When we refuse to forgive someone, that behavior is a product of the part of us we call an “Ego” — our sense of “self.”
The ego refuses to forgive because it wishes to hold the person who hurt us as a hostage. Refusing to forgive and reconcile is the ego’s final line of defense: the last bullet in a chamber of attempts at redemption that have long since been expended. Forgiveness is the final bullet that remains; it is a bullet because forgiveness makes dead the feud, the resentment, the feelings of angst and refusal to move past that which has occurred.
There is no defense of nonforgiveness, because by refusing to forgive and attempting to hold someone else hostage to the past, you are only holding yourself hostage.
