Forgiveness is an elusive topic, and yet possible with a "mindset to forgive." Mindset is one's mental disposition. Our automatic thoughts.

Forgiveness is a character strength. If you take a moment to visit the VIA Character Strengths Survey, you will learn how strong of a trait this is in your life. If it’s not a strength for you or for me, it can be developed.

In his book “Forgiving What you’ll never Forget,” David Stoop wrote the following: “To forgive is, in the English language, an extended, expanded, strengthened form of the verb to give. By intensifying the verb we speak of giving at its deepest level, of self-giving, or giving forth and giving up deeply held parts of the self. We give up the right to revenge, to perfection, to justice, and instead we give forth to ourselves—or to the other person—freedom from the past and an openness toward the future. Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves and others.” (p. 21)

In order to need forgiveness, we must first have judged that something SHOULD have happened. Or, something should NOT have happened. Either way, something is very wrong, and based on what we believe to be true, we might also believe that someone should fix it, make it right, or pay for it.

These beliefs are stories that go with our thoughts about what happened.
About Forgiveness
For today’s podcast, we’ll consider whether forgiveness is a mindset, and these questions:

* How have you typically defined forgiveness?
* Why should we forgive?
* How do we do it?

HOW HAVE YOU TYPICALLY DEFINED FORGIVENESS?
I used to define forgiveness as something I might want from others, when I have made a mistake. I thought it meant that I would apologize, try to fix whatever I did, and ask the other person involved to give me forgiveness.

When I thought about forgiveness this way, it seemed that I could never be in control of it. Someone else, outside of me, had the power over forgiveness. Perhaps I could never do enough to earn their forgiveness.

If that was true, then no matter how sorry I was, or how much I tried to fix things, ultimately someone else could decide whether I could let it go, feel better, and move on. Expecting forgiveness to come from someone else is a common way to think about it, but there are several reasons why this is a problem.
Have you ever defined forgiveness this way?
If we look at forgiveness as something someone else gives the offending person, there would be no forgiveness when someone has died, when there isn’t any way to contact the other person, or when the offender has truly changed and made things right but the victim is holding tightly with an unwilling heart.

So, for many reasons, forgiveness is not something we can expect to get from other people.

In his book “Bonds that Make Us Free,” Terry Warner defines forgiveness this way:

“Forgiveness, correctly understood, is the process by which we open ourselves to the reality of others and thereby undergo a profound personal change.”

When someone asked about how you can forgive another person and forget at the same time, Warner went on to say that “we cannot accuse someone in our heart and at the same time forget about the wrong we’re accusing them of doing.” After all, in order to forgive, we must first accuse someone of wrongdoing.

Accusation and Blame
Basically, when we believe that someone has offended us, or wronged us, we accuse and blame them.

We might hate, resent, or hurt them in return. We harden our hearts against the other person and build invisible walls to separate ourselves from them.

It’s like we start a war with someone who has hurt us,