Reasons why Forgiveness is Important

Ever carried a bag of potatoes with you everywhere you go? How heavy and uncomfortable is that? Imagine after every hour one more potato is added to that bag. Even when you sleep the bag is tied to you.

Sounds exhausting and ridiculous!

Unforgiveness is exactly like carrying a bag of potatoes all day every day. Each time you do not forgive someone you are adding one more potato to that bag of potatoes.

Most of us struggle to forgive, myself included. But if we knew what unforgiveness does to us we would dump unforgiveness like a hot potato!

It’s not to say what happened to you was fair, no. It was not fair, and it should not have happened. Because unfair things happen human nature always wants revenge and vengeance.

If other people hurt us, we want them to feel our full wrath. We want them to feel our pain and hurt, but how many times does that actually relieve the burden that we face?

Hurting someone will not take away your hurt and pain.

Forgiveness is a conscious decision that requires a lot of effort because human beings are human beings and will continue to need it. We live with imperfect people under difficult circumstances so they will always hurt us, and we will always hurt them.

The value of forgiveness towards others and you are unmatched, and you must learn how to do it.

Although there are different kinds of pain that we need to forgive the process is the same. Even if it’s emotional pain that you are dealing with and must forgive, use the following steps to help you. But remember forgiveness is one of the hardest things you will have to do each day, but forgiveness is important.

If you are focused on making healthy choices forgiveness is one of them.

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”

― Rita Mae Brown

Practical steps to practice forgiveness

These steps will help you put certain things in place, especially if you have a hard time forgiving close friends, family, and colleagues. These steps are about decisional forgiveness.

They help you see life differently while you keep your own integrity in place. Later, we will talk about myths of forgiveness and how to deal with the critical inner voice.

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”

― Corrie Ten Boom

1.    Be open and honest

The first step and most important thing to do is to acknowledge the pain and hurt that you are feeling. Ignorance is not bliss. Take time out to reflect on the situation and how it makes you feel.

Understand why you really feel that way.

Try to be objective about your feelings. Only when you understand how you really feel will you be able to translate those thoughts and emotions to other people.

When you sit down to talk to the person or people who hurt you the conversation is easy, and you can clearly articulate what happened and how it made you feel.

Be open and honest.

But as a warning, people do not always receive these kinds of conversations well. They might not react the way you want them to and the way you think they should. Some might not even show feelings of empathy during this conversation but don’t be sad.

The point of this first step is for you to speak out loud whatever you are holding inside. Let it out into the open. When we are hurt, our emotions may be volatile, and we are prone to emotional reactions.

Therefore, we need a self-introspection session. In this session do not dwell on negative thoughts about yourself. But focus on how to understand things better.

With this step, the healing process starts. The forgiveness process takes a lot of energy so do not be discouraged if this first step did not go well.

2.    Let go of Expectations

As mentioned earlier, when we have been hurt, we expect the other person or people to understand how we feel. We expect them to sympathize and be remorseful.

More often than not, we do not get this reaction and it makes the hurt and the pain worse. We move from a point of almost forgiving to being angrier.

Remember you are dealing with adults that have their way of thinking and reasoning. And just like you they may strongly believe they are in the right. When you expect people to apologize so you may forgive them, unfortunately, you may be waiting in vain.

The chickens might come home to roost before you get that apology if you even get it.

At best you can force an apology out of them. But you can be rest assured they don’t mean the apology, or it is a half-hearted apology.

Believe me, that is not the kind of apology you want.

Lower your expectation better yet have no expectations at all. We usually get hurt because of unmet expectations so eliminate that threat early.

3.    Don’t put yourself in a position where history will repeat itself.

The next step after you have forgiven people take that as a lesson learned. Do not go about with life as if you never had an experience that hurt you, caused you pain, and almost broke you. Otherwise, it will happen again and no we don’t want that to happen.

The past is a place of learning not of living.

One important thing for you to do now is not to put yourself in a position where you will be hurt again. Do your best to make sure history does not repeat itself. Yes, you have forgiven, but if the same thing happens again, you will be twice as shattered.

As it is said, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on you. Others even go a step further and say beaten one twice shy.

People will always hurt you if you give them the platform and the podium to do so.

Why?

Because we are all selfish. Everything we do is self-serving and most of us think about what could benefit us before we think about the next person. This is not because we are bad people. You must also put yourself first and protect yourself.

If there are friends who keep hurting you and you have addressed this with them several times in vain, forgive and move on. Reduce the amount of time you spend with them.

If you have a family member who keeps hurting you by saying demotivating hurtful things, stay away from them and refrain from calling them or having lengthy conversations with them

Take practical steps to protect your peace. Forgive and protect yourself from taking more blows.

Although forgiveness is a deliberate decision, the power of forgiveness lies in knowing that you have control over the situation. Choose where you want to be in life and which circumstances are beneficial to you.

