Source: Erickson Institute

Anger-inducing mentalization regularly results in greater feelings of helplessness and increased physiological stress reactions. Depression, all forms of anxiety, and irritability are all linked to ruminating about unfortunate events. The physiological stress of the original hurt is recreated when one ruminates, which tends to keep one’s lust for revenge alive. It also perpetuates the role of the victim, which is associated with lethargy and humiliation. Forgiving others helps relieve stress in both the mind and the body. The key to truly forgiving and forgetting, not for spiritual reasons but for your own self-benefit, is to forgive unconditionally. Easier said than done? Well, let’s try a mental experiment and see what happens.

Imagine you’re walking down the street in your best (and most expensive) suit or dress, and you’re late for a very (very!) important meeting. You rush your way in between the crowds of people who don’t seem to care one bit about your schedule. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, someone bumps right into you, hitting you on your right side and dropping you straight into the middle of a puddle of dirty city mud. There you are, on your knees and ankles, and your beautiful (and most expensive!) clothes are covered in mud. In a fraction of a second, you also realize that your important meeting is now unattainable-how will you be welcomed there covered in mud, exactly? Let us ask you this: what was the first thought that crossed your mind as you imagined being dropped in a puddle of mud? angry? Fury? Did you say to yourself, “If that happens to me, I could kill the guy!”? Do not associate with your feelings; instead, consider only the thoughts that came to mind at the time.

Now comes the unconditional forgiveness part: You’re still deep in the mud, realizing you’re going to miss your most important meeting and that your (most expensive!) suit is ruined forever, and all of that takes about a second, and your anger does not even register in your consciousness. Why? Because as soon as you hit the mud, you look to your right to see what hit you so hard, and you see an old blind man swinging his arms in the air, hysterically crying that he can’t find his walking cane, and no one on that busy street stops to help him. You look down, and the old blind man’s walking cane is right there in the puddle of mud you were thrown into. As you grip the cane and stand up, you suddenly realize that instead of a victim, you’re now the savior and hero of a helpless man in distress. Let us ask you again: what is the first thought that comes to mind when you imagine being dropped in a puddle of mud and looking up to see who put you there?

To be fair, the people who hurt you in real life are rarely blind old men who lost their walking canes. Some of them might even hurt you on purpose, because of whatever rationalization they have invented to justify it. Forgiving them is not done for their karma or benefit. It’s for you, so you can stop ruminating over the hurt, or planning revenge that will never manifest in real life, and therefore, you can stop wasting precious time and energy on useless and repetitive thoughts and negative emotions.

How? Put that person who hurt you in the blind man’s shoes. Consider the option, even if it’s rare, that the person who hurt you so badly was blind to what was going on around them at that moment in time. You were just within reach of their swinging arms. It could have been someone else who walked down that street, right? Nothing personal, and because the person was blind, your emotional reaction was compassion and perhaps even gratitude for the fact that you still have your eyesight and can walk without the need for a cane. The person who hurt you is disabled emotionally, and that makes him or her blind and in need of a walking cane to navigate through life. When they lose the cane, they start swinging their arms because they’re lost in darkness and are helpless. When you put the person who hurt you in real life in that mental space in your mind, forgiveness emerges. You’re not their victim; you’re just a bystander who happened to be within reach, and if you still have to deal with that person in real life, you get to be the hero by handing them back their walking cane, and then staying as far away from them as possible.