By Liberty Langkilde
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you”
It’s inevitable—people will do us dirty whether intentionally or not. Maybe someone parked in two spots, maybe a teacher/boss gave you an assignment you hate, or maybe someone turned on the blender while you were napping. It’s probably fair to assume that most people have kept a metaphorical hit list at some point or another. Frustrating things happen and naturally people want a way to process when things go wrong. Thankfully though, forgiveness is a greater tool than you or I could ever imagine.
Darned & Delightful Dishes
I can clearly remember times when I was in charge of washing the family dinner dishes. Dish-washing in a family of eight was the most loathed chore in the house. Specifically, because there is nothing worse than when you’re doing a mountain of dishes and at random intervals more keep getting added. Revenge or ‘justice’ can seem like tantalizing alternatives, but to use dishes as an analogy, you’ll see why forgiveness is the true appealing response. If we compare washing dishes to daily tasks and life events, they are bound to happen. We can use, wash, and re-use past dishes to help us tackle challenges and know how to solve problems. However, more often than not, just when we think we have things in order, someone comes and puts some nasty burnt pans in our sink. Surprise, frustration, confusion, and other emotions can crash into our mind. “Things were finally going well! I was almost done! Why did that have to happen now?!” Sometimes, we have to let the nasty burnt pan soak in the water before it gets washed, or else we’ll get angry at the fact that our furious scrubbing is doing nothing to clean it. The best part is that once we are done, we can look back and realize that with the right processes, cleaning the nasty burnt pan wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
What Is Forgiveness?
Forgiveness is viewed as a human strength, as opposed to a weakness (Hojjat & Ayotte, 2013). Giving up the natural man in pursuit of your own betterment seems like a logical sacrifice, but in the heat of various moments, it can take the utmost self-control and determination. Across a lot of literature, forgiveness has been generally defined as feeling benevolent to the wrong-doer, and then re-creating or establishing the relationship with hope and trust (Gracia-Vazquez, et al., 2020). Forgiveness is a cycle or process and allows for personal growth. Forgiveness and happiness are irrefutably linked, and to demonstrate that, it has been shown that highly happy people are more willing to forgive, and happiness brings greater forgiveness (Jiang, et al. 2015). If you’re fixated on the wrongdoing that occurred, happiness is almost side-lined because anger and joy cannot coexist. There are many books and handouts that will give you a tedious list of what you need to do to finally get those nasty burnt pans cleaned and out of your sink. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t want to have to pull out a ten-step list every time I got bothered, as following through on a grocery list is already hard enough.
Luckily, according to Psychology Today, most aspects of forgiveness can be condensed into to three main parts:
Gaining a more balanced view of the offender and the event. Maybe this means taking time to evaluate the situation and see what happened, consult with friends, or journal. Processing is different for everyone, but after experiencing something negative, responding in the heat of emotion does not always bode well.
Decreasing negative feelings towards the offender and potentially increasing compassion. Maybe this means expressing what you felt and allowing reparations to be made should it permit. How do things alter if you put yourself in their shoes? Did that young teenage driver intentionally cut you off on the freeway, or did he mistakenly not see you there?
Giving up the right to punish the offender further or to demand restitution. Forgiving doesn’t mean you HAVE to forget, but it does mean that to a degree you are letting go. Letting go allows for personal liberation. If you allow your emotional checks to be zeroed, you can finally take a step forward from the situation.
“What’s In It For Me?”
It’s easy to think to yourself “well what’s in it for me”. If someone has done you dirty, how does it profit you to relinquish ideas of what you might call justice? Interestingly enough, forgiveness and happiness are related positively with overall life satisfaction. Rumination on the other hand, hinders life satisfaction (Eldelklioglu, 2015). This means that your mulling over and plotting revenge doesn’t exactly help you out like you think it would. Failure to forgive oneself or perpetrators can lead to greater depressive-like symptoms and anxiety in individuals (Hojjat & Ayotte, 2013). Basically, there are mostly just personal gains for forgiving. Forgiving doesn’t mean you have to excuse the behavior of others, but it is a mental and psychological approach that allows you to finally regain inner peace.
In The End
Ultimately, forgiveness is a decision that you make. Different circumstances require different methods for healing, reparations, and letting go. You can’t always speak for or understand someone else’s motives. You can’t always know if they feel sorry for what they did. One thing you can know though, is that forgiving allows for personal peace and happiness. Personal liberation is a feeling many strive for. Life gets busy very quickly with work, friends, and family, and people are an essential part of societal interactions. It’s my hope that you can consider relationships in your life that could be repaired or strengthened. Timing is different for everyone, but the power of forgiveness is yours to wield.
Future Action & Additional Resources
Practice being mindful. https://www.mybestself101.org/mindfulness
Can greatly help personal wellbeing, and can improve relationships
The My Best Self website has great ideas to incorporate this into your life
Cultivate compassion. https://www.mybestself101.org/compassion
The My Best Self website has great ideas to consider others
Remember there are different settings that you can apply this (family, friends, work, etc.)
Ted Talk on why forgiveness is worth it by Sarah Montana https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_montana_why_forgiveness_is_worth_it?language=en
Sarah gives great points on the personal benefit side of forgiveness
Ted Talk by Josh Galarza on Self-Forgiveness https://www.ted.com/talks/josh_galarza_how_self_forgiveness_saved_my_life
In the pursuit of greatness, remember kindness begins with you
“When you forgive, you in no way change the past – but you sure do change the future”
References
Eldeleklioglu, Jale. (2015). Predictive Effects of Subjective Happiness, Forgiveness, and Rumination on Life Satisfaction. Scientific Journal Publishers, 43(9), 1563-1574. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2015.43.9.1563
García-Vázquez, F. I., Cuervo, Á. a. V., Martínez-Ferrer, B., & Parra-Pérez, L. G. (2020). Forgiveness, gratitude, happiness, and prosocial bystander behavior in bullying. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02827
Hojjat M.,. & Ayotte B. (2013) Forgiveness and Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology of Love, Series in Positive Psychology (9),121-133. https://doi-org.byu.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791064.003.0009
Inéz, F., Alberto, A., & Guadalupe, L. (2020). Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, and Prosocial Bystander Behavior in Bullying. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02827
Jiang F., Yue X., Lu, S., & Yu, G. (2014). Can you forgive? It depends on how happy you are. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 56(2), 182-188. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12185
Sussex Publishers. (n.d.). The psychology of forgiveness. Psychology Today. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-addiction-connection/201409/the-psychology-forgiveness