For many, it’s hard to recognize how forgiveness impacts happiness. We can compartmentalize and avoid issues, cut people out of our lives or just keep charging forward.

Over time, these grievances and injustices linger with us — only to become heavier and heavier. Forgiveness has long been considered a sign of selflessness, said to empower a person to break free from the mindset of being a victim.

By forgiving, you let go of the past and move on. However, I’ve found that even when someone thinks they’ve forgiven someone, they are often still harboring anger.

All of us can scan our life’s experiences and probably find a few relationships that are broken or sorrowful as a result of choosing not to forgive. But it’s never too late to consciously balance our perspective to bring peace.

Many of us were taught to “forgive and forget.” This never worked for me, as resentment and bitterness remained no matter how hard I tried to let it go.

Growing up in both western and eastern cultures, I was immersed in multiple religions simultaneously. Though these teachings provided an underlying basis for the practice of forgiveness, I was never able to honestly “forgive” those I felt had wronged me.

It wasn’t until I worked with human behavior specialist and author Dr. John Demartini that I was able to learn to fully let things go.

The way he explains forgiveness is unconventional, but it made sense to me.

He said that in order to forgive someone, you must first judge something they did as “bad” or wrong, and when we sit in judgement of their actions, we don’t see the bigger picture. He said all events, even hurtful ones, benefit us, but we need to change our focus to the benefits.

In all of my situations, I was able to go beyond forgiveness and find the bigger picture. I was able to clearly see so many current benefits as a result of all past perceived “wrongs.” I realized that had those injustices, betrayals or “bad” things never happened to me, I wouldn’t be where I am today, doing what I’m doing. It was humbling, to say the least, and my heart opened with gratitude for those people and those experiences.

So instead of focusing on the small picture and judging the person, look at it differently and ask what benefit you received. What opportunity came from this? When you can fully see the other side of the coin, you will be able to whole-heartedly say thank you “for-giving” me this experience.

Alice Inoue is the founder of Happiness U. Visit yourhappinessu.com