Benefits of Forgiveness

Forgiving is not about forgetting, or excusing another's behavior. 

There are enormous personal gains derived from forgiving others, as you will see in chapter two on the benefits of forgiving. The most important payback from forgiveness may have been identified by Dr. David Simon, co-founder of the Chopra Center, “Forgiveness is a prerequisite for inner peace."

Forgiveness requires the right mindset and attitude, an appropriate level of humility, and acknowledgment of the human values of the other person — combined with strong willpower and fortitude based on deep-seated self-understanding.

Forgiveness does not excuse the other person’s behavior or words. Forgiveness does, however, prevent their behavior and words from razing your emotions, flattening your spirit, and destroying your heart.

Forgiving is not necessarily about forgetting. Giving forgiveness to someone does not erase the unpleasant or acrimonious past. However, forgiving does prevent you from being imprisoned by this past. While grievances are not erased or deleted through forgiveness, forgiving enables you to focus on a better future, rather than a bitter one.

Forgiveness also means abdicating and releasing your instinctive and innate feelings of the “right” to retaliate. Human nature is automatically stimulus-response based:  you hurt me and thus I will hurt you back. You cause me pain, so I will cause you pain.

Forgiveness is not pretending what someone did or said was right, acceptable, or even okay. More important, it is also not pretending that you were not hurt or that their actions and words do not matter.

Forgiveness is a release. It is effectively saying, “I am going to let this go. I am not going to let this matter chain me to unwanted emotions and thoughts any longer.” 

You can spend months, even years, thinking you hate someone for their words or actions, when in truth you really just want to let them know how hurt you feel and the pain you feel they have caused you. Of course, they did not cause you the hurt or the pain, this was caused by your reactions to what they said or did. 

You do have a “right” to whatever emotions you wish to carry with you in response to a person or event. You have the “right” to be bitter, hurt, spiteful, angry, resentful, and scores of other emotions and feelings. However, you owe it to yourself to understand how these emotions affect your mental, emotional, and physical health.

Forgiveness is a process. It takes time. The process starts with ourselves. We have to stop and admit that our strung out emotions, thoughts, hurt, and pain were caused by our reactions to someone’s deeds and words, or to an event or situation that happened to us.

It is little wonder that Marianne Williamson says, “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” 

This article is excerpted from our book Project You: Forgiveness Words of Wisdom. Today (November 21st) is the final day to download this book for free in the Kindle store.

Words of Wisdom on Forgiveness

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that thee prisoner was you." 

The above quote from Lewis B. Smedes is so very true.

Many of us are caught within our own inability to forgive, forget, and move on.

Forgiveness is a process. It takes time. And the process starts with ourselves. We have to stop and recognize that our strung out emotions, thoughts, hurt, and pain were caused by our reactions to someone's deeds or words. Or to an event or situation that happened to us.

As we wrote in yesterday's post on Forgiveness Words of Wisdom, forgiving and forgetting is easy to say, but often very hard to do. Especially during the holiday season.

To help you find inner peace through forgiveness during the forthcoming holiday season, we are providing our book Project You: Forgiveness Words of Wisdom for free in Kindle format over the next few days.

Currently ranked in the top 30 books on Amazon in the category of Dysfunctional Relationships and #111 in the category Personal Transformation, Project You: Forgiveness Words of Wisdom will provide you with tips, hints, and motivational quotes to help you overcome the many obstacles to forgiveness and to guide you through the forgiveness process.

Probably the biggest obstacles to forgiving are the many unconscious beliefs we have about forgiveness and what forgiveness means. Deciding how and when to forgive inevitably means uncovering and discrediting these false beliefs ingrained within.

All of us struggle with forgiveness at various points in our lives. Please help others out by making them aware of this free book offer, which expires on Tuesday November 21st.

Click on this book title to download your free copy of Project You: Forgiveness Words of Wisdom. 

Forgiveness Words of Wisdom

Find Inner peace Through Forgiveness During the Holidays 

Forgive and forget. Easy to say. Often very hard to do.

There is no question that forgiving can be hard, even despite the spirit of the holidays. To help make this coming holiday season one full of forgiveness, we are making our book Forgiveness Words of Wisdom free on Kindle for the next few days.

Project You: Forgiveness Words of Wisdom will provide you with tips, hints, and motivational quotes to help you overcome the common obstacles to forgiveness and to guide you through the forgiveness process.

Get your free Kindle copy today:  Project You Forgiveness Words of Wisdom.

