One of the most crippling attitudes in the human heart is the refusal to forgive. When we say, "I cannot forgive," we hurt no one more than ourselves. When we refuse to forgive, we allow unresolved anger, hatred, and bitterness to sap our emotional, mental and spiritual energy.
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12 Stepping Stones to Forgiveness

1. Ask for God's help and healing throughout the process. Never understimate the power of God's grace.
2. Be willing eventually to let go of your unforgiving stance.
3. Recognize that you have been harmed.
4. Acknowledge and accept your feelings about what happened.
5. Think clearly about who in the situation bears responsibility for what. In fairness, you should not take the blame for someone else's wrongdoing.
6. Develop a more realistic view of yourself and the offender.
7. Make a decision of your will, to choose to forgive the offender. In some cases this is a decision that needs to be made repeatedly in order to become complete.
8. Don't expect the offender to respond in a particular way to your act of forgiveness.
9. Place the offender in the hands of God, trusting that God will ultimately deal with him or her according to God's justice and mercy. You yourself don't need to keep "punishing" him or her.
10. Allow plenty of time for your feelings to catch up with the decision of your will. Some hurts will require more time even for your decision to forgive to take place.
11. Let go of the past, choose to live in the present and go forward.
12. Choose what will now be the nature or your relationship with the offender.