Forgiveness is hard. It’s messy, overwhelming, and scary. And it often feels better left alone. Yet, it is one of the most powerful healing modalities we have.
Forgiveness is considered one of our most significant forms of freedom. Learning to embrace forgiveness as a way of life changes the entire outcome of your story. I know firsthand the power of forgiveness. I also know how difficult it is to forgive. At least until you learn what true forgiveness is, outside of what you’ve been told.
There’s more to the story of forgiveness. I don’t want the overwhelming artificial beliefs to prevent it from being the powerful tool of healing that it is.
Inside the podcast, I dive into the biological response to a lack of forgiveness and what forgiveness can do for your health. I also break down what forgiveness is, what it is not, and how to make forgiveness a way of life to experience more life.
The Biological Response of Forgiving
I haven’t been the most forgiving person. Instead of forgiveness, I carried the label of the one who could hold a mean grudge. I wasn’t just angry. I was developing a root of bitterness. A root that grew so deep it kept me stuck circling in the feelings and a way of life I hated.
I was stuck.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t find a sense of peace or joy. I couldn’t fully live life. I didn’t know it then, but my lack of forgiveness and clinging to the root of bitterness prevented me from experiencing the life I was created for.
Not to mention, it was making me sick.
Like all things, forgiveness, or a lack of it, carries with it a biological response. Like all other emotions inside your body, a lack of forgiveness labeled as anger, bitterness, and shame has a frequency. As we learned in the energy field podcast, these emotions emit a negative frequency or a frequency below the calibrated biological need. It pulls the frequency into dysregulation and away from healing. It becomes the opposite of healing.
As long as we stay there, we stay in a place of negative debt that brings illness, weight gain, lethargy, depression, anxiety, and many other health problems.
Healing requires the opposite. It involves movement above calibration into the frequency of love, harmony, and peace. Getting there is more than just a mindset.
Learning How To Forgive
I had to learn the hard way that you can’t just think yourself there. Even though your thoughts are critical, you won’t necessarily believe them if you disagree. You can’t lie to your body. No matter how often you think about it, it won’t stick if you don’t believe it. Proving change is more than just what you think.
You can’t force yourself to be positive when you’re not. You can’t force yourself to release shame when you feel it.
In many ways, you have to experience the place you are and the pain you sit in. Or at least acknowledge it.
When you acknowledge it, you acknowledge your body, allowing you to shift the story to release it. Part of this release requires forgiveness. It means forgiving the people, God, or even yourself for why you are harboring such feelings.
Forgiveness is the ultimate release of what holds you back, allowing you to step into your whole self. To live confidently there and to experience the fullness of life.
Potentially, one of the hardest things you have to do is forgive. At least initially. But over time and through a new story, you will learn that forgiveness isn’t something you do as much as it’s a way of life. It’s a process that happens every day.
One task that is easier done when you understand what forgiveness is and what it is not. Here are five radical truths to help you change your understanding of forgiveness, allowing you to take the steps necessary to embrace a life of forgiveness.
5 radical truths about forgiveness I had to change.
01. Forgiveness does not dismiss what has happened to you.
I lived most of my life believing forgiveness was for the other person. It was done to release the one who hurt you. In many ways, it felt like I had to be okay with the wrongs done to me. It eliminated justice and allowed them to escape the wrong. But that’s not what forgiveness is at all.
Forgiveness is arguably more for you than the other person.
It’s to release you from the burden of pain, not to excuse it, but it allows you to stop being consumed by it. Of course, it’s also for the other person, but more of a gift of grace, not to diminish the wrong, but to free you from living consumed by it.
It’s giving back to them what was theirs to carry, not yours. In many ways, giving back the wrongs you’ve been carrying to the one who wronged you is the justice (and even gift) that person needs to confront the places they need to heal.
It’s also the same reason God so quickly forgives us. It’s an act of making us recognize our wrongs so we can become better because of it. In the process, it’s how he remains close to us, and it’s what must happen for us to sit and dwell in his perfection.
