The Ultimate Guide to Forgiving Someone

Forgiving someone who hurt you can feel almost impossible at times. These are the 7 life-changing steps you need to take to help you forgive those who have hurt you deeply!

Forgiving a person who has wounded you or continues to wound you is not a road anyone wants to travel. It’s a lot easier to write that person off and move on with your life.

I am assuming that because you clicked this article there is something in you that doesn’t want the easy road, but you want the BEST road!

Forgiveness can be a long hard road, but it’s worth every mile if you are willing to put in the time! You’ve probably heard this a million times, but Forgiveness really is the road to true freedom and peace of mind.

No one is ever truly free from the burden of unforgiveness it’s like a weed in your garden, no matter how much you pull up what’s on the surface, there are still roots underneath that keep it coming back up!

In this article, you are going to receive the ultimate checklist that you can use for forgiving someone who has hurt you! The act of forgiving isn’t a one-time thing, it’s a choice that must be made repeatedly throughout your life. Forgiveness isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it!

This is the Ultimate Guide to Forgiving Someone!

Ultimate Forgiving Checklist

1. Embrace Your Hurt

The first thing you MUST do when forgiving someone is to embrace the fact that they hurt you.

A lot of people like to try and skip this step on their so-called road to forgiving. If you do that, you will never be truly free from the burden of unforgiveness. Often, this step gets overlooked because embracing your hurt means PAIN. Sometimes lots of pain. Pain is never fun. Ever.

Embracing your hurt means owning the feelings you have, not belittling them as unimportant. It means not shoving them down as if they weren’t valuable.

If the pain is deep enough to dwell on the offense, that means the hurt is also deep enough to deal with it.If things can “never be the same” between you and the person who hurt you, then it’s time to deal with the pain they caused.

Is it fair? No, but that’s not why we are here. Hurt is never really “fair.” Want to know what else is “not fair,” allowing the pain someone caused you to alter your entire life (including future relationships) because you refuse to deal with the pain head-on.

Embrace your hurt. Acknowledge those feelings of anger and take note of them, but don’t stop there…

2. Release Your Anger

Just a heads up, you will not confront anyone in this step. Believe it or not, forgiving someone who has hurt you does not begin with an angry confrontation. That rarely ever works. For some reason, we always seem to take this approach even though it’s proven time and time again ineffective. 

Before approaching a person, who has wounded you, you must deal with the anger by yourself.

You can deal with anger in many ways. If you are more of a private person, you may want to journal about your hurt. Working through the pain is super beneficial. You can pray about it, talk it through with God. Lastly, you can talk it through with a trusted and unbiased friend.

Whatever way you decide, release your anger first. Leave some space between you and that person until you’ve calmed down. The last thing you want to do is overshadow the hurt you feel by your infuriated response.

3. Remain humble

I might lose a few of you on this one. However, if it weren’t crucial to forgiving, I wouldn’t have included it.

Humility means not having pride or arrogance. When we are hurting, it is so easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to the other person.

As we contrast ourselves to them, us in our best moments and them in their worst, we start to get prideful. We say things like,“I would never do that to you” or “I have never even thought of saying something like that to you!” The list of things we think to say in those moments could go on forever.

One of the ways forgiveness becomes easier is if we remember that we are not perfect. Our likelihood of success rises as we approach others with humility and kindness.

We all want to be heard and understood. Pride will block your true intentions from being seen. Ultimately, pride will overshadow your pain. As a result, the person who caused the hurt is less likely to acknowledge it. If pain and pride both show up, pride is bigger, louder, and gets all the attention.

Humility paves the way for forgiveness to take place.

4. Express Your Pain and Disappointment

Finally, the step you have all been waiting for, confrontation! In your mind, you may think that should have been first, but there is a lot of inner work that needs completing before this step.As someone strong and outspoken, I find this step the easiest to do out of order.

Unfortunately, if we start here, we often end here. If we don’t express our pain and disappointment calmly and humbly, we will find ourselves with many burned bridges. We will inevitably blame others for every broken relationship we have. Handling hurt in an unhealthy way will make a temporary pain have permanent effects.