4.    Be prepared to build again from the ground

If we have been hurt and were forced to get out of relationships, we must forgive but also understand that we might need to do a little more than that. You might have to build things from the ground up.

This can include building trust from the bottom because it has been shattered. You might have to rebuild a relationship and make new connections.

Building again requires emotional strength but the result is great emotional health. When you build again, build healthy relationships that are not hindered by old grudges.

5.    It will trigger previous traumas

Forgiveness is important but remember that this journey will trigger past traumas and hurt. It could be childhood traumas you have not dealt with or traumas that you faced as a teenager or as an adult.

The act of forgiveness will require you to go back into the past and see if there were buried pain that you have not forgiven.

In these situations, it’s important to separate situations. Do not try to deal with everything at once. Unpack all the hurt and pain you are bottling inside and deal with each separately.

Feelings of anger are powerful enough to have a ripple effect in your mind and trigger hidden scars and cause them to build again.

Now that we have given practical steps to forgiving, we need to bust some myths about forgiveness. These mind blockers could be the reason you do not want to forgive. The good news is that if you know them you can work on them.

No matter how difficult all these steps are, you are a strong person with great courage so you can do it. Do not only do it for the physical benefits but do it because you are a good person.

The only way to move on after pain and hurt is to forgive.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi

Myths about forgiveness

1.       You need closure to forgive

Most of us are holding onto hurt and pain because we are looking for and waiting for closure. We need answers as to why, when, and how. But honestly, you might never get those answers.

Don’t hold back on forgiveness because you need clarity. Forgiveness is about you; it’s about setting the prisoner which is you free. Be prepared to forgive without closure.

Choose to forgive.

You don’t need other people to help you let go of the baggage you are carrying. The only person you have, and need is yourself. Do not give other people power over your life, take back the power and the control.

2.    Reconciliation is inevitable

Forgiving people who have caused you pain does not mean you become best friends again. True forgiveness is one of those easier said than done things.

You can forgive but keep your space and peace.

Do not feel obliged to have the relationship as it was before. The truth is that it might never be mended back to what it was, and you must make peace with that.

This is life and it’s not perfect. It never happens the way we want it to. Obsessing and worrying about it won’t change it. Sometimes you might be lucky and have a relationship better than before the hurt and the pain.

For some people hurt and pain can bring them closer to each other but if the hurt caused a drift do not try to bend over backward to mend fences. You might get hurt again.

Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. At the present moment you might feel like it’s important to repair the relationship but what does that say about other people’s characters and your own character.

3.    Forgiving makes you weak and you become a pushover

A lot of us don’t want to forgive because we think it makes us look like weak people that can be pushed around.

This is not true.

Forgiveness is not a pass for people to walk all over you and treat you any way they want to, it’s realizing that the energy you spend holding onto grudges could be better utilized somewhere else like focusing on yourself and building a better life for you.

It is important to practice forgiveness, but you don’t have to be a doormat that everyone walks over.

“Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something; forgiveness, however, is for those who are substantial enough to move on.”

― Criss Jami

4.    Forgive and Forget the hurt and pain

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you must forget. The two are not a package deal like Tom and Jerry.

If you forget what happened, it might happen again. Forgive but keep in mind that any true colors that someone has shown you are not going to change.

Unfortunately, people will behave like chameleons, changing at every turn.

Don’t give people the platform and podium to treat you in any way they want. It’s your life, set boundaries and stick to them.

5.    You must only forgive once, it’s easy as that.

Forgiveness is a journey. It’s not just saying the words it’s actually releasing that person from your mind and heart.

Forgiveness is letting go.

It’s seeing the person who hurt you and not feeling hurt all over again. Forgiveness is being able to sit in the room with the people who hurt you without thinking about a thousand ways to murder them.

6.     Forgiveness has nothing to do with your health.

You might think the old hurt you are holding onto does not have a negative influence on your life, but you are wrong. If you do not let go of resentment your own health is at risk.

Scientific research shows cholesterol levels, heart disease, chronic stress, and other high stress levels may be closely linked to the process of forgiveness.

You may need to consider emotional forgiveness for you to get your life and health back on track. Feeling sad, down, useless, and other similar emotions are detrimental to your well-being. Life is too short to carry all the burdens of forgiveness.

How to apologize

Apologizing is a skill, better yet it’s an art. Ever met someone who has never said they are sorry even if they knew they are wrong. These are people who will never apologize, it seems they are allergic to apologizing.

All they do is move on and the rest of us must assume that an apology was implied. This behavior is typical of adults and parents towards kids and those they believe are inferior to them

Please don’t be that adult.

Let us not create an environment of toxic behavior where we raise kids who don’t know how to say, ‘please’ and ‘I am sorry’.

Here are a few basic tips to help you apologize and do it the right way before we talk about the reasons why forgiveness is important. The active process of forgiveness requires effort.

1.    Acknowledge the wrong you have done

The first part of an apology is to explain what you have done wrong. There is nothing as disrespectful as saying sorry but when asked what you are apologizing for you cannot explain it.

