How to Forgive Someone Who Hurt You: An NVC Approach

You know you should forgive. Everyone tells you so. Move on. Let it go. Be the bigger person.

But when you try, the feelings rush back. The anger. The sadness. The replaying of what happened, what they said, what you wish you had said. And underneath all of it, a stubborn knot that refuses to untie itself.

Here is the thing most forgiveness advice gets wrong: it treats forgiveness as a decision. As if you can just choose to stop hurting. As if willpower alone can dissolve months or years of pain.

Nonviolent Communication offers a different path. In NVC, forgiveness is not a single act of will. It is a process of mourning, understanding, and reconnection — with yourself first, and then, if you choose, with the person who hurt you.

Why Forgiveness Feels So Hard

When someone hurts you, something important was lost. Maybe it was trust. Maybe it was safety. Maybe it was your sense of how the world works — your belief that people who love you will not betray you, or that hard work will be rewarded, or that you are worthy of basic respect.

That loss is real. And until you grieve it, forgiveness will feel forced. You will say the words — "I forgive you" — but your body will know the truth. The resentment will keep simmering, showing up as distance, sarcasm, numbness, or sudden eruptions of anger that surprise even you.

In NVC, we understand that resentment is not a character flaw. It is a signal. It is telling you that deeply important needs were not met, and that you have not yet had the chance to fully acknowledge that. Resentment is the mind's way of refusing to pretend that something painful did not matter.

So the first step toward forgiveness is not trying harder to forgive. It is giving yourself full permission to feel what you feel.

Step One: Mourn What Was Lost

Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of NVC, described mourning as the process of fully connecting with the needs that were not met by a particular event. This is different from ruminating or replaying the story of what happened. Mourning is not about the other person at all. It is about you.

Start by asking yourself: What needs of mine were unmet in this situation?

Maybe your need for safety was shattered. Maybe your need for trust, for honesty, for respect, for consideration, for belonging. Maybe several needs at once.

When you name these needs, something shifts. The pain stops being a vague, overwhelming cloud and becomes something specific, something you can hold and look at. You are no longer just "hurt." You are grieving the loss of trust. You are mourning the absence of respect. You are aching for the connection that was broken.

Try this: sit quietly and complete this sentence as many times as feels right.

"I am mourning the unmet need for _______________."

You might say: "I am mourning the unmet need for honesty. I am mourning the unmet need for safety. I am mourning the unmet need for being seen."

There is no rush. This is not a step to get through quickly so you can arrive at forgiveness. This is the work. Let it take as long as it takes. Some people find that tears come during this process — tears that have been waiting for permission. Let them come.

Step Two: Give Yourself Empathy

Once you have identified the needs that were unmet, the next step is to offer yourself the empathy that the situation denied you. In NVC, this is called self-empathy, and it is one of the most powerful practices available to us.

Self-empathy means turning toward your pain with the same warmth and presence you would offer a close friend. It means saying to yourself, without judgment:

"Of course I feel angry. My need for respect was deeply important to me, and it was not honored. Of course that hurts."

"Of course I feel scared to trust again. My need for safety was not met, and it makes complete sense that I want to protect myself."

Notice what this does. It validates your experience without requiring anything from the other person. You are not waiting for them to apologize, to understand, to change. You are giving yourself what you need right now.

This is important because one of the hidden barriers to forgiveness is the belief that forgiving means your pain did not matter. Self-empathy dissolves that fear. You are saying: My pain mattered enormously. My needs are legitimate. And I can honor them even without the other person's participation.

A Self-Empathy Practice for Resentment

When resentment arises, try this three-step practice:

1. Notice the story. Your mind will want to replay what happened, to rehearse arguments, to build a case. That is natural. Gently notice: "I am telling myself the story again."

2. Shift to feelings. Ask: "What am I feeling right now, underneath the story?" Name the feelings. Hurt. Anger. Grief. Fear. Loneliness.

3. Connect to needs. Ask: "What needs are these feelings pointing to?" Trust. Safety. Respect. Belonging. Understanding.

You do not need to do anything with this information. Simply naming feelings and needs, with compassion, begins to loosen the grip of resentment. Over time, you may find the story becomes less compelling — not because it does not matter, but because you have given yourself what the story was trying to get for you.

