“I could never forgive him after what he did to me.”
“You want me to do what? Forgive that person? No way!”
“I’m supposed to just let them get away with treating me like that? Not going to happen.”
As a mental health professional for 35 years, I have heard people say things like this countless times.
My response is always the same: “Holding on to hurts is toxic to your heart and soul. Forgiving someone who harmed you is never easy, but working through the process removes a major obstacle on the path toward wellness.”
People who seek counseling at the clinic I direct are often surprised when we ask whether they have granted forgiveness to those who have harmed them. They fail to see the link between their mental distress and unresolved conflict with others. But my experience has erased all doubt that hanging on to offenses and emotional wounds is an effective (and unfortunate) way to punish yourself.
I realize that forgiveness is a loaded word for many people. It carries conflicting religious overtones or hints of pop culture sentimentalism many of us have learned to distrust.
The sticking point for most people is a burning desire for justice. They can’t bear to let someone “get away with” a hurtful offense. But ignoring or overlooking someone’s misdeeds is not the essence of forgiveness at all. Rather, it’s about your own experience of life’s inevitable conflicts and whether you will go on reliving the pain they caused or let go and move on.
In short, forgiveness brings freedom—for you.
The Benefits of Forgiveness
A growing body of social science research demonstrates the physical and mental health benefits of forgiveness.An
article presented by the American Psychological Association reads: “Whether you’ve suffered a minor slight or a major grievance, learning to forgive those who hurt you can significantly improve both psychological well-being and physical health.
“Research has shown that forgiveness is linked to mental health outcomes such as reduced anxiety, depression and major psychiatric disorders, as well as with fewer physical health symptoms and lower mortality rates.”
In a landmark
meta-analysis published in the “Handbook of Forgiveness,” psychologists Loren Toussaint and Jon R. Webb discovered that nine recent studies all concluded the same thing: Forgiveness has a significant role to play in healing depression.
As I explain in my book “Triumph Over Trauma,” when we hang on to feelings of outrage, bitterness, and injustice, we keep an offense alive and its wounds fresh. In the process, we remain vulnerable to all the negative physical and psychological effects of runaway anger and resentment.
But as we forgive, we rise above the hurts and injustices that have held us back from freedom. Extending forgiveness is the key to the peace you’re looking for when pursuing lasting relief from past hurts.
As theologian Lewis B. Smedes said so well, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” That is wise insight for lifelong health and well-being.
Beyond the spiritual and emotional benefits of forgiving others, physical benefits also exist. Letting go of grudges and bitterness fosters improved health. In an article titled “
Forgiveness: Your Health Depends On It,” researchers at Johns Hopkins University wrote:
“Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. And research points to an increase in the forgiveness-health connection as you age.”
What Forgiveness Is Not
Because there is so much confusion about forgiveness, let’s examine misconceptions that keep people stuck in anger and bitterness.Forgiveness isn’t about letting someone “off the hook.” Some people see forgiveness as giving a guilty person an undeserved get-out-of-jail-free card. This seems unfair, because we can’t stand the idea of saying “That’s OK” about behavior that clearly is not.
The misunderstanding lies in the belief that forgiving someone is the same thing as excusing the offense. It isn’t. The purpose of forgiveness is not to deliver anything at all to the one who caused us harm, but to benefit ourselves by letting go of toxic attachment to the past.
Forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness or an invitation to further offense. This misunderstanding is rooted in the ancient human impulse to take “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It’s the belief that if we don’t deal out retribution, we hold open the door for more trespasses of our boundaries.
Ask yourself, which is a bigger sign of weakness: letting the offensive actions of someone else determine your future health and well-being, or taking charge of your own destiny by choosing forgiveness over bondage to anger? You won’t be weak by forgiving—just the opposite.
Forgiveness isn’t the same thing as reconciliation. Most of the time, the goal after a painful conflict with someone we care about is to put the relationship back on track and move ahead with life. With ordinary offenses, this is a good and healthy endeavor. Otherwise, we’d have no relationships at all, since it’s impossible to go through life without occasionally offending others.
Although forgiveness is usually a necessary step in reconciliation, the inverse is not true. Sometimes a person’s trespass is so harmful or severe that continuing the relationship is impossible and inadvisable. It’s always possible to forgive in such cases, but reconciliation must involve evidence of real remorse, restorative restitution, and guarantees of future safety. When healing from a serious offense, that’s a high standard that requires genuine participation from both parties for success.
What Forgiveness Is
By looking at what forgiveness isn’t, I hope you’ve begun to form a better idea of what it is: an open door leading to freedom from bitterness. Let’s take a closer look.Forgiveness is a detox for the heart and mind. When people seek recovery from substance abuse, the first step is always a detox regimen to purge the body of harmful chemicals. This is the starting point, so the next steps toward healing can be taken.
The same applies to emotional health. Forgiveness is a powerful way to cleanse yourself of harmful emotions that would otherwise impede your healing and wellness.
Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. Our emotions may eventually catch up, but forgiveness starts with an intentional choice. It’s a personal resolution to take back your life by no longer allowing the hurt you suffered to smother you. It’s setting yourself free from your bondage to brokenness.
Forgiveness is a deliberate response to pain and injury—one that can be acted on even if you don’t feel like it. The ability to forgive can be learned. The power is yours, and you exercise it when you choose to try.
Forgiveness is a pathway toward peacefulness. Here’s a mental picture I share with people struggle to forgive: In the South, children catch crawfish from the creek by baiting a paperclip on a string with a morsel of bacon. The poor creature clamps on and won’t let go, even when hauled out of the water to its doom. Forgiveness means choosing to release your grip and set yourself free.
With the struggling clients I work with, I’ve seen time and time again that learning to forgive helps lighten their emotional load, brighten their outlook on life, shorten their recovery time, and restore their natural resilience against hardships in the future.
You are your own greatest ally and asset in your quest to achieve emotional wellness. That’s because forgiveness is a giant step toward wholeness—a step you can choose to make.
