Life Kit - Why Forgiving Others Actually Heals You

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

Deciding to forgive is a big step. After all, you're the one who's been harmed! But it turns out that forgiving someone actually has benefits for your mental health. The practice of radical forgiveness can help you process hurt and anger — and ultimately find peace.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is NPR's Life Kit. Forgiveness has a PR problem. Think about all those useless idioms to describe it. Stuff like forgive and forget, turn a blind eye, let bygones be bygones. With that kind of cheesy advice, no wonder why so many people travel through life dragging a steamer trunk full of resentments. Anna Halub is a forgiveness author and peace educator. She says further complicating the issue is the when and how we're first introduced to forgiveness. For most of us, that happens at school. On the playground, when we're about four years old or

five years old, when we start interacting with other kids and then the adults tell us, oh well, if somebody did something to us, then that person, perpetrator should say they're kids, and then the adults tell us, oh, well, if somebody did something to us, then that person, perpetrator should say they're sorry, and the other kid should just say, oh, well, it's okay, and then they're supposed to move on. That's not much of a training in forgiveness, just saying it's okay. Still, she says, on the playground, sometimes saying it's okay is okay, but then we grow older. And more and more things that are really traumatic happen, then maybe it's not okay. So we live with these feelings of fear and revenge sometimes and anger. And then we can hold that for the rest of our lives unless we

find a way to unwind it and let it go. If you're like most, you can point out those people in your life who've done you wrong. It could be a betraying friend, an ex-spouse, an absent parent, a hostile sibling, an undermining colleague. No matter who it involves, the negative emotions it causes can devour your well-being. Yet, you might be thinking, that person does not deserve my forgiveness. And that may be true. But it misses the point. Stepping out of victim mentality and building a practice of forgiveness, one you can use every day in all sorts of situations, is powerful and life-altering, if you understand real forgiveness and how it works.

That's what we're talking about in this episode of Life Kit. I'm Stephanie O'Neill, a regular NPR contributor, here with a beginner's guide to practicing forgiveness, which, spoiler alert, has nothing to do with turning the other cheek. So turning the other cheek. I stumbled onto the power of forgiveness about a dozen years ago. I had just extracted myself from a complicated relationship that in a few short years decimated my finances and upended my life. And while freeing myself from that chapter felt like sprouting a pair of giant wings, I resented having to face a huge life reboot as I approached midlife without any of the assets I'd built up. So as you can imagine, forgiveness wasn't high on my to-do

list, nor did I ever imagine then I'd willingly take it on. Forgiveness counselor Kim Kennedy says that's normal because we only come to forgiveness when we're ready, when we're done replaying revenge fantasies, when the anger and blame no longer gratifies our ego. And until we have used up that pain quotient, we're just not ready. I don't think it was my time before it was my time. You know, you get to a point where there's so much bothering you that you start to say, wait a minute, what do I have to do to stop this pain? So let's look at what forgiveness is by starting with what it's not. According to forgiveness experts, the practice of forgiveness is not

about condoning or making excuses for unfair treatment and other hurtful behaviors. It's not about getting an apology or a show of remorse from the offending party. And despite what's portrayed in films, novels, poems, and love songs, it's not necessarily about reconciliation. Granted, reconnecting with a loved one can be a wonderful byproduct of forgiveness, but it's not a requirement or even a goal in some cases, especially if doing so would subject you to more harm. Here's how Anna Holub views it. The expanded version of forgiveness that I love to teach is a deep soul level, letting go of our pain or sorrow or suffering. And we do that because we want to be free. We do that because we want to be healthy. And we want to have peace of

mind. So it doesn't mean that we are now saying whatever happened, whatever violence occurred was okay. But we are saying, well, it happened. So now what? That's a big question and one that's helped guide more than three decades of peer-reviewed social science and psychology studies on the benefits of forgiveness. In randomized clinical trials, researchers have studied all sorts of people, including incest survivors, emotionally abused women, those who've lost a loved one to suicide. The findings? Those who practice forgiveness as compared to control groups report better mental health, in particular, a lessening of depression and anxiety and increased self-esteem and hope.

And in one forgiveness study, a group of cardiac patients experienced both improved mental health and better heart health. Kim Kennedy says without forgiveness, accumulated resentments extract a toll. Those emotions turn into dis-ease. We just stuff it and that becomes toxic. It turns dysfunctional. Kennedy became a certified forgiveness coach in 2008 after reading the same book I read a dozen years ago, Radical Forgiveness by the late Colin Tipping. His method is just one way to practice forgiveness, and the takeaways here are inspired by his work. His is a secular spiritual approach. I'm telling you, this is miracle stuff. It's amazing. If only people knew how miraculous this process is. Yet the cool

thing is you don't have to believe in anything spiritual for it to work. Kennedy says you just have to be ready to let go of your resentments and be willing to see things a bit differently than your ego has interpreted them. And she asks, what have you got to lose? So with that, we turn to takeaway one. Tell your story. This is the part where you spew it all out. The anger, the hurt, the bitterness, all the ugly, gory feelings you've been carrying around inside of you, says Kennedy. You have to be able to express what happened. You have to get it out of your system. That's the opposite of what traditional forgiveness tells us to do, which is to pretend you're not angry or hurt. But honoring all these raw emotions, Kennedy says, generates an authentic shift in consciousness, which is the gift of real forgiveness.