Step Three: Understanding the Other Person's Needs (Not Condoning Their Actions)

This is the step that many people resist, and understandably so. Understanding the person who hurt you can feel like excusing what they did. But in NVC, understanding and condoning are entirely different things.

Every human action, no matter how harmful, is an attempt to meet a need. This is one of the foundational principles of NVC. The person who lied to you was likely trying to meet a need for safety or acceptance. The person who left was trying to meet a need for freedom or authenticity. The person who raged was trying to meet a need for being heard or for respect.

This does not mean their strategy was acceptable. Strategies can be harmful and destructive. But the underlying need is always human, always universal, always something you can recognize in yourself.

When you can see the person who hurt you as a human being who was desperately trying to meet their needs using the only strategies they knew — even tragically ineffective or harmful ones — something begins to soften. Not because what they did was okay, but because you can see their humanity without losing sight of your own.

Try completing this sentence:

"I wonder if, when they did what they did, they were trying to meet a need for _______________."

You do not need to be certain. You do not need to ask them. This is an exercise in imagination and empathy, and it is for your benefit, not theirs. It helps your nervous system release the rigid story of villain and victim, and move toward something more nuanced and more peaceful.

Step Four: Forgiveness as Liberation

After mourning, after self-empathy, after understanding — forgiveness often arrives not as a decision but as a natural unfolding. The grip loosens. The story loses its charge. You find that you can think about what happened without the same flood of pain.

Forgiveness in the NVC sense is not:

• Saying what happened was okay
• Reconciling with the person
• Trusting them again
• Forgetting what happened
• Pretending you are not still affected

Forgiveness is:

• Releasing the demand that the past be different than it was
• No longer needing the other person to suffer for you to heal
• Reclaiming the energy that resentment was consuming
• Choosing to meet your needs through strategies that serve your life going forward

Rosenberg sometimes described forgiveness as the moment when you can fully mourn and then redirect your attention toward what you want to create, rather than what was taken from you.

This is why forgiveness is liberation. Not because the other person deserves it — maybe they do, maybe they do not — but because you deserve to be free from the weight of carrying that pain as your identity.

What If You Cannot Forgive Yet?

Then you cannot forgive yet. And that is completely okay.

Forcing forgiveness before you have fully mourned is like putting a bandage on a wound that has not been cleaned. It might look better on the surface, but the infection continues underneath.

If you find yourself unable to forgive, it usually means one of two things: either there are unmet needs you have not yet fully acknowledged, or you have not yet received enough empathy — from yourself or from others — to process the depth of the pain.

Be patient with yourself. Return to the mourning. Return to self-empathy. Consider finding a trusted friend, therapist, or empathy partner who can simply listen, reflect your feelings and needs back to you, and be present with your pain without trying to fix it.

Forgiveness is not a test you can fail. It is a journey you take at your own pace, and every step of mourning and self-connection along the way is meaningful progress.

Practical Exercise: The Forgiveness Letter You Will Not Send

This exercise brings the entire process together. Set aside thirty minutes when you will not be interrupted.

1. Write a letter to the person who hurt you. Do not censor yourself. Say everything — the anger, the grief, the betrayal, every ugly thought. Get it all out.

2. Read the letter back to yourself. As you read, underline every feeling word you find (angry, devastated, scared, lonely).

3. Next to each feeling, write the need it points to (safety, trust, respect, belonging, honesty).

4. On a new page, write a letter to yourself. For each need you identified, write a sentence of self-empathy: "Of course I feel ___ because ___ matters deeply to me."

5. Finally, if you feel ready, write a few sentences imagining what needs the other person might have been trying to meet. You do not have to feel warmth toward them. Just curiosity.

You will not send either letter. This exercise is entirely for you. Many people report feeling physically lighter after completing it — as if something that was clenched inside has finally been allowed to release.

Forgiveness is not the finish line. It is the moment you stop carrying someone else's choices as your burden, and begin walking forward with your arms free.