It seems to me that to forgive is to substitute a depressed and angry mood with a joyful one. You will have forgiven the person if you are able to accomplish this. How do you feel about what I just wrote?
Although you appear to have captured some of the fundamentals of forgiveness, there is more to it than that. Anger, discouragement, and resentment are among the negative feelings that change (typically slowly) into happier, joyous, and loving ones when a person goes through the process of forgiveness. We probably shouldn’t use the word “substitute” to describe the emotional transition because it implies that we just rapidly swap out one set of feelings for another, which is counterproductive given that this is a process that can take time.
In addition to changing feelings, the forgiver also changes behaviors and thoughts from negative to more positive. In addition to all of this, when people forgive, they get more accomplished and reliable at the practice of forgiveness; in certain cases, this results in a faster time to forgiveness after 100 attempts as opposed to the first. I highlight each of these aspects so that you do not come away with the impression that forgiving is essentially an emotional process and that things usually go better quickly, which is not the case for the majority of individuals who have been severely harmed by the cruel acts of others.
