Written by: Tanya Heasley, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It’s hard to forgive when either the actions of others have hurt you, or your life has been negatively affected by an unseen force, such as COVID – 19. More importantly, you have done nothing to deserve it, and yet it’s happened. Therefore, it can be difficult to forgive when you can’t see a justifiable reason. That said, forgiveness is not impossible to do.
1. Why is forgiveness hard?
Reasoning is key to forgiveness and requires you to think about the wrongdoing logically. However, when you experience pain (either physiologically or emotionally), your brain reacts instinctively to reduce the agony and activates your primal anger to keep you from further suffering. When this happens, your rational thinking ability is impaired, and your response to the hurt is to either kick out or hideaway. These behavioral responses of your primal anger could explain why forgiveness is hard to do, but resisting forgiveness can be dangerous too.
2. The Effects of Unforgiveness
The danger of unforgiveness is the effect it will have on you. Perhaps you never say anything to those who hurt you, and instead, you suppress your feelings and pretend that everything is fine. The consequence of this is that it can inadvertently fracture your own self-esteem, diminish your confidence, and cultivate bitterness and resentment towards others.
3. Who are you trying to hurt?
Resentment is toxic and can destroy you slowly from the inside. For example, if you choose not to forgive, then you are essentially hurting yourself. To illustrate this, I am reminded of the saying, ‘unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.’ In other words, if you continue to hold a grudge against another person, it will not affect them. It will only be detrimental to your own wellbeing. This thing is, we all make mistakes and can hurt others without realizing it. Perhaps someone has hurt you, and you haven’t told them; therefore, they won’t know what they have done, and you wouldn’t be hurting them with your unforgiveness.
4. What do you want?
Why won’t you forgive? Perhaps you struggle to forgive because that would mean that you would have to accept the offense done to you, and those who have hurt you have gotten away with it. Or perhaps you won’t forgive until you’ve received an apology from the one who upset you.
Don’t wait for an apology! It is your choice and responsibility to cultivate your own forgiveness, not the actions of others. For instance, the COVID – 19 virus is an unconscious organism; it does not know its effect on all of us, and it cannot say sorry. If you do not receive an apology, where does that leave you with moving peacefully forward?
5. What if you can’t forget what’s happened?
Forgiving does not mean you condone the offense, and it does not mean that you forget what has happened either. Obviously, the memories might still be there and may resurface from time to time. True and complete forgiveness is the process of making peace with what has happened and embracing the opportunity to move forward.
6. How to forgive the pandemic, yourself, and everyone else?
PRACTICE FORGIVENESS:
I know that forgiveness does not come easy to everyone, and it requires practice. This is because forgiveness is a character strength that we all have, and like a muscle, it needs to be exercised to grow strong. Start with something easy, such as forgiving the weather.
For example, you planned to do the gardening today or go for a walk, but it’s torrential rain outside. It’s not your fault that it’s raining, and it’s not the rain's fault that it needs to water the land. Forgive the rain for what it’s designed to do. Perhaps you could practice forgiving the pandemic in a similar way too.
AWARE, ACKNOWLEDGE AND ACCEPT
When your primal anger is triggered, it prepares your body to respond to a perceived threat, and this can be felt as unpleasant sensations within your body such as shaking, fast breathing, headaches etc. These can be signs to help you become more aware that something isn’t quite right, and you need to do something about it.
Sit and take a moment to acknowledge what has happened recently (or in the past) that might have caused you to feel angry, sad, hurt, etc. Write down what may surface and then accept these thoughts and feelings. Allow them to be and let them become part of the healing process.
CULTIVATE SELF-COMPASSION
I mentioned earlier that resentment and bitterness are toxic to your well-being. It can distort your personality and affect how you perceive yourself and others. It can also prevent you from restoring any relationships that were once strong because you may fear further rejection or believe you are not worthy of their friendship anymore.
Strengthening forgiveness begins with self-compassion. Usually, people find it hard to forgive others because they cannot forgive themselves. If this is you, then I invite you to love yourself more, recognize your mistakes as mistakes, and be at peace with your imperfections.
CHOOSE
Finally, choose to forgive rather than resent. We all have the capacity to forgive – it starts with a choice, no matter how much it hurts, to choose to practice forgiveness rather than building resentment. Choose to acknowledge and accept that you’re hurt, rather than ignoring it. And choose to love yourself and others more, rather than to hold onto bitterness.
Tanya Heasley, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine As a Positive Anger Coach and Success Mindset Mentor, Tanya Heasley guides her clients to activate their authentic self, cultivate assertive communication, and develop self-confidence so that they can flourish and thrive in all areas of their life. What makes her distinctive and different in this work is her ability to identify and liberate the hidden blockages within her client’s psyche. Her intuitive, empathetic, and direct approach empowers her clients to become the best version of themselves. An award-winning serial entrepreneur, Tanya is also the Director of Tristone Coaching Ltd., a social enterprise with the mission to improve the lives of young people affected by adult anger. With many successes under her belt, Tanya believes that her greatest achievement is being a mum to her four children.