Research Confirms Forgiving Is Difficult

Calling for a Personal Year of Forgiveness

Research conducted last year by Project You confirms that for many forgiveness is a difficult process and often not an easy thing to do. 

In our Global Survey on Forgiveness late last year, 45% of the respondents said their first instinctive response, if asked to forgive one person in their life right now, would be "no way." Another 6% expressed self-righteousness ("I didn't do anything wrong, I'm in the right here") and almost 5% indicated an angry response in line with "why should I be the one to forgive?" 

Additionally, when given a choice between forgiveness, revenge, or doing nothing with regards to a particular person with whom they are currently in personal or professional conflict with, 35% chose the "do nothing" option. 

We also asked "does the pain of your hurt or offense seem so great and personal that you find it difficult to share with others?" Almost 37% replied yes to this question. 

Our research project also confirmed that there is not enough forgiveness in the world today (88% of respondents from 18 different nationalities who took part in our survey agreed with this statement). 

There is no question that forgiving can be hard. Complete, unconditional forgiveness is even harder — sometimes even impossible — to grant. 

Extending forgiveness is one of the hardest things we can do, but it is absolutely essential for our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. 

As such, Project You is calling for a Personal Year of Forgiveness.

Personal Year of Forgiveness 

There is so much anger, fury and antagonism in today's world. We have all witnessed this with Brexit, the tonality of the U.S. election, and increasing incivility in the workplace across the globe. 

We are encouraging everyone to consider how they can intentionally be more forgiving, of both themselves and others, in 2017. 

Make this your Personal Year of Forgiveness. Add forgiveness to one of your key New Year's Resolutions or goals for the year. 

Become more conscious of the power of forgiveness and make a conscientious effort to become more forgiving....both in your personal life and in your workplaces. 

What can you do? 

Start by reading about the numerous benefits of forgiveness. Learn and practice the forgiveness techniques that have helped others. Choose one person to forgive before the end of this month and prepare a plan for how you will convey your forgiveness. Share your own ideas and thoughts in the comments box below. 

Marianne Williamson wrote, "The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." 

There are many parts of our world that need healing today. Let us each take the steps of forgiveness that will create progress in this healing. You can start by sharing this blog post in your social media channels and with your family, friends, and colleagues. 

Help us make 2017 everyone's Personal Year of Forgiveness. 

International Forgiveness Day

Forgiving Others Benefits You 

Today is International Forgiveness Day, which is such a great concept we just had to share it with you:

Here are links to three Project You Life blog posts from February last year on forgiveness:

The Gift of Forgiveness 

The Art of Forgiveness 

The Benefits of Forgiveness 

 

Remember, as we wrote last year: 

Practice forgiveness and you will find a higher level of inner peace and happiness.

Practice forgiveness and you will increase your ability to love on all fronts.

Practice forgiveness and you will become a better individual, partner, friend, parent, and even co-worker. 

Take two minutes and forgive someone today. 

Practice forgiveness and you will find a higher level of inner peace and happiness.

Practice forgiveness and you will increase your ability to love on all fronts.

Practice forgiveness and you will become a better individual, partner, friend, parent, and even co-worker.

- See more at: http://projectyoulifeblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-benefits-of-forgiveness.html#sthash.JU44W5hy.dpuf

Practice forgiveness and you will find a higher level of inner peace and happiness.

Practice forgiveness and you will increase your ability to love on all fronts.

Practice forgiveness and you will become a better individual, partner, friend, parent, and even co-worker.

- See more at: http://projectyoulifeblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-benefits-of-forgiveness.html#sthash.JU44W5hy.dpuf

Practice forgiveness and you will find a higher level of inner peace and happiness.

Practice forgiveness and you will increase your ability to love on all fronts.

Practice forgiveness and you will become a better individual, partner, friend, parent, and even co-worker.

- See more at: http://projectyoulifeblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-benefits-of-forgiveness.html#sthash.JU44W5hy.dpuf

Purposely Forgetting The Actions You Have Forgiven

Our previous three posts have been on the gift, art and benefits of forgiving.

The next step after forgiveness is to purposely forget whatever actions, words, transgressions, or trespasses you have forgiven.

This is the only way to ensure that events of the past do not impact the present or your future.

Our brains are pretty good at selective memory and recall. When it comes to the people whose actions or words have done us harm, it is vital to bring this selective memory functionality into use.

