt you to continue influencing your life, even when they are no longer present.
What does forgiveness mean?
Forgiveness can mean choosing to reduce resentment, the wish for revenge or the need to keep fighting an event that has already happened. It does not require warm feelings towards the person who caused the harm.
- Forgiveness is not forgetting what happened.
- Forgiveness is not denying your anger or sadness.
- Forgiveness is not saying that harmful behaviour was acceptable.
- Forgiveness is not removing the consequences of someone’s actions.
- Forgiveness is not automatically rebuilding trust.
- Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation.
Reconciliation involves two people rebuilding a relationship. It normally requires honesty, responsibility, changed behaviour and a willingness to repair the harm. Forgiveness can be a private process that takes place without contact or reconciliation.
You may forgive someone and still decide that they cannot be part of your life. You can maintain limited contact, set firm conditions or remain completely separate. Forgiveness does not give another person the right to regain access to you.
How do you process difficult feelings?
Emotional processing means working through what happened until it becomes something you can remember and understand, rather than something that repeatedly takes control of you.
Talking can help when it allows you to describe what happened, understand its effects and consider what you need now. Talking is less helpful when it becomes the same angry account repeated many times without any new understanding or change.
It can help to explore:
- What happened, described as clearly as possible.
- What you felt at the time.
- What you feel now.
- What you lost because of the experience.
- What you needed but did not receive.
- What you wish the other person understood.
- What you need to do differently now.
Writing can also help you put thoughts and feelings into a clearer order. You might write an account of what happened or an unsent letter explaining the effect that the person’s behaviour had on you.
An unsent letter gives you space to be honest without creating another argument. You can decide later whether any part of it needs to be communicated. Avoid sending it while you are still very angry.
Expressing anger does not have to mean shouting, breaking objects or attacking a punch bag. Research suggests that activities which increase physical tension can maintain or increase anger. Calming your body first is usually more helpful.
You might slow your breathing, relax your shoulders, take a quiet walk, listen to calming music or give yourself time before speaking. Once your body has settled, you are more able to decide what you want to say or do.
Symbolic actions can also mark the end of one part of the process. You might tear up an unsent letter, put away an object connected with the person, place a stone down during a walk or create your own private act of release.
A symbolic action does not remove the past. It gives physical form to a decision such as, “I am no longer carrying responsibility for what this person did” or “This happened, but it will not decide what I do next.”
Why are boundaries important?
Clear boundaries help you separate what belongs to you from what belongs to the other person.
- You are responsible for your safety, choices, words and actions.
- You can decide how much contact another person has with you.
- You can decide what behaviour you will and will not accept.
- The other person remains responsible for what they did.
- They are responsible for whether they apologise, make amends or change.
- You cannot force them to understand the harm they caused.
Forgiveness cannot make an unsafe relationship safe. When harmful behaviour is ongoing, the first priority is protection, distance and appropriate support.
Trust is based on evidence. An apology may be meaningful, but trust usually needs repeated examples of honesty, respect and changed behaviour. You can accept an apology without immediately restoring trust.
What practical steps can help you forgive?
Ensure that you are safe: Deal with any continuing harm before placing pressure on yourself to forgive. Resolve the crisis first.
Describe what happened: Write a short factual account without minimising the behaviour or adding assumptions about the other person’s motives.
Name the effect on you: Include the emotional, practical, financial, physical or relationship consequences.
Allow the feelings: Anger, grief, disappointment and fear may all need attention. Forgiveness does not require you to suppress them.
Calm your body: Use slower breathing, movement, rest or another safe activity that reduces tension.
Decide what belongs to the other person: Return responsibility for their actions to them, whether or not they accept it.
Set the required boundary: Decide what level of contact, if any, is appropriate now.
Choose how to express what remains: Talk to someone, write an unsent letter, create art, pray or use a private symbolic action.
Decide what forgiveness means to you: It may mean releasing revenge, reducing resentment or refusing to let the event dominate your future.
Allow the process to take time: You may make a decision to forgive before your feelings have fully changed.
Forgiveness is rarely a single event. You may feel calmer for several weeks and then experience anger again when something reminds you of the event. This does not mean you have failed. It may simply mean that another part of the experience still needs attention. Forgiveness is easier when undertaken in a relaxed hypnotherapeutic state.
