By refusing to forgive we are just prolonging our own pain.

By refusing to forgive we are just prolonging our own pain. Forgiveness does not mean excusing or condoning evil behaviour or allowing it to continue. If we are the victim of ongoing hurt, we need to take effective steps to create the necessary boundaries so that those people cannot continue to hurt us. At the same time we can work on forgiveness, which means not to allow our hearts to continuously be filled with hatred. Getting rid of hatred is liberating and allows us to move on. For us to achieve personal peace and freedom, we must learn to forgive, freeing our self of anger, judgements, grievances and bitterness - all of which interfere with our present moment joy and inner peace.