Isaiah 43:25 states, “I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. And I will not remember your sin.”
02. Forgiveness brings personal freedom.
The process of forgiveness is not always black and white. Although at the heart of all forgiveness, it is the same. Acknowledge the hurt or pain and then choose to release it. Forever and always letting it go.
That doesn’t mean you won’t remember it; you will. It’s a part of your story. But it doesn’t have an impact on the outcome of the story. Instead of letting it use you, you get to use it to write your story. You can use it to grow, move, and become a better version of yourself.
You can use it to grow deeper and live more intimately with others. Partially because you know the pain others inflict doesn’t have the same lasting power. But also because you know that even if and when you experience pain, you don’t have to suffer through it, but you can release it. It opens you up to experience life more fully.
03. Forgiveness Changes Your Biological Response.
I always thought that justice would be served if I held onto the wrongs people placed on me. I didn’t want to forget because I believed they would get away with the wrong if I forgot.
But I failed to understand that my lack of forgiveness only allowed the past hurts and wrongs to become part of my life. A cyclical pattern of negativity that ignited the stress response.
As long as I refused forgiveness, I was living in this negative pattern that kept me in survival.
Holding on to what hurt you, or even how you’ve hurt yourself, creates a threat within your existence. This threat triggers your survival response. It changes the way your body responds and the outcome you experience. In many ways, this makes you your own greatest threat.
When you release it through forgiveness, you eliminate the fear, the stress, and the pain, allowing your body to take a breath and move back into the positive space. Allowing your body to move into the space of healing.
Ask yourself, is what you are holding onto preventing you from moving forward?
04. Forgiveness allows for a deeper connection with Other People.
Forgiveness is a great life balancer. It brings a sense of confidence that allows you to trust even when you are hurting or when someone wrongs you because you know how to move forward. You don’t have to hold on, but you can release it.
Forgiveness is your ultimate form of protection.
It allows you to choose what you do and don’t allow in your life. It stops you from taking the label of a victim (a label that prevents healing). And it helps you stand confidently. This strips away the unhealthy ego that creates competition because you don’t need that protection. Allowing you to open up to others, not to compare with them, but to live life with them. You get to support the larger body through the good, the bad, and the hard without competing or comparing.
You don’t need to keep a record of right and wrong. This only takes up space and energy. Instead, you get to fill this space, opening up to life without your guard, creating a more meaningful experience.
When you forgive, you are less concerned with others and more about what you can create, opening up space for you to live out your passion.
05. Forgiveness makes Life More Joyful (and less scary).
You could consider forgiveness to be the ultimate form of boundaries. It states what you accept as truth, as part of your story, and what you don’t. In the process, this becomes the highest sense of confidence because you get to live less concerned with justice and more concerned with revival. You get to live more of the positive and joy-filled parts of life that bring abundant happiness.
Forgiveness is a release, a letting go, a shift in perspective that opens you up to experience life fully, and in the process, it frees you from holding on to the negative emotions that harm you and steps into the ones that heal you.
It’s a process, a way of life, something you choose to create, not something that naturally happens. Choose forgiveness, trust God with justice, and move forward in the life He created for you!
Want to Learn More?
How You Heal is an 8-part podcast series devoted to understanding and healing the mind-body connection to create wholeness in your life. Continue following along and listening to the remaining five podcasts, creating a new understanding and implementing healing practices.
Join The Weekly Fill as we dive deeper into the topic of emotional mastery, inner child healing, and practical tips on how to heal. Join The Weekly Fill Here!
Check out these additional resources to help you heal:
- BOOK: Forgiveness: A Bold Choice For a Peaceful Heart
- How You Heal: Shifting Your Perspective on Health
- How You Heal: Regulate Your Nervous System
- How You Heal: Healthy Ego + Self-Love
- How You Heal: The Human Energy Field
- How You Heal: Emotional Mastery
- How You Heal: Eat Healing Foods
- Does God Care About Your Health?
- How Healthy Are You? Take the quiz to find out…
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