And one quick note of caution here. This is big work. Everyone's experience will be different. So make sure you give yourself the time and space you need to process it. Move only at a pace comfortable for you and seek outside help if you need it. Halub, who wrote the book Forgive and Be Free and teaches a blend of forgiveness approaches, suggests ways to prepare for this step. Turn off your phone, get rid of distractions, and create a space of privacy where you can do this work.

Ideally, she says, choose a trusted someone to play witness. Someone who can sit with you and listen with compassion and without judgment. Or if it's more comfortable, you can do this on your own by speaking your story out loud or by writing it all down. Holub says, get things rolling by asking yourself, what is really going on? I've been telling myself one thing, but if I just really sit here with it, maybe there's more I can learn from it. And there usually is. Oh, I knew I was feeling angry, but what's underneath that anger? What else is there? So there's this whole period of self-education. Halup calls anger a secondary emotion,

one that often serves to guard our more vulnerable feelings such as grief, fear, abandonment, and disappointment. So make sure to give yourself permission and time to really dig deep in order to unearth whatever your anger is hiding, which leads us to takeaway two, feel the feelings. Kennedy says you can get there by closing your eyes and traveling back in time to the event that's causing you pain. Sit with it, let it bubble up, and no intellectualizing, she says.

Turn off your thinking brain and let your feelings lead. It could have been childhood. It could have been 10 years ago, but you take yourself back and you can bring those feelings right back up as if it were yesterday and cry it out or scream it out if it's anger. Get a pillow and beat the sofa with it. Just get that energy out of the cells of your body. And don't be surprised if the exercise

triggers memories of other times in your life when you also felt abandoned, betrayed, or similarly hurt, says Holub. Then we start realizing, okay, it's not just one incident that we're working with. It's more like an energetic feeling of suffering. Consider it as a sort of forgiveness jackpot, if you will. Several incidents linked by a common event or theme. Without this work, such behavior patterns can be impossible for us to see in ourselves, especially when we're blaming others for our pain. Peeling back the anger and feeling the feelings opens up healing. Kennedy shares the story of a man in one of her forgiveness classes. His life was punctuated by a series of failed marriages. When he did the forgiveness work,

it all pointed to one childhood event, his mother leaving his life at age seven. He got married five times and each marriage ended at year seven and he didn't get it, you know, until he took the class. He didn't see that he was just repeating this pattern at seven. My relationship with the woman in my life ends. By exposing the obvious roots of such life events and even the less obvious ones, you're offered a new look at the stories you've told yourself. And that takes us to takeaway three.

Bring a fresh lens to your story. This involves re-evaluating your take on those life events that have trapped you in the role of victim, especially when born from childhood, they can be skewed. Imagine, Kennedy says, this scenario. So I could be in a crib and I'm crying for my mom and my mom's down the street helping somebody with an emergency. And I don't know, my infantile mind doesn't know, it feels abandoned. And so she says a few years pass. You're waiting for your mom to pick you up from school and she's late.

For whatever reason, doesn't matter. And those feelings of abandonment come flooding back and get reinforced. You're not remembering that time in the crib, of course, but there is an unconscious memory of that traumatic feeling you experienced as a baby. Then a few more years pass and a friend is late for lunch and so on. And it just multiplies and it multiplies. And then you find that you're married and your husband is always playing golf and you feel abandoned and you don't know why. You know, it's not like he's really doing anything harmful, but you have this fear that resonates. Or she says maybe your father leaves

the family when you're young. You're understandably gutted by the loss. How you interpret this painful event can negatively affect you for life, she says. I can make up in my mind that my father left because of me. But the truth could be my father left because of himself. He might be afraid that he can't be a good father. But, you know, it's how I interpret it that causes the pain. Again, revisiting this stuff can be challenging and mentally taxing. So if needed, you might want to work through some of it with a professional. Kennedy says re-evaluating moments of child-centered woundedness through an adult lens can give us a clearer perspective. And that frees us to discard the old story and replace it with a less judgmental and perhaps more accurate one. When that happens, a path for reconnection

with forsaken loved ones may open up. But, Anna Halab says, deciding to take it can be hard. Because we get so familiar with who we are, with this thing in place. And our whole personality is structured around this is how life is. And if we start questioning that, then it takes trust to say, all right, I don't even know who I'm going to be without this. It's in this stage, she says, that our ego fights to maintain the destructive stories we tell ourselves. Things like, my relationships never work out, or I can't trust anybody. When we do forgiveness, what we're doing is we're unwinding that intense pressure of the ego to stay separate. If you've even just dabbled in spiritual studies, you've learned that dissolving

