The Science of Forgiveness
Do you struggle to forgive?
Did you know that lack of forgiveness leads to grudge holding which can lead to worsening heart disease, increases anxiety and depression, and leads to a shorter life span?
It also impacts stress levels, which we know is not ideal when it comes to healing. In one study by Psychologist Everett Worthington, he states, “In my own lab, we wanted to determine whether people’s stress levels are related to their ability to forgive a romantic partner. We measured levels of cortisol in the saliva of 39 people who rated their relationship as either terrific or terrible. Cortisol is a hormone that metabolizes fat for quick response to stress (and after the stress ends, deposits the fat back where it is easily accessible—around the waist). People with poor (or recently failed) relationships tended to have higher baseline levels of cortisol, and they also scored worse on a test that measures their general willingness to forgive. When they were asked to think about their relationship, they had more cortisol reactivity—that is, their stress hormone jumped. Those jumps in stress were highly correlated with their unforgiving attitudes toward their partner. People with very happy relationships were not without stresses and strains between them. But forgiving their partner’s faults seemed to keep their physical stress in the normal range.”
Okay great Megan, now that we have established the negative impacts of failing to forgive, now what can I do about it?
There is an evidenced based 5-Step Process developed by Dr. Worthington to reach Forgiveness I would like to share with you today and it goes like this:
R: Recall the hurt without resentment.
In order to heal, we have to face the fact that we have been hurt. Make up your mind not to be snarky (i.e., nasty and hurtful), not to treat yourself like a victim, and not to treat the other person as a jerk. Make a decision to forgive. Decide that you are not going to pursue payback but you will treat the person as a valuable person.
E: Emotionally replace the negative with empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love
Empathy is putting yourself in the other person’s chair. Pretend that the other person is in an empty chair across from you. Talk to him. Pour your heart out. Then, when you’ve had your say, sit in his chair. Talk back to the imaginary you in a way that helps you see why the other person might have wronged you. This builds empathy, and even if you can’t empathize, you might feel more sympathy, compassion, or love, which helps you heal from hurt.
A: Give an altruistic gift of forgiveness
Give forgiveness as an unselfish, altruistic gift. We all can remember when we wronged someone—maybe a parent, teacher, or friend—and the person forgave us. We felt light and free. And we didn’t want to disappoint that person by doing wrong again. By forgiving unselfishly, you can give that same gift to someone who hurt you.
C: Commit to the forgiveness you experience
Once you’ve forgiven, write a note to yourself—something as simple as, “Today, I forgave [person’s name] for hurting me.” This helps your forgiveness last.
H: Hold onto forgiveness and remember it is a process
We write notes of commitment because we will almost surely be tempted to doubt that we really forgave. We can re-read our notes. We did forgive.
Do this prayerfully.
I am big on neuroplasticity and retraining our brains with tools like this. Your brain wants to focus on what that person did. Your brain wants to focus on the negative because we humans have a negativity bias. But I want to encourage you to try this model for the next week and let me know the impact it has had on your ability to forgive.
I will be covering Forgiveness and how it impacts your nervous system more in my upcoming Nervous System Course: Aligned + Renewed: A Christ Centered Nervous System Course Created to Help You Transform Your Mindset, Health, + Relationships in 12 Weeks, you wont want to miss it :)
Sources:
http://www.evworthington-forgiveness.com/reach-forgiveness-of-others
