Quietly take a reflection of yourself and the many people you have interacted with in different spheres of your life.
Have you ever hurt someone in your personal or professional life so bad that after the event they never wanted anything to do with you however much you tried to make amends? How did you feel when you have pushed away despite your efforts?
Forgiveness is vital towards mending a broken relationship but it gets complicated when trying to understand how best to handle someone who is not willing to forgive you.
Would you keep making apologies until finally, they bow to pressure and unwillingly forgive you just to cut the story short? On the other hand, do you write them off and coldly move on?
When your apology is rejected, confusion and pain may slowly set in. This can happen mostly if you had not prepared for any other eventuality apart from being forgiven and restoring the relations you had.
How Would You Deal With Yourself And The Other Person When Forgiveness Is Not Forthcoming?
Be Clear On Your Intentions
What exactly do you want to achieve? Good intentions necessitate that the apology should be about the wronged person’s feelings and not about you.
Make An Honest Apology
It’s always recognizable when an apology isn’t from the heart. Did you apologize with the best intentions and patiently listened to the other side of the story or did you just do it to end the issue?
Accept Responsibility For Your Actions
Be ready to acknowledge your mistakes and accept that your actions have hurt others. This will be an important step towards creating a way forward.
Work On Correcting Your Mistakes
Once you acknowledge your mistakes, it is important to make a deliberate effort to correct them and forge ahead as a better person.
Think Through Why You Were Not Forgiven
When someone refuses to forgive you, first, you need to honestly ask yourself whether you’ve been accountable for your mistakes. The moment you start debating about the hurt you caused and try to justify your deeds, then your request will not be genuine.
If The First Approach Didn’t Work, Try A Different Approach
If you still wish to ask for forgiveness after the first attempt failed, it would be wise to approach your quest from a different angle.
Assuming that even after making a sincere apology and taking responsibility for your mistakes your apology was rejected, you may try sending an arbitrator to mediate on your behalf.
Give The Aggrieved Person Some Space
It may be confusing and quite hard to find the best approach on how to handle someone who has refused to forgive you. However, in many instances, giving them space to cool down and find peace at their own pace could help them be more accommodative towards you.
When Everything Fails, In Good Faith Let It Go
Sometimes once you have tried your best and your heart is at peace that you did your best in an honest and well intentioned manner, letting go becomes the only best you can do.
Sometimes, people may come around after having time to go through a healing process. At other times, they may never come around.
Forgive yourself and forgive the person who refused to accept your sincere apology, wish them well, and release everything from your heart.
Conclusively, everything happens in our lives for a reason. Some people are in our lives for a specific period of time. Get the lesson from the relationship you had with them in your life and now forge ahead while focusing on being a better person in the future