The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

by Desmond Tutu

“Nothing is easy for the unwilling.”

But if we want real forgiveness and real healing, we must face the real injury.

I may never forget what you have done to me, but I will forgive. I will do everything in my power not to let you harm me again. I will not retaliate against you or against myself.

“We can’t let go of feelings that we don’t own.”

We must choose forgiveness over and over again, and cultivate it as a quality of our character.

We can so easily make ourselves victims of our own thoughts and feelings of guilt and shame for what we have done. Make no mistake, we must be accountable for our actions, but when we stay stuck in the unhappy story of what we have done—when we make an identity out of our past actions—we deny ourselves the gift of transformation.