It is said that time heals all wounds. That may be true (though often it is not for people are capable of holding grudges and maintaining anger until their deaths), but there is no need to wait for time to run its course to complete the healing process.

In order to fully benefit from the power of forgiveness you must store the details of the transgression in the deepest chambers of your memory and not allow these to surface unnecessarily.

Otherwise the transgression and its associated emotions of hurt and anger will repeatedly bubble to the forefront of your memory like some recurring nightmare. With it will come all the hate and venom you retain for the other person, thus negating the benefits gleaned through forgiveness.

Don't believe this can be done? How about all the trespasses and transgressions you have made against others over the years? Can you recall all of these? Not likely.

For the ones you do remember, you probably experience feelings of regret, sorrow, embarrassment, anger, or remorse. As these are uncomfortable feelings that you are unlikely to enjoy, you subconsciously or purposely repress the memories of your wrongful actions.

Since you are not likely to want to continue experiencing the painful feelings that come from recalling what you have forgiven, you need to consciously and purposely put into place the same memory repression of the transgressions and trespasses against you. Otherwise, the next time you encounter or interact with the person you have supposedly forgiven, these painful emotions and feelings will return and you will struggle to fight them off.

This is why previously married couples often remain angry with one another and spiteful to each other years after their divorce decrees have been finalized. As long as they continue to recall the past negative events or previous hurt feelings they associate with each other, they will maintain contempt for one another. Only by placing the past fully into the past and locking away their negative and detracting memories through purposely forgetting will they be able to get on with their lives and reap the benefits of forgiveness.

Until we achieve high levels of self actualization, we will all retain a tendency to allow ourselves to be hurt by the transgressions, trespasses, words, and wrongful actions of others. Remember, it is how we react to situations and people that cause us true pain and affliction, not the actual events or people themselves. 

Likewise it remains in our power to purposely forget these occurrences as we please, knowing that doing so will heightened the personal benefits we gain from forgiving others.

The Benefits of Forgiveness

Sometimes, even when an act is not fully forgiven, people continue to co-exist with their relationships, though perhaps in a slightly altered form. Many couples stay in marriages even when a transgression by one has never been forgiven by the other. For whatever reason, the aggrieved party decides to stow away their feelings of hurt, despite not being able or willing to bestow the gift of forgiveness on their partner.

Here’s some advice from Juan L. Christian, a teacher whose quote comes without any additional reference information, “As you sojourn through life, forgive. No matter what has been done to you, said about you, or how painful it may be. In the end you will feel the warmth of the tapestry of love you’ve created.”

There is a North American Indian proverb that offers advice on not turning those you cannot forgive into enemies, “One foe is too many and a hundred friends are too few.”

Of course, most of the time the people you are unable to forgive do not become your enemies, they are simply removed from your life through your own courses of action. Unfortunately, in doing so, you miss the opportunity to reap the personal rewards that forgiving others bequeaths.

Naturally, forgiveness is also a core component of true friendships. Moulton Farnham illustrated this as follows, “Our friends are those who know their own faults well enough to forgive us ours.”

And, of course, forgiveness is a critical aspect of parenthood. After all, one’s children are a never-ending source for opportunities to practice and display forgiveness! From throwing tantrums to breaking things, and from violating the trust placed in them to committing foolish or illegal acts, children and teenagers require a great deal of forgiveness.

But there is another aspect of forgiveness and parenting. Being a parent also means at times asking forgiveness from one’s children. After all, none of us are perfect, despite our parental attempts and displays to prove otherwise. Kevin Leman, an author and speaker, has aptly written, “I believe the time we really look big in a child’s eyes is when we go to them and apologize for our mistakes and we say: I was wrong, will you forgive me?”

Dr. David Simon has an entire chapter on forgiveness in his book The Ten Commitments, which is well worth reading and referring to from time to time. A highlight from this chapter is:

Forgiveness brings divinity to humanity. More than a mere mood or sentiment, it radiates from a heart that has released pain, resentment, regret, disappointment and guilt. Forgiveness is a practice. It has the power to release constrictions in your heart that inhibit your ability to love.

Practice forgiveness and you will find a higher level of inner peace and happiness.

Practice forgiveness and you will increase your ability to love on all fronts.

Practice forgiveness and you will become a better individual, partner, friend, parent, and even co-worker.

[This three-part series on Forgiveness is excerpted from the book Project You: Living A Determined Life.]

The previous two blog posts in this series were:

The Art of Forgiveness

The Gift of Forgiveness