In recent years, a number of studies have shown that forgiving others has direct links to better mental health. It’s been proven that forgiveness can help to reduce anxiety, improve depression and also has an impact on more severe psychiatric disorders, too.
In addition to the impact on mental health, forgiving others can be beneficial for your physical health, too. That’s because the body and mind are intrinsically linked, so when you are under stress, you’re more likely to experience physical symptoms as well as mental effects.
Physical signs of stress can include problems with immunity (frequently getting sick), headaches, and exhaustion. When you forgive others, you can experience improvements in both your physical and mental health, which may surprise you.
Forgiveness is Often Misunderstood
There are a lot of misconceptions about what forgiveness actually is, including what it means and what you have to do to complete the steps of forgiveness. It is because of the common misconceptions that many people avoid the idea of forgiving others.
For example, some people believe that forgiving others is equal to letting the other person get away with the things that they have done. Another way of describing this is that the other person gets a kind of free pass.
However, this is not what forgiving others actually means. When you forgive someone, you are not saying that you approve of the behavior that has hurt you. Rather, you are releasing yourself by not allowing what the other person did to keep having a hold over you.
Nor does forgiveness mean that you forget what happened. It doesn’t require you to reconcile a broken relationship. In fact, there’s no need for you to even tell the other person when you forgive them. You can forgive another person without actually having to speak to them.
When you understand what forgiveness actually is rather than being misled by misconceptions, you can begin to ask yourself what is stopping you from embracing forgiveness and moving on. There may be a variety of reasons that you can think of and it can be helpful to write these down as a list.
When you have completed your list, you can then ask yourself whether the reasons you’ve written down are enough to justify the emotional pain that comes with holding on to unforgiveness.
If you find it hard to answer that question, it may be helpful to think of it in this way: are the reasons you’ve noted worth being weighed down with stress, negative emotions, and physical symptoms? Would taking steps to heal and forgive be harder to do than carrying around the burden of unforgiveness?
We are not suggesting that forgiveness is easy. For some people, it may take time before you are ready to move towards forgiving others for what has been done to you. You don’t have to immediately forgive – in many cases, forgiveness is a process.
One of the biggest reasons people struggle to forgive others is because they wrestle with the idea of justifying the other person’s actions. It is easy to get caught up in a mental struggle that seems unending. You may argue that it is impossible to justify what the other person did, that their actions simply do not make sense and you cannot comprehend them, or that the actions were so cruel and impossible to fathom.
It is not wrong to feel this way but in order to move towards healing, it can be helpful to look at the person whose actions you cannot comprehend. Things that might help you to understand their actions include the family dynamics, their family background, and the types of relationships that they have with other people.
To unravel why a person behaves the way that they do, you have to look at the experiences that have shaped them and led to distorted ways of thinking and behaving.
What is Forgiveness?
The online tool Therapist Aid gives a helpful definition of what forgiveness is and what it isn’t.
Forgiveness is:
- A conscious decision to overcome the hurt that another person has inflicted;
- Releasing feelings of resentment, anger, bitterness, and shame, as well as other emotions associated with being a victim of injustice (even though you are justified in feeling them), and;
- Extending compassion towards the offender – despite the fact that they don’t deserve compassion.
Forgiveness is always a choice; it is not something that can be forced on you. Ultimately, forgiveness is making a decision that you have already been hurt enough and you don’t want to remain trapped in emotional pain. It is deciding that it’s time to heal.
Forgiveness is not:
- Repairing/ reconciling/ or returning to dysfunctional/hurtful relationships;
- Forgetting the injustice that was done to you;
- Making excuses for the other person’s behavior, or in any way condoning what was done;
- Refraining from pursuing legal justice against the offender;
- Saying that you’ve let go of the emotional pain but continuing to wish for revenge.
Forgiveness Therapy in Four Phases
When you work through the forgiveness process in therapy, there are usually four phases: the uncovering phase, the decision phase, the work phase, and the deepening phase.
The Uncovering Phase
This initial phase of the process of forgiveness is where a person reflects on what was done by the other person – the injustice – and begins to look at the ways in which their life has been affected by it. For example, you may consider the aspects of your life that have been significantly impacted by it and how you have been in some way immobilized by it.
An important aspect of the uncovering phase is when you begin to see how holding on to unforgiveness can keep you trapped in the mindset of a victim and unable to move on in your life. You were, of course, a victim when the injustice or wrongdoing happened, but that does not mean that you have to remain a victim.
You do not have to let what was done to you be the thing that defines you. Rather than seeing yourself as a victim, you can focus on viewing yourself as a survivor who has been made stronger by what has happened to you.
The Decision Phase
In the second phase of the forgiveness process in therapy, you start to learn more about the characteristics of forgiveness and dispel the misconceptions you may have been holding onto. In the decision phase, you are faced with a choice of whether or not you want to forgive the person who has wronged you.
It is important to understand that in forgiveness therapy, the decision to forgive is yours – you will not be forced to forgive. You have the freedom to make your own choice. In forgiveness therapy, you may find that you are not ready to make the decision to forgive – and that is okay. Some people need more time to evaluate what has happened to them, and you can come back to the decision phase when you are ready.
The Work Phase
During the third phase, you will be working on developing an understanding of the person who has hurt you, allowing you to gain a different perspective. Together, these aspects aim to grow a sense of empathy that can transform the way that you feel. The work phase is about heart change that lays the groundwork for forgiveness.
The Deepening Phase
In the last phase of the forgiveness process, you will experience a reduction in negative emotions, and you will be able to find a sense of meaning out of the experience that has hurt you. When you can see the way that you have grown because of what has happened, you develop a different outlook that allows for negative thoughts to be replaced by positive thinking about what has happened.
