Forgiveness means different things to different people. The great thing about restorative justice is you can decide for yourself what it means for you and how you might use is.
To some forgiveness means taking someone back into a relationship after they have wrongly hurt you, but to others it means simply accepting what has happened and letting go of the resentment and other negative feelings associated with it–there is no need for a continued relationship. Many times there is no relationship to continue because most crime is committed by unknowns, strangers stealing, etc. Even when our car gets broken into, we can be left feeling violated and have a need to heal. Forgiveness can help.
Fred Luskin, http://www.learningtoforgive.com/, is a psychologist who has researched and studied forgiveness for years. He teaches that no longer “renting space in your head” for the past injustice you suffered. Instead of wasting your energy complaining and re-telling the story in your head and to others, you put your energy into creating the positive fulfilled life that you want. Luskin teaches practices that can help you learn to forgive.
If you think it would be too hard for you to forgive someone for hurting you, read the some of the stories about forgiveness that Marina Cantacuzino eloquently tells about people from all over the world on the website: http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/project/about/
If you want to work on learning to forgive, something easy you can practice that has been used for about 2500 years in Asia is called tonglen, which is a Buddhist lojong mind practice (http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php). When something wrong or disturbing happens, breath it in–breath in all the sadness, all the hurt feelings, right into you–then at the bottom of your breath imagine all the other people in the world who are also suffering the exact same thing you are right now, and breath out something positive for all of you that could help you all feel better. You can breath out an image, like a rainbow, a smile, or kind words–anything that you think could help. Repeat this as often as you catch yourself thinking about what happened.