Why You Should Forgive Others and Yourself
Forgiveness is defined as the process or action of forgiving. This is a well-known topic, however, what are the actual benefits a person may see from practicing forgiveness and how is the endpoint known, or is there really an end at all?
Forgiveness is an ongoing process, depending on the person, their abilities to forgive and the trauma, the duration of practice may be different for everyone. Forgiveness takes time and also the autonomous desire to forgive.
This can be a very hard topic as forgiveness can sometimes be seen as “letting someone off the hook” for the hurt they caused, however, forgiveness is different from justice. To forgive is not to excuse wrongful acts, but to allow peace in your own mind to occur. Forgiveness is a way to not let other people’s actions define you or your mental wellbeing. “It’s not the original insult that hurts the most, it’s ruminating, holding a grudge, not letting things go, that can cause the brain to become unhealthy” (Webster, 2018).
When a person repeatedly thinks about the hurt they are not punishing the guilty but rather eroding their own mental health. Negative feelings and chronic emotional distress alter cardiovascular activity, impact sleep quality, increase stress-related hormones, and can lead to the development of depression (Ricciardi et al., 2013).
In a study about forgiveness a link was observed; “activation in a brain cortical network responsible for perspective-taking processes, appraisal, and empathy, suggesting that these processes may play an important role in the adaptive extinction of negative affect and prevention of potential aggressive and socially unacceptable behavior” (Ricciardi et al., 2013). This study showed that the process and act of forgiveness promoted wellbeing, improved cardiovascular health, and lessened the risks for substance abuse (Ricciardi et al., 2013).
“Brain imaging studies of people who practice loving-kindness meditation have been shown to have enhanced signals from regions of the brain associated with empathy, such as the amygdala” (Webster, 2018). Forgiveness is shown to be beneficial for brain functioning and the production of dopamine, this also stimulates an increase in self-reliance and determination as a heightened reward, thus creating a greater amount of dopamine in circulation (Webster, 2018).
Further benefits are “lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure and levels of anxiety, depression, and stress” (Weir, 2017).
Forgiveness has many proven benefits, but how are these put into action. The process can seem unimaginable but not all forms of forgiveness require reconciliation or even speaking to the person who has hurt you (Weir, 2017). Forgiveness “is an active process in which you make a conscious decision to let go of negative feelings whether the person deserves it or not..as you release the anger, resentment, and hostility, you begin to feel empathy, compassion, and sometimes even affection”(Weir, 2017).
By rewriting the brain’s patterning of the rumination, hurt and negative emotions of what happened to a positive place of forgiveness a weight feels as if it has been lifted. A person can feel a greater sense of calm, relief, and overall wellbeing when not carrying around the stress and strain of the past history.
In another study, “people who had greater levels of accumulated lifetime stress exhibited worse mental health outcomes, but among the subset of volunteers who scored high on measures of forgiveness, high lifetime stress didn’t predict poor mental health” (Journal of Health Psychology, 2016).
Forgiveness may be something that is needed for yourself and self-forgiveness is often overlooked however, people can hold themselves accountable or in guilt as well. Self-forgiveness can be a way to understand and reflect as well as offer the self some compassion.
Why is this important to your health?
Forgiveness stimulates positive mental health, can help to rebuild self-esteem, emotional communication with yourself and others, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure and levels of anxiety, depression, and stress.
Overall Tips
- Reflect — reflecting, remembering, and journaling about previous events that you want to bring feelings of forgiveness to. Thinking about how you felt, how you reacted and how you have been affected since then.
- Showing empathy — showing empathy can feel extremely hard however bringing understanding to a situation, event or person can help to work through any remaining hurt feelings and see a new perspective about the situation.
- Try to remove feelings of taking things personally. Your own self-worth is created by you, using forgiveness to let go of feelings that are affecting your mental health can help to increase feelings of self-esteem. We cannot always understand the situations that cause pain but separating feelings of this being based on us as a person can help us see from new perspectives.
- Practice forgiving deeply — forgiving because you are told you should, your religion suggests it or you believe you don’t have a choice could bring about some healing… but really wanting to and feeling it is time will bring about the best results. Try to come from a place of understanding, and an understanding that nobody is perfect.
- Let go of expectations of the end results. This process may change a relationship for the better or a situation, however, getting too caught up in how you expect things to go can hinder the true beauty of the act of forgiveness. Forgive for the sake of moving forward and letting go of the hurt.
- Use action to seal the deal. This could be a conversation, a journal entry, or another type of therapeutic release.
- Forgive yourself. We often forget to forgive ourselves, we can be our own harshest critics however offering ourselves peace, love and understanding can help soothe us and create positive abilities to move forward.
Interested in more health related topics, make sure to check out the Ate app.
References
Ricciardi, E., Rota, G., Sani, L., Gentili, C., Gaglianese, A., Guazzelli, M., & Pietrini, P. (2013). How the brain heals emotional wounds: the functional neuroanatomy of forgiveness. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7, 839. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00839
Weir, Kristen. Forgiveness can improve mental and physical health. Research shows how to get there. January 2017, Vol 48, №1