What do religions say about forgiveness?
Forgiveness is important within many religious traditions, although the meaning, conditions and emphasis differ. Religious teachings can provide comfort and guidance, but they should not be used to pressure someone into ignoring harm or returning to danger.
Judaism: Judaism places importance on repentance, responsibility and repairing harm between people. Asking the person who was harmed for forgiveness is an important part of making amends.
Christianity: Christianity places forgiveness at the centre of many teachings about mercy, grace and relationships. Forgiveness does not necessarily require the immediate restoration of trust.
Islam: Islam values mercy, patience and forgiveness while also recognising justice and accountability. Forgiveness is encouraged, but people who have been wronged are not presented as having no right to seek justice.
Buddhism: Buddhism often approaches forgiveness through the release of hatred, anger and attachment to revenge. Compassion and non-harm are central themes.
Hinduism: Hinduism describes forgiveness as a virtue connected with patience, self-control, compassion and freedom from hostility.
Individual beliefs vary within every religion. Some people also approach forgiveness through humanist, philosophical or personal values rather than religious faith.
How is forgiveness part of acceptance?
Acceptance means recognising that something happened and cannot now be undone. It means acknowledging its effect without continuing to argue internally with the fact that it occurred.
Acceptance does not mean that the event was acceptable. You can accept the reality of betrayal, abuse or loss while remaining clear that the behaviour was wrong.
Forgiveness may become possible as acceptance develops. When you stop waiting for the past to be different, you can begin deciding how you want to live in the present.
Sometimes acceptance is enough. You do not have to forgive in order to recover and forgiveness always remains your personal choice. The practical aim is to prevent the past from continuing to control your present relationships, health and decisions.
Can hypnotherapy or EMDR help with forgiveness?
🧠 Hypnotherapy and EMDR cannot make you forgive someone. No form of therapy can do this. Forgiveness is a choice you make rather than being imposed as a goal of therapy.
👁️ EMDR helps reduce the distress connected with betrayal, abandonment, abuse or other painful experiences. As a memory becomes less upsetting, you may find it easier to think clearly about acceptance, boundaries and whether forgiveness feels appropriate.
🌀 Hypnotherapy helps you to relax, express feelings, work with imagery and view past experiences differently. It can also help address anger, guilt, shame or repeated thoughts connected with what happened.
🕊️ When you are ready both hypnotherapy and EMDR can be used to help you to express forgiveness.
🌱 The aim is not to excuse harmful behaviour. Therapy may help you reduce the effect that the experience continues to have on your life while keeping appropriate boundaries and placing responsibility with the person who caused the harm.
Research references
Davidar, R.S., Ballal, D. and Rajan, S.K. (2025) ‘Treatment of attachment trauma: Effects of an online EMDR couple protocol on trauma symptoms, conflict resolution and forgiveness’, Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 25(3).
Lawler, K.A., Younger, J.W., Piferi, R.L., Billington, E., Jobe, R., Edmondson, K. and Jones, W.H. (2003) ‘A change of heart: cardiovascular correlates of forgiveness in response to interpersonal conflict’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 26(5), pp. 373–393.
Lawler, K.A. et al. (2005) ‘The unique effects of forgiveness on health: an exploration of pathways’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 28, pp. 157–167.
Lesmana, C.B.J., Suryani, L.K. and Tiliopoulos, N. (2022) ‘The biobehavioural effectiveness of spiritual-hypnosis-assisted therapy in PTSD with childhood trauma’, The Egyptian Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery, 58, article 42.
Books and further reading
Enright, R.D. and Fitzgibbons, R.P. (2015) Forgiveness Therapy: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope. 2nd edn. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Shapiro, F. (2018) Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols and Procedures. 3rd edn. New York: Guilford Press.
Worthington, E.L. (2006) Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application. New York: Routledge.
Phillips, M. and Frederick, C. (1995) Healing the Divided Self: Clinical and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy for Post-Traumatic and Dissociative Conditions. New York: W. W. Norton.
Hammond, D.C. (ed.) (1990) Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors. New York: W. W. Norton.
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