Joe Apfelbaum argues your past doesn't dictate your future unless you hold resentment. He frames forgiveness as a performance tool, not condoning what happened, and says accepting where you are now is the starting point for building what comes next.
Chapters
Where you are right now is exactly where you need to be to get to the next level. Stop trying to wish things were different. Instead, decide that you are perfect the way that you are right now. Surrender to the current moment and ask yourself, from this place of perfection, from this place of completion, from this place of surrender, from this place of perfectness, what can I create in the future no matter what happened in the past? That's the key. The key is not to bring your baggage from the past because the past does doesn't equal the future unless you have resentment, unless you're stuck in the past. Resentment is the poison that you take hoping that somebody else will die. Forgiveness is a high-performance tool, so forgive. Don't condone bad behavior, but forgive. Forgive for yourself.