forgive and not forget is not to forgive

Forgiveness is the opposite of anger and resentment.

When you forgive a person you imagine has harmed you release yourself and allow yourself to move ahead.

When you do not forgive you are linked by chains to the person who has harmed you. To a certain extent you continue the others persecution on yourself....

Some people understand the power of forgiveness, but say, "I can forgive but I'll never forget."

A question that comes to mind is: what do they mean by forgetting? If they mean that all events are recorded in our memory system, then the not forgetting is a natural effect our brain functions.

However, in the same way that you have not really forgotten the name of your elementary school maths teacher but you do not remember her name or even think about her often, true forgiveness means not remembering.

When you have forgiven, you do out of unconditional love and understanding we all do what we do out of our strengths and weaknesses.

The good we do is out of our strength - forgiveness, love, compassion all come from strength of character.

The harm we do others and ourselves comes from our weakness - anger, resentment, procrastination all come from being weak and lacking psychological resources.

And when we have truly forgiven, we are released from the chains which bind us to the person we need to forgive.

I write we need to forgive as resentment harms us and not the other.

For as a Zen master once said, "Not forgiving and holding resentments is akin to drinking poison and expecting the other person to suffer."