Lan, Its relatively easy for me to forgive someone who asks for my forgiveness. Its pretty hard to "forgive" someone who is not contrite. Further as long as we see something as "injustice" its pretty hard to forgive. If we see it as "that's the best they can do" or "they know not what they do" or "it was just an accident" then its easier. Another thought is that "forgive" often has a religious/condescending bent and I think its probably more helpful to see it in secular or pragmatic or intelligent light. CL's comment about "observing" our own reactions on the movie screen of our own mind would be an interesting exercise to try esp when we are in the thick of a battle; I need to try it myself. We feel hurt by what someone "does to us" when in reality they didn't mean to hurt us or cannot help themselves; perhaps they were hurting.
You have a lot of books on your plate so I don't really want you to deal with yet another. But there's this book "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman. You may want to read just the chapter titled "Intimate Emotions" or something like that when you can get it from the library or browse through a bookstore. It should take just a few minutes.
I'm just shooting from the hip in the hope that it may help because I've mulled over this topic from time to time. -fb2