the ego is essential for spiritual growth, which leads us to takeaway four, reframe your story. In this stage of radical forgiveness, you may feel some big resistance as it asks you to consider that your unpleasant encounters with others reflect something inside you that's ripe for healing. Such a reframing of the experience can feel counterintuitive or even a bit woo-woo, but the concept itself is pretty basic. Kennedy explains it this way. Imagine looking into a mirror and seeing a smudge on your face. To clean off the smudge, you don't wipe the mirror, you wipe your face. Likewise in life, often what you spot in others, negative and positive traits, are mirroring those you share. You don't even have to necessarily understand exactly what the mirror is. Just acknowledge that there is something in you that is being shown

in the mirror of this person. And the term mirror doesn't mean that the person is reflecting the exact same issue back to you. More often, it's something that's related to your unhealed issues. For instance, she says, say you've had a series of relationships that have left you feeling betrayed. It could be the person's behavior is reflecting for you how you might be betraying yourself, in this case by entering into relationships that aren't in your best interest. Or maybe there's something completely different that the betraying action is highlighting for healing. Remember, you're looking to see if there's something you can learn about yourself. And this is not to say you're in any way at fault for the harm done to you. It's this phase of the work, Kennedy says, that sparks the most intellectual resistance.

But she urges, even if you're sure that the offending behavior has zero to do with you, play along with the exercise because you don't even have to believe in the process for healing to happen. You don't have to believe it. It will work. It's going to work. It gets to the, how much pain have you been through? How long do you want to keep being in pain? How long do you want to be sad about not being in communication with a loved one? You know, just, is it really worth it to just avoid the process? I don't think so. It's so much easier to go ahead and do the process and see what happens, you know, watch the miracles take place. Kennedy says now whenever she butts heads

with someone, she doesn't walk around for days, weeks, or longer feeling upset. Instead, she goes through her radical forgiveness worksheets associated with each stage, which you can find in the show notes. Doing this, she says, has brought a significant level of peace into her life. And that happened for me too. Remember that person I told you about, the one I resented for the financial losses I suffered? Well, I used these steps and lo and behold, first I began sleeping better. The confrontation dreams I'd been having totally disappeared. Then I started noticing that the rare times I bumped into this person no longer made my blood boil. Instead, they became non-events

that reminded me of the gratitude I had for the new life I'd built and the peace that came with it. Forgiveness, Kennedy says, is a gift you give to yourself. It doesn't mean what happened to you was okay. Instead, it's about better understanding and managing your feelings. I do it for me. I do it to ease my sensibilities. I don't want to be upset. I don't want to be walking around, you know, pissed off. I just don't. It doesn't feel good. Which leads us to takeaway five, integrate the learning and express your gratitude. Purging

resentment, grudges, and all that other negative juju is something to embrace and celebrate. Kennedy says whenever she finishes a round of forgiveness work, she seals her newfound peace with a brisk walk or deep breathing exercises. That's the energy you want to secure in the cells of your body. Anna Halub says she fills the newly opened space in her heart with gratitude for all she's learned. We're here to learn lessons. And even from the most horrible things that have ever happened, there are treasures. And we can find them. We can learn

them. We can say, yes, I want to keep the lesson. I want to let go of the pain. And that is possible through this forgiveness practice. So let's recap. Takeaway one, tell your story. Releasing the bitterness, resentment, hurt, anger, and any other negative feelings you've been carrying around is key to opening space for the healing that forgiveness brings. Takeaway two, feel the feelings. Authentic power resides in your ability to fully embrace your feelings.

To do that requires mining the soft underbelly of your heart, that hidden place where you hold your pain. Then dredge the feelings around it, even if it means screaming, crying, and pummeling the sofa with a pillow. The goal is to get it out of your body. Takeaway three, bring a fresh lens to your story. Take a close look at how your childhood interpretations may taint the way you see the world.

Re-evaluate the painful situation through your adult lens. Then determine if that old thinking serves your highest good. If not, it's time to replace the old worldview with a fresh adult perspective. Doing that will challenge your ego, but the personal growth payoff is huge. Takeaway four, reframe your story. Consider that there's a larger purpose behind your negative interactions, perhaps to mirror back to you something inside you that's ready for healing. Takeaway five, integrate and honor the change.

Take a walk, a hike, do breathing exercises to cement these new feelings and viewpoints. Then offer gratitude for the shift you've experienced. For more NPR Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We cover everything from how to start a garden to how to get therapy when you can't leave the house. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kit newsletter. And here is always a completely random tip. This time from listener Claire Kenny.

Hi, this is Claire Kenny calling. I just wanted to call with a tip for getting through working from home. Our team did a five-minute mid-morning workout that we actually deemed a dance party. So we basically had some really brief choreography and integrated planks and squats and literally just did this for five minutes. But it was just a good way for people to interact over Zoom for this digital dance party slash workout. If you've got a good tip, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us at lifekit at npr.org.

This episode was produced by Andy Tegel. Megan Cain is the managing producer. Beth Donovan is the senior editor. Our digital editor is Beck Harlan, and our editorial assistant is Claire Schneider. I'm Stephanie O'Neill. Thanks for listening. The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed 30 years ago. So why, to this day, is the disability community still fighting for their rights?

Listen now to learn what they're fighting for. On ThruLine from NPR, every Thursday.