Forgive ahead of time. Whatever you hold onto that hardens your heart, empty it from your heart right now. You know hardness does not belong in your heart. Your heart is meant to be unfolding, not tightening, not stiffening. Why would you do that to your heart? Don’t strangle your heart. What do you think you are doing?
It is yourself you are to forgive for being hard-hearted. The one who carries hurt has to let it go. There is no other recourse. Whatever was said to you or done to you, even if it were the worst imaginable thing in the world, you have to let it go. Don’t keep it with you.
You know better. The one who offends you may not know better. Consider the one you were offended by as having dropped a stitch in knitting. Consider he spilled a blot of ink. Consider he was hard of hearing and simply didn’t hear you.
Think a moment. If he knew better, wouldn’t he have done better? Just as you may find it difficult to let go of hurt no matter how grievous or minor, the other person found himself caught up in the momentum of a direction, and his brakes were faulty.
You upon whom the offense was perpetrated haven’t gotten over your offense yet. You are just the same. You know what it is to go in a direction you are caught in.
Are you caught in a race for stubbornness? Are you trying to find out who can keep his jaw gritted the longest? Isn’t this what lack of letting go amounts to now?