Approach the person who hurt you with the intent to forgive them. Be humble and kind as you express your offense toward them.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing you can remember is that you have no control over how they respond to you, and you can only control yourself.

Your job is to express your pain and possibly to acknowledge theirs. You have no control over whether they validate your pain. In the following steps, you will see how to deal with situations after you have expressed your hurt.

I have found that the most helpful way for me to express myself without anger and humility is to write a letter. A letter can be read and re-read, edited, and tossed out. Once you speak words out, they cannot be unspoken. A letter is a safer way for someone to hear the true intentions of your heart.

If you decide to write a letter, make sure to over-express emotions so that your true heart’s intent is heard and not assumed.

5. Think of an action plan moving forward

This step often gets skipped. After the dust settles from the blow-up, we forget the need for a plan to help avoid the same thing from happening again.

With the thought that we do not control other people in mind, we need an action plan. Usually, we ask the question, “What are you going do to prevent hurting me again?” Is this the question we need to ask? Most often, their response will not quench our deepest desires. We need an action plan for ourselves. If we fail to articulate our needs, we can never expect someone else to meet them. 

But, this step can take longer than you might realize. You may need to think through what you want to do with the relationship after this. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to navigate the future with the person that hurt you:

• Was my pain and hurt acknowledged?
• Were they sorrowful?
• Are there areas that I have caused them pain and disappointment that I can work on too?
• Is this relationship permanently damaged?
• What needs to be restored for this relationship to move forward?
• Am I willing to take the steps necessary to remain in a relationship with this person?
• Is this a repeat offense?
• Do my needs seem important to them?
• Are their needs valuable to me?
• Do they have a plan to change?
• If they change, will our relationship flourish? Or will it remain the same?

The answers to these questions are vital to your plan to move forward with them. However, they are not critical to you forgiving them. You can release forgiveness to them and still choose a different path. 

6. Decide if this changes your relationship

An action plan is a significant part of forgiving, but not all relationships will move forward from this point.

You can forgive someone and choose not to remain in a relationship with them for the sake of your mental health and possibly for the sake of those you love around you.

Some relationships are worth fighting harder for than others, and you must count the cost for your choices.

Examples of valuable relationships you may have more grace to walk in forgiveness toward are people like your parents, your children, and your spouse.

Only you can determine the level of relationship you keep with someone who has hurt you. It’s something you must work through and decide on your own. Remember, you are in control of YOUR choices.

However, if you stay in a relationship with that person, the ultimate act of forgiveness is to MOVE forward. Anything less than that is not forgiving at all.

7. Move forward. move on. 

You’ve probably heard someone in your life say, “I can forgive, but I can’t forget!” Refusing to “forget” what someone has done to you and holding it over their head is not forgiveness. It doesn’t mean you won’t remember; it doesn’t mean you aren’t cautious, but what it means is that you are choosing to move forward.

 Choosing to remind yourself or someone you love of the wrong things they’ve done to you does nothing healthy for your relationship. It tells a person that they have a debt they will never be able to pay. They are left in bondage to their past, even if they start to move forward. Refusing to “forget” is a form of pride and should have been left at step # 3.

Forgiving someone who hurt you isn’t easy, but forgetting it is even more difficult. Forgiveness is a process; you may have to choose that process repeatedly. To go about life expecting no one to fail is very unrealistic. We all fail others. We all hurt others unintentionally or selfishly.

If you choose to remain in a relationship with the person who hurt you, you must be willing to move FORWARD with them, not always looking back. If you choose to let go of the relationship, you must move ON, making sure you are not always looking back at the past.

Forgiving isn’t easy. It is a lot of work and can be painful and messy. but is it worth it? Yes, in every way, for you and for those you love!

By applying these 7 life-changing steps, I hope that forgiving a person who hurt you becomes a little easier!

Let me know in the comments how this helped you!

Saying Goodbye to Anxious, 
Kristina G. 

Forgiving Checklist Printable