THE MIRACLE OF FORGIVENESS

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you” – Lewis B Smedes –

What is forgiveness? My personal definition of forgiveness is extending mercy and compassion to those who have hurt us . Everyone needs to learn about forgiveness because even though it is a hard pill to swallow, at least for me it has been,  is a miracle we all need for our own good and for the peace of the world.

Forgiveness is a very hard process that requires combining a strong will with spirituality. Those that have lived the  experience or are in the process of forgiving can probably understand the challenge that we, as human beings, face in order to achieve total forgiveness of our own self and others.

According to Dr. Tyler Vanderweele, Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Religion, and Spirituality of Harvard T.H. Chian School of Public Health,  forgiveness has two sides : Decisional and emotional. He explains that “decisional forgiveness involves a conscious choice to replace ill will with good will”. That happens when we don’t feel anymore the desire that bad things happen to the person that hurt us.

Emotional forgiveness is more complicated because it involves our feelings. We need to leave behind the negative feelings  such us resentment and bitterness, and don’t live anymore in the past dwelling on the wrongdoing of those who caused us suffering and emotional pain. Dealing with our emotions is part of improving our mental health, and as much as it may look weird to those that are not familiar with the impact of our emotions on our physical health, today science has proved that our wellbeing depends pretty much on our emotional, physical, and spiritual condition.

I did some research to investigate the impact of forgiveness in our mental and physical health and according to an article  I found in Mayoclinic.org the benefits of forgiveness are directly linked to some interesting mental and physical health facts. Here is the list:

“

Healthier relationships

Improved mental health

Less anxiety, stress, and hostility

Lower blood pressure

Fewer symptoms of depression

A stronger immune system

Improved heart health

Improved self-esteem

“

Dr. Vanderweele, from Harvard School of Health, also states that forgiveness has powerful health benefits such as : Lower levels of depression, anxiety and hostility, reduced substance abuse; higher self-esteem and greater life satisfaction.

Besides the mental, physical, and emotional benefits, forgiveness sets us free from hate, anger, resentment. The rumination of negative thoughts is like a poison that keeps us permanently intoxicated increasing day by day. The accumulation of negative energy destroys our spiritual peace, hope, gratitude, and joy. There is no worse imprisonment that the one we build by feeding ourselves negative emotions.

How could we start the process of forgiveness? Here are a few tips that may help you:

• Make the choice to forgive
• Awareness and Reflection

Be aware of your feelings of anger and hurt and work to understand what triggers them. Reflect on the event that hurt you, how you reacted, and how the anger and resentment have affected you. To be able to forgive, it is necessary to acknowledge the reality of what occurred, and how it affected you. Reflection is different to thinking, or ruminating. Reflection has the purpose of bringing understanding to what happened without judgment. To forgive you don’t need to be in agreement with what happened, or to continue in a situation that is not positive for you. Forgiveness is about an internal process of purification of toxic emotions, grudges, and revanche. You don’t need to accept  into your life the person who hurt you, but you need to be at peace with what happened, and let things go.

• Exercise compassion

How can I feel compassion for someone that consciously hurt me?  Well… usually people that hurt others are hurting inside and don’t know how to deal with their emotional pain. Maybe they didn’t have loving parents like the ones you had, maybe they were victims or physical, sexual, or mental abuse in their childhood, maybe they were surrounded by angry, negative, vengeful people and they learned that hurting others was the way to protect themselves. Everyone came to this world in an innocent state and learn from other adults how to act and react, so compassion is a balm we should extend to everyone. You don’t  even need to talk about your compassion, feeling it is enough.

• Wise talking

Don’t talk negatively about those who have hurt you. Everything starts with a thought, so as soon as you notice a harmful thought about a person who wronged you, use your imagination to see the individual as a hurting child. It would prevent you from the negative talking and  will help to ease the anger.

• Prayer and Meditation

We need to ask for the gift of forgiveness, we depend on the power of God to heal our wounds and to obtain the miracle of forgiveness. We cannot do it on our own strength and will power. We start by making the choice to forgive, but we need the support of the Divine Spirit to accomplish our goal. It is impossible for us to come into the arms of God’s love if we are not willing to embrace our so-called enemies and to let go of our grudges, resentments, and anger toward another one of His children.

Forgiveness is not about helping those who offended us, is about liberating ourselves from  the prison of our anger, depression, and suffering. It is for our physical, mental,  and spiritual benefit, for our own peace, and to find real joy.

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