When someone says or does something that we do not approve, we get hurt. And we mull over the incident over and over again, thereby preventing our emotional healing. To heal a wound we need to stop touching it. To stop thinking about it we must "let go" - forgive.
When we forgive (genuinely), we stop feeling hurt and that gives us joy. We feel encouraged to engage with that person again and then re-establish the relationship. At times, we may realize that there was some misunderstanding or maybe we were partly responsible.
Forgiveness requires compassion, empathy, a willingness to understand the other person (someone hurts you when he is unhappy himself). It also requires common sense - because we should do things that are beneficial for the good of self and others.
One of the ways to forgive someone is to visualize good things for him.
"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." - Louis B. Smedes
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