The Empowering Freedom of Forgiveness

Ahhh, forgiveness.  One of those things that is much easier said than done. As C.S. Lewis said, "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”

     Growing up my view of forgiveness centered around making the other person I offended feel good again. I felt like forgiveness meant absolving the other person of all guilt or responsibility by pretending like the event never happened.

     While there are snippets of truth here and there in what I thought, in today's post I'd like to offer a different perspective of forgiveness.  This perspective focuses on YOU. Your peace. Your health, and how you can be empowered by the personal freedom that forgiveness gives.

     Because each person has their own definition of what forgiveness is, the way I will be using it is how the American Psychological Association has defined it (with some emphasis on a few select words):

“Forgiveness is a process (or the result of a process) that involves a change in emotion and attitude regarding an offender. Most scholars view this an intentional and voluntary process, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive. This process results in decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender despite their actions, and requires letting go of negative emotions toward the offender.”

     So basically, the focus turns inward, to your own emotions and feelings, instead of focusing on how the offender feels. It is about enabling peace within yourself, not giving up your peace for the sake of the offender.

     Sometimes forgiving can make us feel that we are condoning their actions, or making what they did "okay" because we are letting go of it. Some may feel weak for forgiving.  However, forgiveness doesn't prescribe we give up our right to restitution, our right to justice, or our basic human rights we may have felt were violated.  Rather, forgiveness is about changing how you view people and experiences.  It is an empowering process by freeing you from the negative emotions you may feel toward the offender. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and discover that prisoner was you." (Lewis Smede)

     By changing your attitude toward the offender through changing your thinking, it will change the way you look at your past. It will change the way you see your world now, and it will change the way you view the future. In all of these cases, forgiveness can enable you to see your experiences as a challenge to overcome, an experience to learn from, and an opportunity for growth. This can bring greater happiness in your life.

     Along with the psychological benefits of forgiving like improved mood, lowered rate of psychiatric illness, greater sense of personal control, and increased restoration of relationship closeness (which is also a predictor for lifespan), there are other physiological benefits to forgiving someone.

     In a study by Witvliet, Ludwig, and Laan (2001), they found that holding an unforgiving attitude increased sympathetic nervous system arousal. Basically this is the stress system in your body. Makes sense, right? Well, long term activation of this system can lead to a host of problems. It increases the stress hormones which overtime can become toxic to your body, It shrinks your lymph nodes, increasing the likelihood of infections and cancer, cardiovascular and blood pressure problems, digestion problems, ulcers, poor concentration and poor memory, how your body deposits fat, how soon you die and many, many other changes. 

     So to go along with the quote by Buddha above, anger, resentment, and holding grudges are all  actually poisonous to your body overtime because of the negative health effects of long term sympathetic nervous system activation. 

     Don't believe me? You can come to the BYU's Biofeedback Stress Management Services and see how holding a grudge can change your physiology!  The following image is a screen shot I took from one of the programs that we use:

     This graph is looking at the rhythm of someone's heart. The red star is where I had the person start doing some deep breathing, the blue star is where I had them think about a time when they couldn't forgive someone (as they kept doing the breathing), and the green star is where I had the person let go of ruminating thoughts and just concentrate on their breathing. As you can see, between the blue and the green star the heart changes it's rhythm simply because the way the person was thinking changed.

      As you can also see at the green star, when you start to forgive someone, you literally have a change of heart, because your heart begins to beat at a different rhythm. :)

     So now you know forgiveness is about finding your own peace.  You know forgiveness can improve your health, and you know that your thoughts can have a direct impact on the beating of your heart. What about the process of forgiving?  How do you even start?  Here are a six steps that you might find helpful (taken from several publications from the American Psychological Association):

     1. Acknowledge how you feel. A lot of times we just feel distressed but know really know with what particular emotions we’re dealing with or why we feel that way. It’s not the actual situation that makes us distressed, it’s the feelings of being distressed that make us miserable. So identify first okay, this is how I’m feeling – sad, because of this reason, shame for such and such a reason, angry for this or that reason, etc. Also in this stage you can recognize how some of your thoughts might be off. Often times it’s easy to judge situations based on your initial interpretation of events.  See if there are flaws in your thinking. For example,"He must have know it would have upset me." Not necessarily true.

     2. Understand what you mean by forgiveness and decide to do it. Even though I gave a certain definition at the beginning, decide what forgiveness will entail for you in that situation. Will it be going to the person to reconcile the relationship, will it be trusting them again, dropping a court case, or will it simply be changing how you think about them? After you know what it will entail for you, make the active decision to do it.

     3. Work to understand the perspective of the offender, and develop empathy and compassion towards them. This is where meditation might be particularly helpful. Imagine good will or compassion toward that person. It will be hard at first, but with time and patience it can become easier, and you will feel more free.  Some things to keep in mind when trying to be understanding is that you never know what battles the other person is facing in their life, or if something is neurologically wrong, or if there was simply a misunderstanding. 

     4. Understand your own shortcomings and need for forgiveness. Not one of us is perfect, and that’s okay. There’s a little good and bad in each of us, and recognizing this can help us give the benefit of the doubt to other.

     5.  Find positive meaning in past events. Instead of a something that is going to ruin your life forever, you can see it as an opportunity to grow and a challenge to overcome. Those who are in the habit of this have less perceived stress and live longer because of it.

     6.  Practice til you become it. Don't worry if forgiveness doesn't come right away or it's taking longer than you would like. It takes time to change the way we thing because it takes time for our brains to strengthen different thought pathways than we are used to using.

     There is one more thing that I would caution about. Some that have gone through extreme trauma, e.g. sexual abuse sometimes feel pressured to forgive their offenders. Recognize that you get to choose forgiveness on your own timeline and no one can tell you how you should or shouldn't feel. Remember that forgiveness is finding peace in yourself, and not making what the offender did okay.

To finish up, I'll leave you with a quote by Lewis Smedes: "You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well."