“I’m sorry.”

These are two words that always feel so comforting to hear, but difficult to say. It’s never easy owning up to a mistake you made or even admitting that you did anything wrong in the first place. Many of us have a friend or family member who, in our minds has done something so unforgivable...so reprehensible, that we just can’t see past it. We don’t understand how even though their actions or words were without a doubt deliberate or purposeful, they still can’t come forward and acknowledge how much they hurt us.

I believe that we all have the despised trait of stubbornness rooted from within, but that we can overcome its wrath with a clearer state of mind and better understanding of what it means to forgive. I’m starting to realize that when you choose to hold onto a grudge and be resentful toward the person who has brought pain upon you, it is often more harmful for the receiver than it is for the giver. What I mean by this is that when you continue to rent space in your mind out to something that happened in the past, it can act as more of a burden for you than it does for the person who hurt you.

A friend of mine has been helping me wrap my head around the idea of forgiveness for the past few months. After watching documentaries, reading a book and even trying a few exercises regarding the topic, I have begun to find my own sense of comfort, feeling more at ease and light on my feet.

In the documentary I watched called "The Power of Forgiveness," there were stories told of the 9/11 tragedy and some of their families who had lost loved ones in the attack. After sharing her mourning, one woman went on to talk about how before the terrorist attack, her and her son had been fighting and that she never had a chance to forgive him so that they could have a relationship again. When I was listening to this, I found it somewhat hard to comprehend because I can’t imagine what she must have felt after hearing about the death of her son.

The documentary shared several different occasions where forgiveness came into play, aside from the just the 9/11 terrorist attack. I listened to a story of one man’s son who had been shot and killed by another man’s nephew. The two men are now close friends who travel around to schools, sharing their story and teaching children about how forgiveness is never impossible.

Both of these examples express how the act of forgiveness is a process, but starts primarily with a mental decision. You have to tell yourself that it doesn’t matter how far you are from letting go of the anger you have stored up in your heart, but that through time and effort you can conquer the wall inhibiting you from moving on.

One thing I’ve learned is that forgiving is not forgetting; it is not letting the person off the hook or holding them any less accountable for their actions. When you forgive you are simply telling that person that yes, what they did upset you, but you're now ready to let go of the bitterness you feel in order to make amends and move on — not for them, but for you.

Forgiving doesn’t mean that you have to be as close to that person as you were before or that you have to let them back into your life at all; that is a choice that comes after you forgive. Some people don’t ever change. Learning to forgive is not opening yourself up to the possibility of an event happening again, but is merely changing the way that you react to these types of events and how you will respond.

Start off by writing a letter if that’s easier for you, and after, try writing out what you would want that person to say in reply. Pick up the phone and make the call you’ve been needing to make for a while now or get in the car and take action over a situation that is long past due for restoration. Don’t wait for that perfect moment because if you do, it won’t ever come. Don’t rely on someone else to do it for you because if you do, they never will. Take control over your life and forgive with the pursuit to be free from all of the discomfort holding you back, looking to the future in light of a new perspective. If you do this, I believe that the outcome will be far more surprising than what you expect.