That’s an insult to the person you have hurt, and it makes your apology null and void, better yet it’s fake.

2.    Acknowledge how you have hurt someone

Acknowledge how your behavior has hurt someone. This could be hurtful words or crossing boundaries. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings and emotions. If you don’t know how they felt after you hurt them, ask them, and be prepared to listen attentively so you can understand.

Do not listen to respond or criticize, it doesn’t help.

3.    Suggest a way forward

After discussing the situation at length, it’s important to talk about a way forward. How can you and the next person go on from here? Remember that just apologizing doesn’t always mean that all is well and back to normal.

They deserve to be given time to process everything that has happened. They will heal at their own time and pace but because you apologized it will fast forward the process.

Suggest a way forward that works in both your favor, but if the person who has been hurt needs space give it to them and if they want nothing to do with you, accept it and don’t push.

The lack of forgiveness is not the absence of love or care, it just means the other person is still hurting and healing may take a long time.

After you have put in the effort to forgive you will start to see changes in your life. The benefits will come flooding and you will not believe it. You will wonder why you have not forgiven all these people yesterday.

Forgive yourself

“I think that if God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.”

― C.S. Lewis

There is one important person who needs forgiveness more than your friends and your family and that person is you. We all make mistakes, and we allow those mistakes to define us. Although we might succeed in forgiving others, we must forgive ourselves for our stupidity and mistakes.

We must forgive ourselves for all the times we made decisions that we thought were right but now in retrospect, it all just looks like foolishness.

Forgive yourself for all the times you were naïve and believed the best for people which turned out to not be true.

The good things and the bad things that we go through in life do not have to define us. The failed romantic relationships and our bad behavior are not who we are. We must forgive ourselves.

Genuine self-forgiveness is all part of the human experience. We must make conscious choices to make forgiveness an essential part of our daily life.

I urge you to forgive yourself and let go of your feelings of resentment towards yourself. This is in your own best interest. It is hard but you must forgive yourself and take small steps to move on.

Forgiveness unlocks a different level of peace and happiness that is unmatched. It helps you live your life to the fullest. There are emotional health benefits and physical benefits or reasons why it is important to practice forgiveness.

I have summarized the importance of forgiveness in these few items, but the list goes on.

Reasons why forgiveness is important: Benefits of forgiveness

1.       Feel lighter

Remember the bag of potatoes we spoke about in the beginning. Forgiving means you throw that bag away and you will definitely feel lighter. Let go of the grudge you are holding onto; it is hurting you.

This is the first reason why it is important to practice forgiveness.

2.       Reduced Heartaches, Anxiety, Stress, Anger, and high blood pressure

If you are holding a grudge and not forgiving you are putting your heart under stress. You are prone to heartaches, stress, and anxiety. You will keep stressing about the people who hurt you and how to seek revenge.

This is a quick way to health deterioration.

The scary part about this is that even doctors will not be able to tell you what is wrong with you. Not even the best medication can help you. Only you can help yourself by forgiving.

Please do not live a life filled with stress and anxiety because of someone who is living their best life out there.

Just because you are not forgiving it does not mean that the people who hurt you are having sleepless nights and are concerned about you. If anything, those people continue living their best life, please do the same thing.

Don’t let your heart rate skyrocket over small issues that you can simply forgive. Forgive people and you will enjoy a lower blood pressure. A healthy lifestyle starts with forgiveness.

3.       Happier and improved mental health.

Forgiving makes you a happier person. If you feel lighter with less stress and anxiety, you will live a happier more fulfilled life. What is the value of life if we cannot live our best life and enjoy it?

If you are a happier person your mental health is good too and it goes without saying that your physical health improves. Your whole being is happier and better, so forgive for your own sake.

The best way to be happy is to forgive.

4.       Improves your immune system

When you are not harboring a grudge, your body is free to perform its bodily functions. People may suffer from headaches and constipation if their immune system and metabolism are under pressure and not functioning as they should.

Be careful not to be one of those people. Put your health and your well-being first.

5.       Learn from it

Learn from everything that happens in life. Life is a free teacher, acknowledge it. Take those lessons and apply them in your life. Learning from hurt will help with personal growth.

Finally

In conclusion, forgiveness is important for other people and us because it is a healthy way to live. We need to let go of negative emotions and negative feelings that come with not forgiving and then we are on our way to becoming better people.

The concept of forgiveness is not hard to understand. The difficult part is putting it into action consistently. It’s when we must forgive someone every single day and even worse for the same thing that things become difficult.

Our heavenly father asks us to forgive seventy times seven times in a day (Matthew 18: 21-22).

But if you follow these steps and keep practicing them you will understand that it becomes better. If you are having a difficult time forgiving, rather focus on the positive effects of forgiving that you will benefit from.

This article is not to downplay your own pain but to help you change your perspective. Instead of focusing on pain, focus on healing and do the right thing and forgive.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

― C.S. Lewis