Yes, You Should Forgive And Forget: Here Are 6 Reasons Why

Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened was OK, and it doesn’t mean that person should still be welcome in your life. (Your boundaries still matter, and grudges can be part of forgiving.)

Forgiveness just means that you've made peace with the pain, and you are ready to let it go.

Forgiveness is not something we do for others⁠—it's something we do for ourselves.

Not forgiving someone is the equivalent of staying trapped in a jail cell of bitterness, serving time for someone else's crime. "It's a mixture of anger, depression, and blame. But most of all, the opposite of forgiveness is stagnation," psychologist Kristina Hallett, Ph.D., writes at mbg. "It's getting mired in an emotional place regarding a particular incident, and it prohibits future growth and discovery. ... There's a common saying: Not forgiving someone is like slowly poisoning yourself and secretly hoping the other person dies."

Gandhi once said “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." It takes a strong person to face pain head-on, forgive, and release it.

Hallett points out that our inability to forgive others can stem from an inability to forgive ourselves. The lack of acceptance for others may even fuel a lack of acceptance for ourselves.

"When we hold onto a resentment, grievance, shame, guilt, or pain from the past, our entire body-mind suffers," Deepak Chopra has told mbg. "Ultimately forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves. We can benefit from forgiving even if the person we forgive isn’t aware of our feelings or is even no longer alive."

If none of the above appeals to you, then you might want to take the advice of Oscar Wilde: