Soul Kadee

“If you devote your life to seeking revenge, first dig two graves.”
- Confucius

It’s never easy to forgive someone who has hurt or wronged you. But unwillingness to let go of the past and forgive (ourselves and others) can actually create or worsen illness in your body.

Holding on to anger, resentment, hurt, and bitterness is like trying to kill someone else by consuming poison yourself.

As Dale Carnegie put it, “When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health and our happiness.” Your anger will hurt no one but yourself.

Recent research has shown that letting go of anger at those who wronged you is a smart route to good health. According to the research, an unforgiving nature is not only harmful to our spiritual well-being but our physical health as well.

Forgiveness works in at least two ways. One is by reducing the physiologic stress of the state of unforgiveness, a potent mixture of bitterness, anger, hostility, hatred, resentment and fear (of being hurt or humiliated again).

The other benefit of forgiveness relates to research showing that people with strong social networks € of friends, neighbors and family € tend to be healthier than loners.

James Baldwin noted that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. Avoiding pain and sorrow often becomes a reason to not forgive.

But forgiveness does not mean denying that the hurt did not happened. It doesn’t mean you have to excuse the other person, reconcile with them, or condone their behavior.

True forgiveness means being honest about what you feel, experiencing the pain fully, and then letting go of the suffering, the blame and hurt.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

The most courageous (or selfish, depending on how you choose to look at it) thing you can do for yourself is to forgive those who have hurt or abused you in any way - your parents, lovers, spouse, friends, and most importantly, yourself.

Forgiveness is necessary to love again with an open heart. Letting go of the past is the path to healing your life. And it’s truly the sweetest revenge you can have on those who hurt or wronged you.

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