Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Good Therapy for Body and Soul

We've all been victims of life's injustices. There's the boyfriend who breaks your heart. The boss who fires you. The thug who takes your purse. You get mad--and most of the time, you get over it.

But when you can't let go of the grudges, you stand to lose a lot more than just your temper. Your hurt and anger may gnaw at you, disrupting your productivity and performance at work, your relationships and even your happiness. If you're not careful, you can do some serious damage to yourself.

"There's no question that holding on to grievances and unforgiving thoughts can age you," says Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiburón, California, and the author of nine books on relationships including Love is Letting Go of Fear and Good-Bye to Guilt: Releasing Fear through Forgiveness. "Besides the depression and anxiety it causes, it can also lead to wrinkles, heart disease, depression and a host of other physical problems that take the zip and zest out of your life. The good news is, when you forgive you can wipe the slate clean, and sometimes maybe even reverse some of the damage done."

You Don't Have to Roll Over

But to do that, you have to realize what forgiveness isn't. It's not being a doormat or turning the other cheek so it can get slapped. You don't have to "play nice" with the subject of your rage or even allow the people who make you mad back into your life.

"Forgiveness doesn't mean that you should pretend the situation didn't happen," says Robert Enright, Ph.D., educational psychologist and professor of human development at the University of Wisconsin­Madison. "It means that you're accepting what happened, trying to accept the one who hurt you and acknowledging your hurt, but making a decision to not allow it to destroy your life."

Adds Redford B. Williams, M.D., director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center and a professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. "It doesn't mean that you should forgive and forget. It's okay to remember; it just shouldn't control your thinking. Once you give up the notion of revenge, you make a conscious decision to save yourself from thinking about your hurt all the time. And when you do that, you will feel better, emotionally and physically."

Just What the Doctor Ordered

In research with S. T. Tina Huang, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the National Chung-Cheng University in Chia-i, Taiwan, Dr. Enright found that the longer people hold on to their resentment, the more it tends to affect their blood pressure readings. "We found in the people we studied, whenever they were recalling stories of deep hurt, there were spiked increases in blood pressure in those who didn't have this outpouring of forgiveness," Dr. Enright says.

But those people who learned to forgive experienced a drop in blood pressure. And that's significant, since experts believe that a long-term grudge can cause the same damage to a woman's heart as it does to a man's. Men, by the way, have higher rates of heart disease and, coincidently, have a harder time learning to forgive.

"Everything bad that unresolved anger does to men, it also does to women," says Dr. Williams, author of Anger Kills. "And the 'badness' occurs in women at the same rate as in men. But the damage isn't just to your heart. People prone to traits associated with an unwillingness to forgive are at a higher risk of dying from all causes."

Including cancer. Research shows that a tendency to hold resentment and a marked inability to forgive have been linked with an increased risk of cancer, says O. Carl Simonton, M.D., director of Simon Cancer Counseling Center in Pacific Palisades, California, and co-author of Getting Well Again. Other researchers say that the stress associated with holding a grudge is also linked to higher rates of headache, backache, ulcers and wrinkles and even colds, flu and other infectious diseases.

The emotional tolls of failing to forgive can also age you. "We found that those with the lowest tolerance for forgiveness also had the lowest levels of self-esteem and the highest levels of anxiety and depression," says Dr. Enright. "But when they learn to forgive, their self-esteem increases while their depression and anxiety decrease. And I guess you could say that people with high self-esteem tend to take better care of themselves, so they feel better," he says. It's even possible that you'll look and act younger.

How to Foster Forgiveness

So how do you learn to forgive? After all, isn't that sending a message that you're over your pain or even that you're condoning the behavior? Doesn't forgiveness say that you're a sucker?

"Not if you realize that there's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation," says Dr. Enright. "Let's say that when you were growing up, one of your parents was somewhat emotionally distant from you. Perhaps your father was working all the time or didn't spend a lot time with you. With forgiveness, you try to understand the situation from his point of view: Perhaps he's worked so hard to be a good provider. In forgiveness, you do what you can to build on that relationship. In reconciliation, you both try to build that relationship. You may not even address your feelings but instead try to mend that relationship and build from it now."

And luckily, both get easier as we mature. "In one study, college students in particular were less likely to forgive than their parents and had more anxiety relative to their problem than their parents," says Dr. Enright. In adulthood, we're statistically most willing to forgive. Experts say that by practicing forgiveness now regardless of age, you could help keep your youthful outlook and health well into your golden years. And here's how.

Think of today. Kids live for the present, neither dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future. And that's good advice for women trying to come to grips with their hurt. "When you're four years old and a friend takes your toy, you swear you'll hate that kid forever and never play with him again. Meanwhile, ten minutes later, you're out playing together like nothing happened," says Dr. Jampolsky.

"It's important to have peace of mind as our only goal and to recognize that the attachment to anger doesn't really bring peace," says Dr. Jampolsky. "The people who feel less burdened by age are those who are in their eighties and nineties with what I call celestial amnesia; they live for the present."

Choose to be happy, not right. It's important to ask ourselves if we want to be happy or right, and it's important not to make others wrong and ourselves right. "The first step in forgiveness is willingness to forgive," says Dr. Jampolsky. "When we recognize that holding on to unforgiving thoughts is really a decision to suffer, it makes it easier for us to have a desire to forgive, let go and heal the past. When we forgive, the other person doesn't have to change at all. It's just a matter of changing our own thoughts and attitudes. To forgive does not mean you have to agree with the behavior," he says.

Keep it to yourself. Do you feel embarrassed or stupid saying "I forgive you"? Then keep it to yourself. You don't have to offer forgiveness directly to people who hurt you, says Sidney B. Simon, Ed.D., a counselor and professor emeritus of psychological education at the University of Massachusetts­Amherst, who with his wife, Suzanne Simon, wrote a book called Forgiveness: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Get On with Your Life. You can simply try to see things from their perspective.

Ask what's really bugging you. Sometimes the source of your resentment can be deep in your emotional well, hidden even from you--until you catch your panty hose on a table edge and all hell breaks loose. "When we get uptight about the smaller things that happen each day, we are really getting upset about something deeper that we might never have forgiven," says Dr. Simon. So ask yourself about the root of your anger and try to come to grips with it. If you can't do this on your own, perhaps a therapist can help you.

Don't be a victim again. Resentment often results from your being a victim--of a crime, broken heart or some other situation where you felt powerless. Sometimes the inability to forgive ourselves stems from feelings that we didn't do enough to stop the terrible deed. But by taking action after the fact, many women find it easier to forgive themselves. Take action against unfair treatment: If your car mechanic is patronizing you, tell him to stop it or he'll lose your business. If your husband is cheating on you, make your feelings known. If you've been the victim of a crime, press charges.

Put it on paper. Maybe you feel anger and resentment but aren't sure why. Or maybe you know why but you can't bring yourself to forgive the scoundrel. Either way, get it down on paper, says James Pennebaker, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and author of Opening Up: The Healing Power of Confiding in Others. Simply write down your feelings--how you feel rather than just reporting that you feel bad. By doing this daily, for about 20 minutes a day, keeping a "kvetching diary" can help you vent your feelings while focusing your resentment, so you'll be better able to forgive.