Process for Forgiveness

True History
Establish the facts of the events. Articulate as objectively as possible what really happened, not how you remember it, not how it feels. Be honest. Typically writing down the history will surprise you as you piece the events together. It is also remarkable how putting all the details together will transform this experience.

Reset the Ego
Reassess your place and your role in those events. Divest your emotional self from the actual history. Focus on taking yourself out of the center of those events, the thoughts of others. It feels like you were at the center of the entire experience but try to see things from outside yourself and outside of those events.

Separate Yourself from Others
Assess who was really responsible for each event. See the correct boundaries regardless of your current feelings. Give yourself a break from allowing the events and people in those events to inhabit your thoughts.

Humble Yourself in the World
Finally, a moment to allow yourself to feel about everything that happened. About how you really feel even if it's embarrassing, stupid, childish, violent or scary. It's time to be honest about how you really feel even if your ego wants you to push it down or away.

New Accountability
Time to assign responsibility to all the various injustices that occurred. That can be something someone did. Something someone didn't do. Something they did. Something you did.

New Boundaries
Measure your internal values against those events and retroactively assign the correct boundaries. Not only will this allow you to objectively measure injustice it will be good practice and you will be prepared for when this happens in the future.

Reconnect
Often we can disconnect from ourselves when injustice goes unresolved. Now is the time to reconnect with ourselves even with this injustice outstanding. You can do both. Time to spend a little 'me' time and do some early reflection on the forgiveness process thus far.

Accept Pain
This point marks the top of the mountain. You are halfway through the process and the true healing and release now begins. We are now in a position to accept the pain. Acceptance is simply acknowledging everything that's happened. It's a reckoning of honesty about everything, including the bad stuff. No more denial or rationalizing OR judging the events. Just accepting everything that's happened is fact, and everything that was felt or thought is also fact.

Accept Responsibility
It is also key to accept responsibility for your thoughts and actions. In some circumstances, injustice and responsibility flows both ways. And it's time to acknowledge your role and to make amends for those actions.

Release Obligations
With an accurate, objective accounting of everyone's role, everyone's mistakes, and the amount of reparations that should be made... it's time to let go of them. It's not a matter of letting people 'get away with things'. The injustice will remain outstanding. But it will be in your interest to simply stop caring about it because in reality you are holding that injustice inside and as long as you do this literally the entire world is moving on and leaving you behind. Stop letting the injustice reoccur day by day, moment by moment, and allow yourself to live by releasing everyone from their obligations. Remember, releasing obligations internally is not the same as releasing those obligations externally.

Release Suffering
Let go of the final denial: suffering. Acknowledge the reality and tragedy of suffering and pain. Accept its inevitability.

New Narrative
Finally, we can establish a new narrative. With the facts in hand, with ourselves separated from the situation, emotional reckoning complete and letting go of it all we can finally rewrite our story retroactively and we can also lay out a new future in front of us.

Forgive
A short, formal step to officially forgive all parties. Including yourself. This is a ritual step that serves symbolically. Make it an event. And then go out and celebrate it.

Reflection
I would recommend doing this immediately after the process and again later. It's good to review the process, the writing, to help absorb it and zoom out because you've been narrowly focused and down in the details for a while. Sit with it. And it's good to come back a few months later, a year later, to evaluate and evaluate where you are at and how you feel about this. Does it need a revisit? Or does it feel like closure and thoroughly over and done?