The Power of Forgiveness
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” — Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiveness can be a tricky subject. It can often feel like if we let go of the pain someone has caused us, what we are actually doing is making excuses for them or letting them off the hook too easily.
On the other hand, not forgiving someone for what they’ve done can make us feel like we’re giving them too much power over our lives and like we’re holding onto something only for the sake of anger, resentment and familiarity.
The reality is, forgiveness is complex. There will be some situations when it is the right move to forgive and let go and others when we might benefit from sitting with our anger and resentment so that we can fully learn from it and understand what got us into that situation in the first place.
Being able to successfully recognize the moment when holding onto your anger and resentment is no longer serving you but actually dragging you down is an incredibly important step when it comes to your own personal healing and self-care.
In the following article, we are going to take a closer look as to WHY learning to forgive in the right moment is so important and what can happen if you hold onto anger and resentment for a little too long.
What exactly is forgiveness?
Forgiveness can mean a lot of different things, depending on who you ask. But in general, it refers to the process of deciding to let go of any stored up resentment and any thoughts of revenge/anger that you might have for someone who you feel has wronged you.
What exactly the results of forgiveness look like in your own situation, will be entirely unique. In some cases, forgiveness might result in you letting go of your anger but no longer wanting to resolve things or make up with the person that caused the harm. For others, forgiveness might look like the desire to workout the problem and see if you can move through the issue together.
And in other cases, forgiveness might look a little like “I know you don’t mean to hurt me and I’m no longer angry with you but I also don’t want to continuously expose myself to this kind of drama in my life, so I’ve got to look out for myself and take some time and space to heal until I feel like you are actually willing to change”.
Or, you might find that by continuously forgiving someone for the way they treat you, you’re not actually doing them any favors on their way to becoming the best version of themselves either. So even though you might be able to forgive someone and have empathy for why they behave in the way that they do, you might realize that your continued forgiveness is only making things worse. So deciding not to let people back into your life could just as easily be one of the most profound forms of forgiveness because what you’re actually doing is trying to look out for them.
As you can see, the forms that forgiveness can take in your own life are plentiful. However, one thing they all have in common is that by letting go of the control that the situation has on you and your own well-being, you’re freeing yourself up to find a whole host of positive benefits that can help you improve your well-being.
Why is forgiveness important and beneficial?
Forgiveness can play a crucial role in personal healing because it can allow us to detach from any suffering of the past and continue to move forward with a greater opportunity for inner peace and freedom.
From a mental health perspective, forgiveness can reduce symptoms of mental illness, lower anxiety, stress, depression, rage as well as improve our sense of self-esteem. It can allow us to lead better relationships and feel a more profound sense of meaning and connection with the people around us.
For many, being in touch with your empathy and compassion, can be hugely beneficial for our spirituality as well because it forces us to align ourselves with higher and more positive energies. We have the saying “To err is human, to forgive is divine” for a reason!
However, letting go of any anger and bitterness that is stored up inside you can actually have a variety of positive effects on your physical health as well.
Studies have shown that forgiveness can lead to physical improvements such as lower blood pressure, a stronger immune system and general improved heart health.
Alongside forgiving others for the pain they have caused you, one of the unique types of forgiveness that can actually have a profound impact on your life is self-forgiveness, so we will take a closer look at that now.
Why is self-forgiveness so important?
Forgiving others is only one part of the game when it comes to forgiveness. For many of us, holding grudges towards ourselves for our own past behavior is actually one of the most impactful things that keeps us back from achieving the life we say we want.
It is in our human nature to make mistakes. Especially when we have difficult childhood experiences and trauma to deal with, it’s entirely normal to find ourselves on a path that we aren’t genuinely proud of.
Consciously, we might not admit to being disappointed in ourselves but our subconscious attitude towards our behavior and lack of integrity can often get in the way of really truly learning how to love ourselves (and in turn other people!).
So if we find ourselves in a place where we aren’t forgiving ourselves for our past wrong-doings and continue to stay angry with ourselves, we might see the negative effects this can have on our life.
This might include things like:
Being afraid of letting ourselves have anything good in life for fear of making another mistake that we can’t forgive ourselves for
Continuously self-sabotaging what we say we want because it’s way easier to sabotage something than to genuinely try and accept that you might fail
Being angry at ourselves and the world around us for never getting the things we say we want, yet never actually making any moves to actually change it
Feeling like a victim and that the world is “punishing” us somehow, without realizing that it is our own fears and behaviors that are keeping us stuck
Feeling like we’ve constantly got to run away from the present moment for fear of having to face our own perceived “short-comings”
If any of these feel familiar, ask yourself this:
Did you grow up in an environment where high achievement and performance was expected of you and where mistakes were a sign of weakness and failure? Did you feel like you needed to “work” and perform in order to receive the kind of love and connection that you craved?
If so, it’s very likely that you’re subconsciously programmed to believe that any sort of past mistakes are something that you can’t and shouldn’t forgive yourself for.
While the drive towards self-improvement and achievement is generally a very good thing, if not communicated and handled properly in childhood, it can often manifest in an unforgiving and begrudging attitude towards ourselves that disables us with fear and actually keeps us stuck in exactly those places that we are trying to get away from.
And if we want to genuinely break free from such a paradigm, it is really important that we learn how to let ourselves make mistakes and then truly forgive ourselves for them.
Want to start taking steps towards forgiveness?
For those of you who are feeling drawn to learn more about forgiveness and want to learn actionable steps on how to actually forgive someone or yourself, we’ve just launched our new monthly programming in our membership. The entire month’s content is designed to help you identify areas in your life where you could benefit from forgiveness, plus helps you take the steps you’ll need to actually learn to forgive!
Over the course of the month, we will look at:
What is forgiveness?
What does the process of forgiving look like?
What can we do about our desire for revenge?
How to practice self-forgiveness!
A beautiful meditation about extending forgiveness
If you would like to join us for this new programming or try any of the other monthly topics that we have available in our membership, make sure to check out our free 7-day trial!
Don’t already know about The Self Care Space?
Our membership is filled with self-guided prompts and programs on self-love, healthy relationships, breaking free from the past and managing a healthy mindset. We have countless guided meditations, healing visualizations as well as weekly live workshops and coaching sessions. If you want to know more or are interested in signing up, you can find out all the relevant information here.
Whichever route you choose for your personal healing journey, we just want you to know we are proud of you for showing up for yourself in the first place!
xoxo,
The Self Care Space
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