conceptry

I've been trying to understand the concept of forgiveness for....about two years now, because at a certain point back then I realized that it was important and even necessary that I come to understand it....but I haven't had any sense of clarity or a straight answer, but this passage finally seems like a start -
'Forgiveness does not in any way justify or condone harmful actions. While you forgive, you may also say, “Never again will I knowingly allow this to happen.”…Forgiveness does not mean you have to seek out or speak to those who caused you harm. You may choose to never see them again.

Forgiveness is simply an act of the heart, a movement to let go of the pain, the resentment, the outrage that you have carried as a burden for so long. It is an easing of your own heart, and an acknowledgment that no matter how strongly you may condemn and have suffered at the evil deeds of another, you will not put another human being out of your heart. We have all been harmed, just as we have all at times harmed ourselves and others.

For most people forgiveness is a process. When you have been deeply wounded, the work of forgiveness can take years. It will go through many stages – grief, rage, sorrow, fear and confusion – and, in the end, if you let yourself feel the pain you carry, it will come as a relief, as a release for your heart. You will see that forgiveness is fundamentally for your own sake, a way to carry the pain of the past no longer. The fate of the person who harmed you, whether they be alive or dead, does not matter nearly as much as what you carry in your heart. And if forgiveness is for yourself, for your own guilt, for the harm you’ve done yourself or another, the process is the same. You will come to realize you can carry it no longer.'

and related and interesting passage:
"Your body becomes your teacher, providing you with feedback as to what your actual experience is in the moment. For instance, you discover you are slumping while sitting in a meeting and realize it's because you don't want to be in the meeting; rather than being present to the feelings of dissatisfaction, your mind has made your body carry the weight of the unhappiness."

An form combining tai chi and aikido, which I initially scoffed at, till I remembered Kevin's dad combining the two disciplines to such an effect as to ellicit gasps