The Healing Role of Forgiveness

What is the dynamic power of forgiveness?

Forgiveness can effectively reduce frustration and suffering because it brings four primary healing qualities to focus on anger. These are love, understanding, tolerance, and acceptance. This quartet is the “anti-matter” that begins to dissolve the angry feelings and judgments about old events and those we accuse of harming us.

Effective forgiveness is not only excellent for repairing emotional wounds, but it also can work to build up our strengths and self-worth. People who have suffered from chronic, recurring anger, fear, or discouragement need to rebuild confidence and dignity. Our sincere gratitude for surviving our difficulties will begin this process. This compassionate view prepares us to forgive ourselves for succumbing to fear, resentment, grief, and apathy.

Rebuilding our physical and emotional health is another area that benefits from forgiveness. Many chronically ill people begin to resent the distress and other limitations their sick body imposes on them. Regarding the body as an enemy can delay healing. Genuine forgiveness for the presence of our illness will assist the healing process, especially if we praise and encourage our potential for a healthy body and mind.

The five significant ways we may be reluctant to forgive

Major grievances present us with five significant challenges. Most people only recognize the first one, believing that the injury is a “done deal” that has already occurred and cannot be reversed or erased. We assume we are stuck with these traumas forever.

This belief affirms that facts do not change but neglects that we can change how we view and interpret old events. What we may have considered a personal attack may have been partly valid criticism. The violation of a right we insisted was ours can turn out to be a self-serving assumption. Sometimes, our liberation from unnecessary distress requires that we embrace the painful truth about ourselves and how we behave.

The second way we can resist forgiving old emotional wounds is the conversion of insults and injuries into grievances. This habit weaponizes our resentment into forming a victim mentality that will keep us focused on anger and the desire for vengeance. The result is the production of a nearly continual stream of resentment, blame, and self-pity. Even when our conscious attention is on ordinary events, our grievances will be simmering in our subconscious.

We need to recognize this train of thought converts our adversaries into oppressors and ourselves into victims. This act will immensely strengthen the bond of anger we are forging with them. Forgiveness will be far more difficult after this twisted view becomes our fixed judgment. Genuine forgiveness can overcome this animosity once we are willing to move on from this trap we have made for ourselves.

The third challenge to forgiveness is the assumption that the complete resolution of our conflicts depends on our adversaries returning to apologize and making amends for causing us so much misery. Although this is an unlikely solution, it remains very popular with the aggrieved. This illusion can cause us to delay or cease any effort to achieve genuine healing of our wounds or move on without this emotional baggage.

It is never a good idea to wait for our enemies to apologize before beginning our healing. No one has as much to gain from self-help activities as we can. We should work on repairing our wounds and restoring our confidence, especially when no one else does. Our anger eventually will become a burden without any valuable benefits. Forgiveness is the primary tool we can use to relieve this problem.

The fourth way we can be reluctant to forgive is the assumption that our anger is necessary to protect us from danger. This belief is only another feeble way to justify our continuing hostility. Anger alone only makes us strong like a bully. We can do better than this. People forget that we are made strong by our dedication and devotion to a worthwhile cause, such as our dignity and well-being. The determination to honor our values and do what is right is what genuinely strengthens us.

The fifth obstacle to forgiveness is the belief that we must sustain our anger as a demand for justice. Somehow our forgiveness might allow our enemies to continue their harmful ways. However, justice in the world is not dependent on our outrage or any individual’s complaint. There is an order in the world that is larger and more powerful than any of us. It will continue in force during and after our efforts to forgive or not forgive.

Forgiveness can be applied to many circumstances

The healing power of forgiveness is an activity that we can apply to multiple problems. We can forgive people who have irritated us. We can also pardon the events and situations that have caused us great distress. In these circumstances, we can quietly accept the flaws in our culture and society that exist for everyone. They are the reality we currently live in, even as we seek improvement.

While forgiveness is not necessarily a panacea, it can create a healing atmosphere that will favor any effort to relieve suffering. Forgiveness generates a stream of constructive energies for repairing emotional wounds and building the health of mind, body, and relationships. Thus, we can forgive our bodies for being sick or disabled, for a difficult childhood, or for a relationship that proved traumatic.

This type of forgiveness does not mean we fully accept this harmful behavior and will no longer reject them. Enlightened forgiveness is the equivalent of giving a blessing that will strengthen our innate potential for wholeness and all other parties involved in these distressful situations. We seek to evoke spiritual patterns for a healthy body, personality, and lifestyle.

Conclusion

Genuine forgiveness is a constructive force we can generate to relieve our distress and build our capacity for peace, confidence, and success in life. Its most apparent benefit is to support healthy attitudes and outlook. It also works deeper to liberate our better selves by clearing away the obstructions to our potential for wisdom, compassion, and courage.

While forgiveness is often considered a simple and easily understood act, it is more complex. Forgiveness involves undoing the many ways we have involved anger in our self-image, motives, expectations, and judgments. This process includes examining our extensive rationalizations for disappointments, resentments, and anxiety. We need to recognize how our anger has invaded our belief system to anchor itself in every significant aspect of our lives and experiences. Anger can be like a cigarette odor that we no longer notice, yet it infiltrates our entire household and clothing. Removing anger is not easy, nor is it a one-step process.

See my subsequent discourse, which is about the unrecognized burden that anger imposes on our self-image, general outlook, and ability to recognize the better side of life.

Summary

A capacity for tolerance and forgiveness is essential for a successful and mature life. Minor irritations are a constant in life, and we must be able to cope with most of them without becoming excessively distracted.

Forgiveness is more than being polite. Genuine forgiveness involves accepting most people the way they are and having good boundaries that protect us from most simple annoyances.

Genuine forgiveness comes from a deep level beyond simple feelings of kindness. Forgiveness involves the combined force of love, understanding, tolerance, and acceptance. Its purpose is to repair wounds, restore dignity, and improve our lifestyle—not merely soothe our feelings.

The common barriers to forgiveness are:

1. We assume that we can never change past events.
2. We weaponize our annoyances into dedicated grievances, making us victims of the oppression of others.
3. We demand apologies from our enemies before beginning to forgive; d) we presume we need anger to keep us strong.
4. We believe our forgiveness will allow evil to proceed unchecked. None of this is correct or necessary.