Questioning Forgiveness?

The poet Alexander Pope said: "To err is human, to forgive divine." Medical research has shown that forgiveness is good for the heart as well as the soul. But can we actually forgive or do we have to forgive and forget in order to get where 'medical research' claims forgiveness helps?

How do we even go about forgiving the people who have caused us harmful amounts of unnecessary pain? Ok, we can say 'I forgive you', but are we actually forgiving that person? I mean I've said 'I forgive you, or don't worry about it' as I've shrugged my shoulders but in the back of my mind I'm thinking yeah right you idiot why should I forgive you!

My question is how do we actually forgive? Honestly the only way I've found in my life was to actually try to forget the person who wronged me then 'if' we met up later in life I'd be over it. But still that doesn't really help when its someone close to us or someone you have to deal with on a daily basis.

I think that it depends on how close this person is to you. When it is a person not that close to you it's easier to forgive and forget than with a person close to you.

I'm not sure that you can forgive AND forget. Also when you did forgive and forget, and with that I mean the actually saying, it is hard to actually do it. When you have a bad day or you're in a bad mood and you meet the person you 'forgave', it is good possible that in a fight you bring it up again. So that means you didn't forget, but it still might be possible that you forgave.

So I would say you do 'forgive' and maybe try to forget as well, but deep inside you, you will always remember and never forget!