What Happens When We Refuse to Forgive?
Forgiveness lifts the burden of negative emotions such as anger, hurt and pain. It’s a conscious choice to move forward, not forgetting what had happened but choosing not to be defined by it. Carrying around a burden of emotional pain every day is completely exhausting.
It leads to greater levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and can have a profound impact on the relationships that you have with friends and family. Unforgiveness is crippling, preventing you from being happy and healthy, and keeping you trapped in a world of pain.
For some people, the emotional pain of unforgiveness is immediately visible to the people around them. They may push others away, feeling that they cannot trust now that they have been hurt.
Other people trapped in unforgiveness may put on a mask in order to hide their distress but be locked in a constant battle against negative thoughts and memories. You may hide behind a false smile and tell others that you are fine but maintaining this kind of façade is difficult, and every day it gets harder.
Think back to the last time that someone hurt you deeply. How did you react, and what impact did it have on your life? It may be that your emotional pain also caused physical ill health. Try to identify the effects of the hurt, thinking about the physical and emotional symptoms that you experienced.
For example, did you experience difficulties with sleep or eating? You may have experienced persistent headaches or struggled to function as well as you did before, or perhaps your concentration was affected by a constant barrage of negative thinking.
Can you imagine carrying around those feelings and symptoms on a daily basis for months or years? Consider the amount of damage that occurs due to the continued distress. The effects are stratospheric. They change a person and affect the ability to have relationships with others.
Long-term unforgiveness is a burden that inhibits the ability to trust other people and prevents you from being invested in others. Holding on to emotional pain as damaging as unforgiveness is all-consuming. Your thoughts are consumed by it, and you struggle to live in the present, unable to create new memories and enjoy moments that should be cherished. The burden of unforgiveness prevents you from experiencing the very things that can help you to heal.
It’s common to think that by refusing to forgive you are in some way punishing the offender – but the reality is that it is you that is receiving the punishment. It gives the other person a kind of power over you that they wouldn’t have otherwise, by filling your thoughts with anger and bitterness towards them and about them and creating an emotional connection.
Do you think that there are any advantages to holding onto unforgiveness? Wouldn’t it be better to experience the happiness and stress relief that you deserve through embracing forgiveness? Forgiveness stops the other person from winning and enables you to experience joy.
Forgiveness is not easy, and it can take time – especially if the emotional wounds you’ve received are deep. It is not as simple as saying “I forgive you.”
Clarissa Pinkola puts it this way:
“Many people have trouble with forgiveness because they have been taught it is a singular act to be completed in one sitting. That is not so. Forgiveness has many layers, many seasons.”
Embracing forgiveness is difficult, and it can also be messy. You may experience a flood of emotions and pain that leave you feeling raw. You may also remember things from the past that you had forgotten, and this can be overwhelming.
Processing the Pain
Processing through the pain to get to a place of forgiveness is hard and yet it is worth the struggle. You deserve to have freedom, to not be trapped in the past or be imprisoned by memories. You deserve joy, peace, and happiness and to understand that your identity is not that of a victim, but rather of a survivor. You need to know that the person who hurt you has not won!
If you find that you are struggling to forgive someone, it is beneficial to spend some time praying to God about your emotional pain. Ask God to help you to see how you can forgive the people who have hurt you. As you work through the process of forgiveness, one of the greatest challenges will be to pray for your enemies.
It’s important that you are honest with God. He knows how you feel in your heart. It can be difficult at first to have anything positive to say while you are praying and that is both normal and okay. Keep pressing in to God. It will take time, but God can transform your hatred into both understanding and compassion. From a place of compassion, it is easier to forgive and be able to view those who have hurt you as God views them.
God’s Forgiveness
It is difficult to understand forgiveness if you don’t know Jesus Christ. In Jesus, we are able to know a God who forgave – and continues to forgive – the greatest sins. Jesus knew, even as He died, that not everyone that He died for would turn to Him and live for Him. God has always known the future, and all the pain and hurt that humans cause to both Him and other people but He chose to forgive regardless.
Jesus died for the people who mock Him, rebuke Him, despise Him and refuse to acknowledge Him. Even before He died on the cross, He knew exactly how many times you were going to make mistakes, and all the failures you would experience, but in His compassion for mankind, He still gave up His life for your sins. Jesus is, ultimately, the perfect model of what forgiveness is. It is out of His example that we should forgive those who hurt us.
Compassion and empathy are at the heart of forgiveness – without them, it is not possible to truly forgive. Empathy comes from understanding the person who hurt you, the things that have shaped them, and from this understanding comes the compassion to forgive.
Ephesians 4:31-32 tells us: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
Christian Counseling to Help with Forgiving Others
The process of forgiveness can be difficult and overwhelming if you go through it on your own. It can be hugely beneficial to seek the help of a Christian counselor who is experienced in helping people work through the stages of the process of forgiveness.
You don’t need to go through the process of forgiveness alone. Having someone to walk with you as you explore forgiveness can help you to discover healing that you need. Christian counselors can provide you with the support and guidance you are looking for.
“Love At All Costs”, Courtesy of Gus Moretta, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Forgiveness”, Courtesy of Felix Koutchinski, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Mountain, Cliff, and Valley”, Courteys of Daniel Malikyar, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Bible and Cross”, Corutesy of Congerdesign, Pixabay.com, CC0 License
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Kate Motaung: CuratorKate Motaung is the Senior Writer, Editor, and Content Manager for a multi-state company. She is the author of several books including Letters to Grief, 101 Prayers for Comfort in Difficult Times, and A Place to Land: A Story of Longing and Belonging...
