Here are the steps you will need to take to forgive somebody who has hurt you.

Step one:
In order to truly forgive somebody the first thing that you are going to need to do is to acknowledge the fact that you have been hurt. For some people this is the hardest part of forgiving somebody because we cannot admit that we have been hurt. Since the pain is already there what we need to do is acknowledge who, what, and how you have been hurt to begin the forgiveness process. This has to be done in order to move on with your life.

Step two:
You are going to need to be the bigger person when it comes to forgiving. The reason for this is that you cannot sit and wait for somebody to come to you and apologize because they might never do it. Instead, you need to approach them and apologize. Just make sure that you mean it, do not apologize just to be the first one to say sorry. Many times people hurt you because they have been hurt as well, so you cannot expect somebody who is feeling hurt by something that you did to come and apologize first.

Step three:
You will need to be patient because it can take a lot of time for the pain of the hurt to go away. You cannot expect the pain to go away the moment that you acknowledge that you have been hurt and tell the person that you forgive them. You might even need to seek counseling in order to deal with the feelings of anger and resentment that have built up from your being hurt. Counseling can help you to understand why you got so hurt over this incident and why several months or years later you are still feeling the hurt.

Step four:
Before you can begin to let this person back into your life you are going to need to forgive yourself. Forgiving yourself is going to be even harder than acknowledging the fact that you have been hurt because you are going to have to be very honest with yourself. You are going to need to admit to yourself the role that you played in why you were hurt, but you also cannot justify your behavior. You have to come to terms with the fact that you contributed to your own feelings of hurt. In doing this you need to understand that, what you did was wrong, but that does not mean that you are a bad person.

Step five:
When forgiving somebody it is very hard to let that person back into your life is hard. What you need to do when letting that person back into your life is to set limits. You want to have that person promise that they will not hurt you again and if they truly commit to not hurting you then let them back fully into your life. You will want to start small when setting the limits to see if they are truly committed to not hurting you.