The Healing Power of Forgiveness

In 2006, a man walked into an Amish one room school in Nickle Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and took 10 Amish schoolgirls hostage for over an hour before murdering them. The killer killed himself when the police breeched the school. The next day the Amish community, including the parents of the murdered girls, spoke to the press and told everyone that they forgive the man who killed their daughters. When I first heard about this, it was local news for me, I was horrified that anyone would harm Amish girls, but in disbelief on how quickly the local Amish community forgave such a tragic act. Years later, I now realize that that forgiveness was not a blanket “The killer did nothing wrong and we just don’t care about our daughters” statement, it was more like a “we hand this matter over to God and will focus on our healing” statement. It was an act of compassion towards themselves, not toward the killer. Years later, I realized that forgiveness is not absolution for a crime, it’s a stepping away from the parts of the situation that you can’t control, so that you can heal and move on from the parts that you can control. Forgiveness is an act of self-love and compassion.

According The Greater Good site at Berkely University, “Forgiveness is a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance towards a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.” When someone wrongs you in some way, that affects you on many levels. You will feel wronged and angry, maybe you want to make them suffer like you feel you were made to suffer, and sometimes, you may actively start planning your revenge. All of those actions are not good for you mind, body, or spirit. Anger and resentment are baser emotions that cause all sorts of health problems for you and do nothing to harm your transgressor. It is very easy to think, but I was wronged so therefore I should punish those who wronged me. All you are doing is continuing the abuse and damage that was perpetrated against you on yourself. You are letting the abuser live in your head and continue their actions.

There are a lot of wrong beliefs about forgiveness. When you forgive someone, you do not need to notify them that you forgive them. Forgiveness is so you can start to heal. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you go back to the way things were. If you go back to the way things were before you walked away, the problem will just continue. Forgiveness isn’t for the one who hurt you, it’s about you and your moving on and healing. It can be scary to have to make changes in your life without holding onto your anger and fear as motivators, but if you wish to continue living your life to it’s full potential, you need to forgive and move on. Finally, forgiveness has nothing to do with you being a coward. True forgiveness takes courage. You are making lasting changes in your life and focusing on your healing and well being. Some of those changes may be drastic and change the direction your life is going.

We are talking mainly about self-forgiveness and the benefits of it. You are not obligated to forgive the person who perpetrated the wrong against you, you just need to find it in yourself to forgive yourself for being in the situation where the wrong was perpetrated. Self-forgiveness allows you to move on, to heal, and to free yourself from the pain. Forgiveness and healing is a long process, it’s not like a magic word that you utter and everything is good again. The benefits of forgiveness out weigh the internal work it take to forgive. Forgiveness has been proven to lower blood pressure, reduce the chances of heart attack or stroke from stress and anger, allows for better sleep, and helps your immune system function more efficiently. Holding onto anger and resentment is not good for a person’s body. Forgiveness releases that anger and resentment.

That’s just the physical side of things, on the mental health front, forgiveness offers way more benefits. By offering forgiveness towards others, people have shown a reduction in suicidal ideations, depression, and less desire to commit acts of self-harm. A person that practices forgiveness on a regular basis, studies has show higher instances of satisfaction in life, more happiness, and less instances of harmful mental illnesses. Imagine a simple act that improves your life so much and makes you more empathetic to boot.

So how do you forgive yourself or someone else? The first step is to recognize the wrong and if there is a need for forgiveness. Not every time you get angry at someone or someone is angry at you needs to be forgiven. Making the decision to forgive someone may take a while. You have a lot of emotions to process through before you are ready to even look at the situation clearly. This step does not mean you need to see yourself as a victim. This step is just to think about what happened and see if forgiveness is needed to more one. A situation need forgiveness when you are filled with resentment or anger about what happened and are unable to mentally move on from that situation. Even things that see unforgivable at the moment they happen, may become forgivable as time passes. I feel like the time for forgiveness is that moment when you realize someone did something wrong to you and they are living rent free in your head and effecting your life. You need to release some of the negativity of the situation before you can clearly see the situation and if it needs forgiveness.

The next step is to accept what happened. You cannot change the past and keeping yourself trapped there will only harm you. By finding a way to accept what happened you will be able to look at the situation a little more clearly.

The next step is to see your part in what happened and what lessons can be learned. This is another spot where it is important to not dwell on being a victim. Bad things happened. Look at the situation and see what you can learn from it. Do you need to change things in your life? Are there people that should no longer be a part of your life? There is no time in this to play the blame game either. Too often we will dwell on what we did wrong and why we deserved something to happen, when the truth is sometimes thing happen in our lives what are out of our control as they happen. The only thing you control in some situations is how you respond to them after they happen. This is the stage when you look at things with compassion, understanding, and empathy.

Now that you understand what happened and what you can do to avoid situations like this in the future, it is time to set that emotional energy free to be recycled into healing. You can’t change what happened, but you can decide to not let what happened control you. Start by forgiving yourself for you part in things and allow the healing to begin.

If you are feeling generous with the healing, offer the person who harmed you forgiveness. This is the best part of this, you don’t even need to talk to them to forgive them. Write them a letter in your journal and don’t send it to them. Cut the cords they hold over you from the harm they did to you and heal yourself. If it is something minor, you can talk to them and explain why you forgive them and that you hope to reconcile with them. In most cases, forgiving someone you no longer have in your life is a way to emotionally sever those connections the two of you have. If their actions are living rent free in your head, the act of forgiving them is a compassionate eviction notice.

The last part of this is the healing. Learn to dismantle the triggers that came about because of what happened. Learn to trust people again and to trust yourself again. Be compassionate with yourself and realize that there will be times when your brain will want to think about what happened and analyze it. Give yourself a moment, maybe journal about it, and release it by repeating why you are forgiving the situation and everyone involved. Over time and as you heal, those thoughts will happen less and less. Just be nice to yourself, healing takes time and is hard work; but it is necessary work if you wish to grow as a being.

Forgiveness is a revolutionary act that take courage and empathy. Like most things in the universe, it is easier to allow anger and resentment to fester and grow until it eats away at your physical, spiritual, and mental health. By forgiving a situation or person, you are free to heal you. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person, it is all about making you free to be who your truly are.